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BR  305  .S62  1875 
Spalding,  M.  J.  1810-1872 
The  history  of  the 
Protestant  reformation 


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THE  HISTORY 

OF    THE 

Protestant  Reformation 

IN 

Germany  and  Switzerland, 


AND     IN 


England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  the  Netherlands, 
France,  and  Northern  Europe. 

In  a  Series  of  Essavs,- 

Revie-wing  D'AuBiaNE,  Menzel,  Hallam,  Bishop  Short,  Prescott, 
Rankb,  Fryxell,  anb  Others. 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES 

By  M.  J.  Spalding,  D.  D. 

Archbishop  of  Baltimore. 

"Vol.   I. 
Reformation  in  Germany  and  Switzerland. 

Twelfth   Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged. 


BALTIMORE: 

Published  by  John  Murphy  &  Co. 

182    Baltimore    Street. 


Entered,  according:  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  18G0,  by  Rt.  Rev. 
M.  J.  Si'ALDiNG,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the 
United  States  for  the  District  of  Kentucky. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S75,  by 

JOHN  MURPIl  r, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washingtoyi. 


Preface  to  Volume  I. 

About  twenty  years  ago  I  published  a  Review  of  D'Aubigne's  History 
of  the  Eeformation  in  Germany  and  Switzerland.  The  edition  having 
been  soon  exhausted,  I  was  often  called  on  by  friends  to  issue  a  second 
one ;  but  circumstances  beyond  my  control  long  prevented  me  from 
acceding  to  their  request.  During  the  interval,  several  editions  of 
D'Aubigne's  work  were  published  both  in  England  and  America,  and 
two  or  more  new  volumes  were  added,  containing  the  history  of  the 
German  and  Swiss  Eeformation,  and  commencing  that  of  England.  No 
notice,  however,  was  taken  by  the  author,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
discover,  of  the  facts  and  reasoning  contained  in  the  Eeview,  though  the 
latter  was  republished  in  Ireland,  and  pretty  widely  circulated. 

In  preparing  a  second  edition,  I  at  first  hesitated  whether  it  would  be 
worth  while  to  pay  any  further  attention  to  a  writer,  who  is  clearly  so 
bitter  a  partisan,  and  so  wholly  unreliable  as  an  historian.  His  pre- 
tended history  is,  in  fact,  little  better  than  a  romance.  He  omits  more 
than  half  the  facts,  and  either  perverts  or  draws  on  his  imagination  for 
the  remainder.  This  may  seem  a  strong  accusation  ;  but  it  is  amply 
borne  out  by  the  authorities  and  specifications  contained  in  the  Eeview. 
Having  started  out,  it  would  seem,  with  the  pro-determination  to  paint 
the  German  Eeformers  as  saints,  and  the  Eeformation  as  the  work  of 
God,  he  makes  every  thing  bend  to  his  preconceived  theory. 

Still,  as  his  work  continued  to  be  read,  and  perhaps  bslieved  by  a  con- 
siderable number  of  sincere  persons,  I  decided  to  re-issue  the  Eeview  in 
an  -amended  and  considerably  enlarged  form,  in  order  that  those,  who 
really  wished  to  discover  the  whole  truth  in  regard  to  the  Eeformation, 
might  have  an  opportunity  to  read  at  least  some  of  the  facts  on  the  other 
side.  But,  at  the  same  time,  I  thought  it  better  to  enlarge  the  plan  of 
the  work,  and  to  embrace  in  it  Essays  on  the  rise  and  history  of  the 
Eeformation  in  all  the  other  principal  countries  of  Europe. 

This  is  done  in  the  second  Volume,  in  which  is  furnished  a  summary 
of  the  principal  facts  connected  with  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Refor- 
mation in  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  the  Netherlands,  France,  and 
northern  Europe.  These  Essays  are  mostly  Eevicws  of  different  Protes- 
tant works,  and  hence  the  style  of  the  Reviewer,  which  has  been  adopted 
in  the  original  publication,  has  been  preserved  throughout  both  Volumes. 

The  range  of  the  present  publication  is  thus  very  wide ;  and  I  feel  that 
I  have  not  been  able,  in  so  brief  a  compass,  to  do  full  justice  to  a  subject, 
upon  which  so  may  learned  volumes  have  bsen  written  on  both  sides. 
Still  I  am  conscious  of  having  honestly  endeavored  to  do  whatever  I  was 
able,  to  throw  light  upon  a  department  of  history  so  very  important  in 
itself  and  in  its  practical  bearings,  and  so  little  understood  among  our 
separated  brethren. 

iii 


IV  PREFACE. 

M}'  pi'incipal  object  has  been,  to  condense  within  a  brief  space  a  con- 
sideriible  amount  of  facts  and  authorities,  which  are  sca.ttcred  over  many 
works  not  easily  accessible  to  the  mass  of  readers.  Seeking  to  be  useful 
rather  than  original,  I  have  preferred  to  let  others  speak,  whenever  I 
thought  their  testimony  would  be  likely  to  prove  more  weighty  than  my 
own  words  or  reasoning.  I  have  hence  generally  preferred  Protestant 
to  Catholic  testimony;  and  the  only  merit  I  claim,  besides  that  of  an 
honest  and  earnest  wish  to  promote  the  cause  of  truth,  is  that  of  some 
industry  in  collecting,  and  endeavoring  to  condense  and  knit  together 
Protestant  authorities,  in  regard  to  the  character  of  the  Keformers  and 
of  the  Reformation.  The  testimony  of  such  witnesses  is  not  likely  to  be 
undervalued  or  impeached  by  those  who  are  outside  the  Catholic  Church. 

Prefixed  to  the  first  Volume,  will  be  found  an  Introductory  Essay  on 
the  religious  and  moral  condition  of  Europe  before  the  Keformation ;  and 
to  the  second,  a  similar  one  on  England  during  the  centuries  which  pre- 
ceded the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  These  general  views  are  deemed  import- 
ant for  a  better  understanding  and  a  more  correct  appreciation  of  the 
Reformation  itself,  the  champions  of  which  are  in  the  habit  of  justifying 
it  on  the  ground  of  alleged  abuses  and  corruptions  running  through  many 
centuries,  and  deemed  incurable  by  any  other  means  than  that  of  total 
separation  from  the  Old  Church  of  our  fathers  I  have  also  added,  at 
the  end  of  each  Volume,  some  Notes  containing  valuable  documentary 
evidence. 

The  work,  thus  enlarged  in  the  second  edition,  soon  passed  to  a  third  ; 
and  now  the  fourth  edition  is  presented,  with  honest  intent  to  the  Ameri- 
can Public.  If  I  shall  succeed  in  bringing  back  even  one  honest  inquirer 
from  the  mazes  of  error  into  "the  One  Fold  of  the  One  Shepherd,"  my 
labor  will  not  have  been  wholly  in  vain. 
Baltimore,  Easter  Monday,  1SG5. 

Announcement  of  a  New  Edition. 

Archbishop  Spalding  had  intended  to  issue  a  complete  and  uniform 
edition  of  all  his  works ;  and  he  was  occupied  with  this  task  when  his 
last  illness  came  upon  him.  The  new  and  revised  edition  of  the  History 
OF  THE  Reformation,  the  Evidences  of  Catholicity,  and  the  Mis- 
cellanea, which  is  now  oflered  to  the  Public,  was  prepared  by  Arch- 
bishop Spalding  himself — the  corrections  and  additions  being  from  his 
own  hand.  To  the  Evidences  of  Catholicity, ^  as  the  reader  will  perceive, 
ho  has  added  his  Pastoral  Letter  on  the  Infallibility  of  the  Pope ;  and  to 
the  History  of  the  Reformation,  he  has  appended  an  Article  entitled: 
Rorne  and  Geneva. 

The  Life  of  Bishop  Flaget  and  the  Sketches  of  Kentucky,  which  Archbishop  Spalding 
intended  to  re-write  aud  publisli  in  one  volume,  are  not  contained  in  the  present 
edition  of  his  works,  since  the  corrections  and  additions,  which  it  had  been  his 
purpose  to  make,  are  incomplete. 

Baltimorf.,  Sept.  8,  1875. 


GENERAL  DIVISION. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Paob 

View  op  Europe  before  the  Reformation,    ...  .11 

PART    I. 
Character  of  the  Reformers, .     71 

PART    II. 
Causes  and  Manner  of  the  Reformation, 102 

PART   III. 

Influence  op  the  Reformation  on  Religion,    .     .     .     .221 

PART  IV. 
Influence  op  the  Reformation  on  Society, 315 


Contents  of  Volume  I. 


INTRODUCTION. 

View  of  Europe  before  the  Reformation,  pp.  17-70. 


(Jtility  of  this  retrospective  view 17 

The  origin  of  European  Governments 18 

Tlie  Northmen 18 

Rome  the  Civilizer 19 

Protestant  testimony 20 

The  Pope  and  the  Emperor ,  21 

Charlemagne 21 

Guelplis  and  Ghibellines 24 

Temporal  power  of  tlie  Pope 24 

Three  great  facts 25 

Freedom  of  the  Church 26 

Election  of  Bishops 27 

Catholic  munificence  in  middle  ages 28 

The  Truce  o!  God 30 

Question  of  Investitures 32 

Horrible  abuses 32 

Gregory  VII.  and  Henry  IV 32 

The  Controversy  settled 35 

But  its  germs  remain 36 

Modern  historic  justice 38 

Growth  of  Mammonism 39 

Fourteenth  and  Fifteentli  Centuries 40 

Boniface  VIII.  and  Philip  the  Fair 41 

Faction  and  heresy 44 

The  new  Maniclieans 44 

The  Flagellants 45 

The  Great  Schism 46 


The  Papacy  comes  out  of  it  unscathed 47 

Catholic  Reformation 47 

Overcoming  Scandals 49 

The  Hussites 50 

Preponderance  of  Good  over  Evil 51 

The  Monasteries 52 

Dr.  Maitland's  testimony 62 

Dr.  Roliertsou  convicted  of  gross  misrepre- 
sentations   53 

Homily  of  St.  Eligius 63 

Ilis  warning  against  idolatry  and  superstition  66 

A  model  mediaeval  Homily 57 

St.  Bernard  and  St.  Vincent  Ferrer 69 

The  Pragmatic  Sanction 61 

Its  mischievous  tendency 61 

Letter  of  Pope  Pius  II 62 

Preparation  for  the  Reformation 63 

Revival  of  Learning 63 

Art  of  Printing 64 

Italy  leads  the  way 64 

Testimony  of  Macaulay 64 

The  Humanists  and  Dominicans 66 

The  Pope  and  Liberty 66 

Testimony  of  Laing 67 

Summing  up 67 

Four  conclusions  reached 68 

What  we  propose  to  examine  and  prove 70 


PART  L 

CHARACTER  OF  THE  REFORMERS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Luther  and  the  Other  German  Reformers,  pp.  71-101. 


D'Aubigne's  opinion 71 

A  reformed  key 72 

Luther's  parents 72 

His  early  training 73 

A  naughty  boy : 73 

Convents 74 

Being  "  led  to  God,"  and  "  not  led  to  God"...  74 

He  enters  the  Augustinian  convent 74 

Austerities 75 

A  "bread  bag" 75 

His  faith  and  scruples 75 

His  humility  and  zeal 76 

Luther  a  reformer 76 

Grows  worse 77 

Becomes  reckless 78 

His  sincerity  tested 79 

Saying  and  unsaying 80 

Misgivings 80 

Tortuous  windings 81 

How  to  spite  tlie  Pope 83 

Curious  incident 84 

Melancthon  and  his  mother 85 

Luther's  talents  and  eloquence 85 

His  taste 86 


His  courage  and  fawning 86 

Ilis  violence  and  coarseness 87 

Not  excusable  by  the  spirit  of  his  age 89 

His  lilasiiheniies 89 

KecriiuiMatidti 89 

Cliristiaii  ooni]iliments 89 

"Conference  with  the  devil" 90 

Which  got  the  better  of  the  argument 90 

Luther's  morality 91 

Table-talk 91 

His  sermon  on  marriage 92 

A  Vixen 98 

How  to  do  "mi.schief  to  the  Pope" 98 

A  striking  contrast 98 

How  to  fulfil  vows 98 

His  marriage 98 

Misgivings 98 

Epigrams  and  satires 98 

Curious  incidents  in  his  last  sickness 99 

Death-bed  confession 100 

His  death 100 

Tlie  reformed  key  used 101 

Character  of  the  other  reformers 101 


via 


CONTENTS. 


PART  II. 

CAUSES  AND  MANNER  OF  THE  RET'ORMATION. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Character  of  the  Reformatiox — Theory  of  D'Aubigne  Examined,  pp.  102-109, 


The  question  stated 102 

D'Aubigne's  oijiiiion 102 

Mother  and  daughter 103  ■ 

Argumentum  ad  lioniinem 103 

Jumping  at  a  conclusion 104 

Second  causes 105 


Why  Germany  was  converted 105 

Why  Italy  and  Spain  were  not 106 

Luther  and  Mohammed 107 

Reasoning  by  contraries 107 

Why  Trance  continued  Catholic... 108 


CHAPTER  III. 


Pretexts  for  the  Reformation,  pp.  110-128. 


Usual  plea 110 

Abuses  greatly  exaggerated 110 

Three  questions  put  and  answered Ill 

Origin  of  abuses Ill 

Free-will  unimpaired Ill 

Councils  to  extirpate  abuses 112 

Church  thwarted  by  princes  and  the  world..  113 

Controversy  on  Investitures 113 

Extent  of  the  evil 113 

Sale  of  indulgences 114 

St.  Peter's  Church 114 

John  Tetzel 116 

His  errors  greatly  exaggerated 116 

Public  penance 117 

License  to  sin 118 

Nature  of  indulgences 118 

Tetzel  rebuked  and  his  conduct  disavowed 
by  Rome 118 


Miltitz  and  Cardinal  Cajetan 119 

Kindness  thrown  away 119 

Luther  in  tears ." 119 

Efforts  of  Rome 120 

Leo  X.  and  Adrian  \1 120 

Their    forbearance    censured   by   Catholic 

writers 120 

Their  tardy  severity  justified  by  D'Aubigne..  121 

Luther's  real  purpose 122 

The  proper  remedy 122 

The  real  issue , 124 

Nullification 125 

"Curing  and  cutting  a  tlu-oat" 125 

Luther's  avowal 126 

Admissions  of  the  confession  of  Augsburg 

anil  of  Daim 127 

Summing  up 128 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The    True    Causes   of   the   Reformation,  and   the   Means  by  which  it  was 
Effected,  pp.  128-167. 


Saying  of  Frederick  the  Great 128 

What  we  mean  to  prove 129 

Testimony  of  Hallam 1'29 

Doctrines  of  Luther 131 

Justification  without  works 131 

Its  dreadful  consequences  avowed 131 

The  "  slave-will" 133 

Man,  a  beast  with  two  riders 134 

Dissuasive  from  celibacy 134 

An  easy  way  to  heaven 135 

D'Aubigne's  discreet  silence 136 

Testimony  of  the  Diet  of  Worms  on  Lu- 
ther's doctrines 136 

An  old  lady  emancipated 13S 

Protection  of  princes 138 

Srhlegel's  testimony 139 

Tlie  reformers  flatter  princes  and  pander  to 

their  vices 139 

Remarkable  avowals  of  Menzel 139 


The  Reformation  and  state  policy 140 

The  princes  become  bishops 142 

A  reformed  dispensation > 142 

Character  of  reformed  princes 143 

Their  cupidity 143 

Fed  by  Luther 143 

Protestant  restitution 143 

Open  violence  and  sacrilegious  spoliaticm...  144 
The  modus  operandi  of  the  Reformation  ....  1.54 

Schlegel  again 1<''6 

Abuse  of  the  press 158 

A'ituperation  and  calumny 159 

Policy  of  Luther's  marriage 163 

Apostate  monks 163 

Recapitulation 164 

A  distinction 165 

The  Reformation  "  a  reappearance  of  Cliris- 
tianity" 166 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 


The  Reformation  in  Switzerland — Zuricu,  pp.  167-181. 


The  Reformation  in  Switzerland  more  radi- 
cal tlian  that  in  Germany 168 

Yet  like  it 168 

Sows  dissensions 168 

Zuingle  warlike  and  superstitious 169 

Claims  precedency  over  Luther 169 

Black  or  white 170 

Precursory  disturbances 171 

Aldermen  deciding  on  faith 172 

How  the  fortress  was  entrenched 17? 

Riot  and  conflagration ;  172 

Enlightenment 173 


Protestant  martyrs 173 

Suppression  of  the  Mass 174 

tSnlemnilii  of  the  reformed  worship 175 

I)ci\v?]riL;ht  |iaL?aiiism 175 

The  Retoniuitioii  and  matrimony 176 

Zuingle's  marriage  and  misgivings 177 

Romance  among  nuns 177 

How  to  get  a  husband 178 

Perversion  of  Scripture 179 

St.  Paul  on  celibacy 179 

Recapitulation 180 


CHAPTER  YI. 

The  Reformation  in  Switzerland — Berne,  pp.  181-201. 


History  by  Louis  De  Haller 181 

A  standard  authority 181 

Berne  the  centre  of  operations 182 

De  Haller's  point  of  view 182 

His  character  as  an  historian 183 

His  authorities 183 

Wavering  of  Berne 1S4 

Tortuous  policy 18.5 

How  she  embraced  the  reform 18.5 

The  bear  and  the  jjears 185 

Treacherous  perjury  of  Berne 186 

Zuinglian  council 186 

Its  decrees 186 

Religious  liberty  crushed 187 

Riot  and  sacrilege 187 

Proceedings  of  Bernese  commissioners 188 

Downright  tyranny 188 

The  minister  Farei 189 

His  fiery  zeal 189 

An  appalling  picture 189 

A  parallel 190 


Priests  hunted  down 191 

Character  of  the  ministers 192 

Avowal  of  Capito 192 

The  glorious  privilege  of  private  judgment..  192 

How  consistent! 193 

Persecution  of  brother  Protestants 194 

Drowning  the  Anabaptists 194 

Reformation  in  Geneva 194 

Rapid  summary  of  horrors 195 

The  Bernese  army  of  invasion 196 

Tlie  sword  and  the  Bible 195 

Forbearance  of  Catholics 196 

Affecting  incident  at  Soleure 197 

The  war  of  Cappell 198 

Points  of  resemblance 198 

An  armed  apostle 199 

A  prophet  quailing  before  danger 199 

Battle  of  Cappell 200 

Death  of  Zuingle 200 

Triumph  of  Catholic  cantons 200 

Treaty  of  peace 200 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Reaction  of  Catholicity  and  Decline  of  Protestantism,  pp.  201-220. 


Two  parallel  developments 202 

The  brave  old  ship 202 

Modern  Protestantism  quite  powerless 203 

A  "thorough  godly  reformation"  needed....  204 

Qualities  for  a  reformer 204 

The  three  days'  battle 204 

The  puzzle 205 

A  thing  doomed 205 

Which  gained  the  victory? 206 

The  French  revolution 206 

Ranke  and  Hallam 208 

The  rush  of  waters  stayed 208 

Persecution 209 

Protestant  spice 209 

The  Council  of  Trent 210 

Revival  of  piety 210 

The  Jesuits 211 


Leading  causes  and  practical  results 212 

Decline  of  Protestantism 212 

Apt  comparison 213 

What  stemmed  the  current? 213 

Thread  of  Ariadne 214 

Divine  Providence 214 

Reaction  of  Catholicity 214 

Casaubim  and  (irotius 215 

Why  they  were  not  converted 210 

Ancient  and  modern  Puseyism 216 

.Justus  Lipsius  and  Cassander 210 

The  inference 217 

Slileii.lid  passage  of  Macaulav 217 

Calholicitv  and  eiili^ilitmiiient 219 

The  Clunrh  indr.sti  uctililr 219 

General  gravitation  to  Rome 220 

The  circle  and  its  center 220 


CONTENTS. 


PART  III. 

INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGION. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Influknce  of  the  Reformation  on  Doctrinal  Belief,  pp.  221-244. 


The  natiire  of  Religion 221 

A  golden  chain 221 

Question  stated „ 222 

Private  judgment 223 

Church  authority 223 

As  many  religions  as  heads 22-t 

D'Aubigne's  theory 224 

Its  poetic  beauty 224 

Fever  of  logmachy 226 

"Suns  of  libertv" 227 

Tlie  Bible  dissected 227 

A  liydni-headed  monster 228 

Erasmus 229 

"Curing  a  lame  horse" 229 

Luther  puzzled 229 

His  plaint 229 

His  inconsistency 230 

Missions  and  miracles 231 


Zuingle's  inconsistency 232 

Strange  fanaticism 233 

Storek 233 

Mlinzer 233 

Karlstadt,  and  John  of  Leyden 233 

A  new  delnge 234 

Retorting  the  argument 235 

Discussion  at  the  "Black  Boar'" 237 

Luther  and  the  cobbler 238 

Discussion  at  Marburg 239 

Luther's  avowal 240 

Breaking  necks : 241 

Melanothon's  lament 241 

The  inference 241 

Protestantism  the  mother  of  infidelity 242 

Picture  of  modern  Protestantism  in  Ger- 
many by  Schlegel 244 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  Morals,  pp.  245-274. 


Two  methods  of  investigation 245 

Connection  of  doctrine  and  morals 245 

Salutiirv  indncnceof  Catholic  doctrines 240 

Of  cunfc-sioii 246 

Objections  answered 246 

Of  celibacy 249 

Its  manifold  ad^-antages 250 

Utility  of  the  doctrines  of  satisfaction  and 

indulgences 250 

Of  fasting 251 

Of  prayers  for  the  dead 2.52 

Of  communion  of  saints 252 

Sanctity  of  marriage 253 

Divorces 253 


Influence  of  Protestant  doctrines 254 

Shocking  disorders 205 

Testimony  of  Erasmus 255 

Bigamy  and  polygamy 256 

Mohammedanism 257 

Practical  residts 257 

Testimonies  of  Luther,  Bucer,  Calvin,  and 

Melancthon 258 

The  reformers  testifying  on  their  own  work..  259 

Dollinger's  researches 260 

Character  of  Erasmus 269 

John  Reuchlin 270 

Present  state  of  morals  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries   270 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  Public  Worship,  pp.  274-287. 


General  influence  of  the  Reformation   on 

worship 274 

Audin's  picture  of  it 275 

Luther  rebukes  violence 275 

But  wavers 276 

Giving  life  to  a  skeleton 276 

Taking  a  leap 277 

Mutilating  the  sacraments- 277 

New  system  of  Judaism 278 

Chafing  away  the  mists...... 278 

Protestant  inconsistencies 278 

A  dreary  waste 279 

No  altars  nor  sacrifice 279 

A  land  of  inourning 279 

Protestant  plaints 280 


And  tribute  to  Catholic  worship 280 

A  touching  anecdote 281 

Continual  prayer 281 

Vandalism  rebuked 282 

Grandeur  of  Catholic  worship 282 

Churclic-s  always  open 283 

Pnjtcstiiiit  worship 283 

rhiiSuhbatliihiy 284 

Getting  up  a  revival "285 

Protestant  music  and  prayer 285 

The  pew  system 285 

The /(t.iliiiiiiulile  religion 2S6 

The  two  forms  of  worship  compared 286 

St.  Peter's  church 286 

The  fine  .arts '28" 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  the  Bible,  on  Bible  Reading,  and  Bibli- 
cal Studies,  pp.  288-314. 


Protestant  boastings 288 

Theory  of  D'Aubigne 289 

Luther  finds  a  Bible 289 

How  absurd! 290 

The  '-chained  Bible" 290 

Maitland's  triumphant  refutation 290 

Seckenorf  wesMS  D'Aubigne 292 

Menzel's  testimony 293 

The  Catholic  Church  and  the  Bible 293 

The  Latin  language 293 

Vernacular  versions  before  Luther's 295 

In  Germany 295 

In  Italy 297 

In  France 298 

In  Spain 298 

In  England 299 

In  Flanders 299 

In  Sclavonia 300 

In  Sweden 300 


In  Iceland 300i 

Syriac  and  Armenian  versions 30O. 

Summary  and  inference 300 

Polyglots 301 

Luther's  false  assertion 302 

Reading  the  Bible 303 

Fourtli  rule  of  the  index 301 

A  religious  vertigo  remedied 304 

More  harm  than  good 304 

Present  discipline 306 

A  common  slander 306 

Protestant  versions 306 

Mutual  compliments 307 

Version  of  King  James 308 

Tlie  Douay  and  Vulgate  Bibles 309 

Private  interpretation 311 

German  rationalism 311 

Its  blasphemies 312 

nationalism  iu  Geneva 314 


PART   IV. 

INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  SOCIETY. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  Religious  Liberty,  pp.  .'515-.344. 


Stating  the  question 31.5 

Two  aspects... 316 

Professions 316 

D'Aubigne's  theory. 317 

"Combating"  ad  libitum 318 

Diversities  and  sects 320 

Inconsistency 320 

Early  Protestant  intolerance 321 

The  motlier  and  her  recreant  daughter 322 

Facts  on  persecution  of  each  other  by  early 

Protestants 322 

Of  Karlstadt 323 

Luther  the  cause  of  it 32.3 

Persecution  of  Anabaptists 325 

Synod  at  Homburg ^•••-  326 

Luther's  letter 327 


Zuingle -328 

The  drowned  .Tew.  320 

Calviiiistic  intolerance 330 

Persecution  of  Catholics 330 

Diet  of  Spires 331 

Name  of  Protestant 332 

A  stubborn  truth 332 

Strange  casuistry 333 

Convention  at  Smalkalde 333 

Testimony  of  Menzel 339 

Cujus  Regio,  ejus  Kei.igio 339 

Union  of  church  and  state 340 

A  bear's  embrace 341 

Hallam's  testimony 342 

Parallel  between  Catholic  and  Protestant 
countries 343 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Influence  op  the  Reformation  on  Civil  Liberty,  pp.  344-370. 


Boasting 344 

Theory  of  government 345 

Political  liberty 3^? 

Four  tilings  guarantied 315 

Pursuit  of  baii|iiness 34fi 

The  Popes  and  liberty 347 

Bights  of  property 348 

Use  made  of  confiscated  church  property...  -349 

The  Attilaof  tlie  Reformation 350 

Par  iKiliile  fiatrum 3.50 

Spoliation  of  Catholics-.T 3.51 

Contempt  of  testamentary  dispositions 3.51 

The  jus  manuale  abolished 352 

And  restored 353 

Disregard  of  life 3.53 

And  crushing  of  popular  liberty 354 


The  war  of  the  peasants 3!)4 

Two  charges  made  good 3.54 

Grievances  of  the  peasants 355 

Drowned  in  blood 355 

Romarkalile  testimony  of  Menzel 355 

Luther's  .agency  therein 3,50 

Halting  between  two  extremes 356 

Result 356 

Absolute  despotism 361 

Swiss  cantons 3b|- 

D'Aubigne  puzzled 3h3 

Libertv,  a  mountain  nymph 364 

Tlie  olil  mother  of  republics 364 

Seciiritv  to  character 365 

Recapitulation '■^^ 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

The   Reformation   at  Geneva,  and   its   Influence   on  Civil   and  Religious 
Liberty,  pp.  370-392. 


Character  of  Calvinism 370 

Protestant  historians 370 

The  "  Hegisters" 371 

Audin 372 

Calvin's  character 372 

llis  activity 373 

His  heartli'ssness 373 

Luther  and  Calvin  comp.ared 375 

Early  liberties  of  Geneva 376 

The  "  Libertines" 378 

Blue  laws 379 

Spy  system 380 


Persec\ition 380 

Death  of  Gruet 380 

Burning  of  Servetus ,381 

llallam's  testimony 386 

Morals  of  Calvin 388 

His  zeal 389 

His  complicated  diseases 389 

His  last  will 390 

His  awful  death  and  mysterious  burial 390 

A  douceur 391 

The  inference 392 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  Literature,  pp.  393-428. 


Light  and  darkness 393 

Boast  of  D'Aubigne 393 

Two  sets  of  barbarians 394 

Catholic  and  Protestant  art 395 

The  "painter  of  the  Reformation" 396 

Two  witnesses  against  D'Aubigne 396 

Schlegel 396 

Hallam 396 

"Bellowing  in  bad  Latin" 399 

Testimony  of  Erasmus 400 

Destruction  of  monasteries 401 

Literary  drought 402 

Luther's  plaint 402 

Awful  desolation 403 

An  "iron  padlock" 403 

Karly  Protestant  schools 404 

D'Aubigne's  omissions 404 

Birniiii;/  ziiil 404 

Li-lit  and  Hame 406 

Zeal  for  i,i;iiorance 406 

Burning  of  libraries 407 


Rothman  aii<l  Omar 407 

Dis|iutatiuus  theology 407 

Its  ]ini(tical  results 408 

Morbid  taste 409 

The  Stagirite 410 

Mutual  distrust 410 

Case  (ifGaliliM, 411 

Liberty  of  the  press 413 

Old  and  new  style 414 

Religious  wars 414 

Anecdote  of  Reuchlin 415 

Italy  ijre-eniinent 416 

Plaint  of  Leibnitz 417 

Revival  of  letters 417 

A  shallow  sophism 418 

A  parallel 418 

Great  inventions 420 

Literary  ages 421 

Protestant  testimony 421 

Diillinger's    testimony    of    the    reformers 
themselves 422 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  Civilization,  pp.  428-449. 


Definition 42S 

Religion,  the  basis. 430 

]{cTlainiing  fnmi  barbarism 4,30 

liritisli  East  I iiflia  possessions 431 

Catholic  Missions— Sandwich  Islands 434 

Catholic  and  Protestant  conquests 435 

The  mother  of  civilization 435 

The  .ark  amid  the  ilelnge  435 

Rnmo  converts  the  nations 436 

Early  (icrnian  civilization 438 

Mt>haniin('(laiiism 438 


The  Crusades 439 

The  Popes 439 

Luther  and  the  Turks 440 

Luther  retracts 441 

Religions  wars  in  Germany 443 

Thirty  Years'  War 443 

General  peace 446 

Disturbed  by  the  Reformation 447 

Comparison  between  Protestant  and  Catho- 
lic countries 447 

Tribunal  of  the  Reformation 462 


NOTES  AND  DOCUMENTS. 

NoTF.  A. — An  Historical  Account  of  the  Opinions  that  the  First  Reformers  have  Given 
OF  O.NE  Another,  and  of  the  Effects  of  Their  Preachino 463 

Note  B. — Luther's  Conference  with  the  Devil 470 

Note  C— Permission  Granted  to  Philip,  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  by  Luther  and  Other  Re- 
formers, TO  HAVE  two  Wives  at  Once 482 

Kote  D. — Rome  and  Geneva 495 


THE   REFOKMATION 

IK 

GERMANY   AND    SWITZERLAND, 


VIEW  OF  EUROPE   BEFORE  THE   REFORMATION. 


[JxiiiiTr  of  this  retrospective  view — The  origin  of  European  Governments— 
The  Northmen — Rome  the  Civilizer — Protestant  testimonj^ — The  Pope 
and  the  Emperor — Charlemagne — Guelphs  and  Ghibellines — Temporal 
power  of  the  Pope — Three  great  facts — Freedom  of  the  Church — Election 
of  Bishops — Catholic  munificence  in  middle  ages — The  Truce  of  God — 
Question  of  Investitures — Horrible  abuses — Gregory  VII.  and  Henry 
IV. — The  Controversy  settled — But  its  germs  remain — Modern  historic 
justice  — Growth  of  Mammonism — Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Centuries — 
Boniface  VIII.  and  Philip  the  Fair — Faction  and  heresy — The  new  Mani- 
cheans — The  Flagellants — The  Great  Schism — The  Papacy  comes  out  of 
it  unscathed — Catholic  Reformation — Overcoming  Scandals — The  Hussites 
— Preponderance  of  Good  over  Evil — The  Monasteries — Dr.  Maitland's 
testimony — Dr.  Robertson  convicted  of  gross  misrepresentations — Homily 
of  St.  Eligius — His  warning  against  idolatry  and  superstition — A  model 
mediaeval  Homily — St.  Bernard  and  St.  Vincent  Ferrer — The  Pragmatic 
Sanction — Its  mischievous  tendency — Letter  of  Pope  Pius  II. — Preparation 
for  the  Reformation-  Revival  of  Learning — Art  of  Printing — Italy  leads 
the  way — Testimony  of  Macaulay — The  Humanists  and  Dominicans — 
The  Pope  and  Liberty — Testimony  of  Laing — Summing  up — Four  con- 
clusions reached — What  we  propose  to  examine  and  prove. 

The  rapidity  with  which  the  revohition,  called  by  its  friend& 
the  Reformation^  succeeded  throughout  a  considerable  portion 
of  Europe  during  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  can 
scarcely  be  properly  appreciated,  or  even  fully  understood, 
without  referring  to  the  moral  and  religious  condition  of 
Eur  pe  during  the  preceding  centuries.  Hence  we  can  not 
VOL.  I.— 2  ( 17  ) 


18  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

probably  furnish  a  more  suitable  introduction  to  our  essaya 
on  the  history  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  in  Germany, 
than  by  attempting  to  present  to  our  readers  a  rapid  retro- 
spective view  of  European  society  during  the  period  usually 
called  the  middle  ages — extending  from  the  fifth  to  the  six 
teenth  century.  Our  survey  must  necessarily  be  very  brief 
and  summary,  and  we  shall  confine  ourselves  to  those  events, 
or  groups  of  facts,  which  may  appear  to  have  had  the  greatest 
influence  on  the  coming  religious  revolution.  While  most  of 
our  remarks  will  be  general,  many  of  the  facts  we  shall  have 
to  allege  will  be  specially  connected  with  mediaeval  German 
history,  and  with  the  repeated  and  occasionally  protracted 
struggles  between  the  German  emperors  and  the  Popes. 
Without  taking  some  such  an  historical  retrospect,  we  will 
hardly  be  prepared  to  understand  how  the  minds  of  Chris- 
tians, especially  in  Germany,  become  so  suddenly  ripe  for 
revolt  against  the  time-honored  authority  of  the  old  Church, 
and  particularly  against  that  of  the  sovereign  pontiffs,  to  whom 
they  were  so  greatly  indebted. 

The  people  who  laid  the  foundations  of  almost  all  the  modern 
European  nations,  and  who  shaped  the  great  dynasties  which 
have  since  resulted,  after  many  vicissitudes,  in  the  present 
settled — at  least  consolidated — governments  of  Europe,  were 
mainly  the  descendants  of  the  Northern  hordes,  who  overran 
Europe  in  the  fifth  and  following  centuries.  This  is  more 
particularly  the  case  in  regard  to  Germany,  where  the  North- 
men established,  with  but  slight  modifications,  their  own 
peculiar  laws  and  customs.  In  France,  Italy,  and  Spain, 
these  peculiar  Germanic  customs  were  modified,  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent,  by  pre-existing  laws  and  usages;  some  of  which 
were  retained  when  the  original  population  had  become  amal- 
gamated with  their  conquerors. 

The  Northmen,  who  thus  shaped  the  destiny  of  modern 
Europe,  were  originally  either  downright  heathens — like  the 
Huns-  -or  else  barbarians,  with  a  slight  tincture  of  Christi 
anity  in  the  form  of  the  Arian  heresy — like  a  portion  of  the 


NORTHMEN ROME   THE   CIVILIZER.  19 

Goths  and  Vandals.  Little  could  certainly  be  expected  from 
such  men  for  the  benefit  of  civilization.  Their  destiny  seemed 
to  be  to  destroy,  not  to  build  up.  They  annihilated  the  old 
pagan  civilization,  which,  under  the  shadow  of  the  victorious 
Roman  eagles,  had  pervaded  the  greater  portion  of  Europe ; — 
could  it  be  reasonably  expected  that  they  would  be  able  to 
build  up,  amidst  its  desolate  ruins,  with  which  they  had 
strewn  and  cumbered  the  European  soil,  a  newer  and  better 
condition  of  society?  They  needed  civilizing  themselves; — 
how  could  they  hope  to  be  capable  of  civilizing  others  ? 

In  the  deplorable  state  of  wide-spread  desolation  and  social 
anarchy  which  overspread  Europe  for  two  or  three  centuries,  in 
consequence  of  the  successive  barbarian  invasions  and  the  fall 
of  the  Roman  empire  in  the  West,  nothing  that  was  merely 
Tiuman  could  possibly  have  saved  European  society  from  utter 
and  irretrievable  ruin.  All  civilization  seemed  utterly  hope- 
less, and  simply  impossible.  No  merely  human  philosophy  or 
legislation  could  have  brought  order  out  of  such  chaos,  light  out 
of  such  darkness.  An  element  possessing  more  than  earthly 
power  and  energy  was  imperatively  needed ;  and  fortunately 
for  humanity  and  civilization,  this  element  was  provided  by 
the  Church  of  Christ.  The  Church,  and  the  Church  alone, 
saved  European  society,  and  thereby  rendered  all  subsequent 
civilization  not  only  possible,  but  certain.  Tlie  Churcji 
founded  by  the  Man-God,  built  upon  a  rock,  having  her 
foundation  cemented  by  His  blood,  and  firmly  secured  from 
falling  away  by  His  infallible  promises,  was  alone  able  to 
meet  the  emergency,  and  to  assure  the  prosperous  future  of 
European  society. 

Tlie  fierce  barbarians  had  conquered  pagan  Rome,  and  had 
made  the  environs  of  its  splendid  capital  a  dreary  marble 
wilderness,  strewn  with  broken  columns  and  shattered  cor 
nices;  but  they  could  not  conquer  the  Church,  which  had 
been  established  by  the  Son  of  the  living  God.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  Church  conquered  them.  The  victorious  Roman 
eagles  now  lay  trailing  in  the  dust,  but  the  Cross— the  noblw 


20  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

banner  of  tlie  Church — was  still  erect*and  waving  victor ionslj? 
amidst  the  universal  ruin  and  desolation.  Nay,  more;  the 
Cross  was  carried  in  triumph  from  Christian  Rome  to  the 
furthest  fastnesses  of  the  North,  conquering  the  conquerors 
of  pagan  Rome,  and  thus  becoming  afterward  their  own 
cherished  banner  of  victory.  From  the  fifth  to  the  twelfth 
century,  an  all-conquering  and  glorious,  because  bloodless  and 
humanizing  invasion,  rolled  from  the  South  to  the  North,  in 
compensation  for  the  all-destroying  invasion  which  had  rolled 
from  the  North  to  the  South.  Thus  Christian  Rome  nobly 
avenged  the  disasters  which  had  overwhelmed  the  imperial 
city  of  the  Caesars :  she  repaid  evil  with  good,  and  scattered 
unutterable  blessings  among  those  who  had  brought  ruin  to 
her  hearth-stone,  and  her  once  pagan  altars. 

No  fact  of  history  is  better  attested,  than  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  the  Catholic  Church  alone,  Christianized,  human 
ized,  and  civilized  the  various  European  nations,  which  now 
occupy  the  first  place  in  civilization,  and  from  which  we  in 
America  are  all  descended.  Intelligent  and  learned  men  of 
all  shades  of  religious  opinion  have  freely  admitted  this  fact, 
without  the  acknowledgment  of  which,  all  modern  history 
would,  in  truth,  be  wholly  unintelligible,  and  would  present 
a  series  of  insolvable  enigmas.  This  has  been  well  understood 
and  freely  acknowledged  by  such  men  as  Guizot,  in  France, 
Schlegel,  Voigt,  Hurter,  Gorres,  Miiller,  Dollinger,  and  a  host 
of  others  in  Germany,  Hallam,  Roscoe,  and  Maitland,  in 
England,  and  a  multitude  of  other  learned  historians,  who 
have  laboriously  investigated  the  subject  of  mediaeval  history, 
and  have  given  to  the  world,  during  the  last  half  century,  the 
result  of  their  researches.  These  researches  have  proved  as 
important  to  the  cause  of  historic  truth,  as  they  have  been 
honorable  to  the  Church,  from  whose  brow  no  one  can  now 
tear  the  laurel  wreath  of  victory  over  barbarism,  which  has 
been  placed  upon  it  by  the  willing  hands  of  her  enemies 
themselves.  The  deliberate  verdict  of  modern  history  is,  that 
the  Catholic  Church  has  been  the  mother  of  civilization,  and 


THE  FOPE  AND  THE  EMPEROR CHARLEMAGNE.       21 

it  cannot  be  set  aside  by  either  self-glorifying  ignorance,  or 
partisan  prejudice. 

The  history  of  the  Eeibrmation  in  Germany,  particularly, 
must  be  viewed  in  the  light  of  this  great  ftict.  No  portion  of 
Europe,  probably,  owed  a  greater  debt  of  gratitude  to  Rome, 
than  Germany.  It  was  Christian  Rome  which  sent  to  her  the 
missionary  apostles,  who,  armed  with  commissions  from  the 
Popes,  successively  converted  her  people,  and  who  subse- 
quently labored  with  diligent  and  successful  charity  and  zeal 
to  soften  their  manners,  to  control  their  passions,  to  refoi-m 
their  legislation,  and  to  raise  them  ultimately  to  that  high 
degree  of  civilization  to  which  they  subsequently  attained. 
The  Germans  were  indebted  to  Rome,  and  chiefly  to  the 
Roman  pontiffs,  for  all  the  principal  elements  of  their  civili- 
zation, and  for  all  that  constituted  their  greatness  as  a  people. 

How  all  this  was  lost  sight  of,  or  forgotten,  at  the  period 
of  the  Reformation,  and  how  the  benelits  of  Rome  were  r<i 
paid  with  insults  and  injury,  we  shall  see  in  the  sequel.  Qui 
present  purpose  requires  us  to  dwell  more  particularly  on  the 
manner  in  which  the  Church  grew  up  and  flourished,  in  vigor 
and  holiness,  throughout  Germany  and  other  European  coun- 
tries, and  on  the  origin  and  history  of  the  frequent  conflicts 
which  arose  at  different  periods  of  the  middle  ages,  between 
the  Roman  pontifis  and  the  different  princes  of  Europe,  par- 
ticularly the  German  emperors. 

The  relations  between  the  Popes  and  the  German  emperors 
were,  from  an  early  period,  manifold  and  intimate.  The  latter 
had  been  indebted  to  the  former,  not  only  for  their  title,  but 
for  the  much  more  extended  powers  with  which  this  was 
accompanied.  In  solemnly  crowning  Charlemagne  emperor  of 
the  Romans,  in  St.  Peter's  church,  on  Christmas  day,  A.  D.  800, 
Pope  Leo  III.  had  laid  the  foundations  of  the  new  Christian 
empire  in  the  West,  which  was  to  take  the  place  of  the  old 
pagan  empire  that  had  fallen.  The  very  title  of  the  newly- 
created,  or  newly-confirmed  dynasty  implied — what  the  facts 
oi  mediaeval  history  more  fully  establish — that  the  Roman 


22  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

pontiffs  constituted  an  integral,  if  not  an  essential  element  of 
the  new  civil  organization.  It  belonged  to  them  not  only  to 
crown  the  new  emperor,  but  to  recognize  and  pass  judgment 
upon  his  claim  to  the  throne,  whenever  there  were  several 
rival  aspirants  for  the  honor.  Their  advice  was  sought,  and 
their  judgment  invoked,  in  almost  every  great  political  emer- 
gency, often  by  the  emperors  themselves,  more  fi  equently  still 
by  the  people,  whom  the  tyranny  of  the  latter  aggrieved  or 
oppressed.  Theirs  was,  in  fact,  the  only  voice  which  could 
make  itself  heard  amidst  the  clamor  of  factions  and  the  tur- 
moil of  society,  so  common  throughout  the  middle  ages — a 
stormy  period  of  transition,  in  which  Europe  was  preparing 
for  the  more  consolidated  and  stable  forms  which  her  govern- 
ments have  since  assumed. 

The  original  empire  of  Charlemagne  embraced  Germany, 
France,  and  a  great  portion  of  Europe.  It  was  colossal  in  its 
proportions,  and  it  was  administered  with  rare  vigor,  genius, 
and  ability,  by  its  great  founder.  But  genius  is  not  hereditary, 
and  his  vast  empire  was  divided,  after  his  death,  among  his 
children  and  successors,  who  possessed  but  a  small  share  of 
his  eminent  qualities,  either  of  head  or  of  heart.  The  French 
kings  henceforth  vied  with  the  German  emperors  in  their  aspi- 
rations to  control  the  fortunes  of  continental  Europe.  But 
the  emperors  claimed  a  commanding  influence  over  Italy, 
which  they  have  retained,  with  some  exceptions  and  vicissi- 
tudes, almost  down  to  the  present  day.*  This  claim,  and  the 
disastrous  consequences  to  Italy,  which  often  resulted  from  its 
exaggerated  or  undue  exercise,  constituted  the  fruitful  source 

*  The  recent  war  in  Italy  was  undertaken  under  the  pretense  of  securing 
Italian  freedom,  by  diminishing  the  influence  of  Austria  in  the  ptninsula 
The  sequel  has,  however,  proved  that  a  much  deeper  game  Wiis  intended  to 
be  played  by* "the  Sphinx  of  the  Tuillerics" — Napoleon  III.  The  robbery 
of  the  Church  and  the  spoliation  of  the  Pope  seem  to  have  been  the  ultimate 
objects  contemplated,  under  the  specious  pretext  of  Italian  independence. 
Though  the  policy  is  not  yet  fully  worked  out,  these  appear,  from  the  facts, 
to  have  been  its  leading  elements  from  the  very  commencement  of  the  war. 
May  the  events  of  the  future  fail  to  fulfill  the  indications  of  the  present 
How  often  has  the  name  oHiberttj  been  abused  in  the  world's  history  ! 


TEMPORAL   POWER    OF   THE    POPE.  23 

of  most  of  the  contests  between  tliem  and  the  Popes,  wlio 
were  the  oldest  as  well  as  the  best  of  the  Italian  sovereigns, 
and,  as  such,  naturally  felt  a  lively  interest  in  all  that  con- 
cerned the  welfare  of  Italy.  The  Italians,  oppressed  and 
down-trodden  by  the  German  emperors,  instinctively  turned 
their  eyes  to  the  Roman  pontiffs,  and  implored  their  powerful 
succor  against  the  overwhelming  forces  brought  against  them 
by  the  imperial  invaders  of  their  independence  and  rights. 
They  had  no  other  resource  left  to  them  in  their  helplessness ; 
and  their  earnest  appeals  were  seldom  made  in  vain. 

The  Popes  were  themselves  comparatively  weak  and  power- 
less, as  temporal  sovereigns,  but  they  were  strong  in  the  armor 
of  God.  When  moral  suasion  failed,  they  hesitated  not  to 
hurl  the  thunder-bolt  of  excommunication  at  the  head  of  the 
imperial  tyrant  who  dared  trample  on  the  sacred  rights  of  his 
people.  The  Lombard  League  of  the  twelfth  century,  in 
which  the  Italian  cities  of  the  North  banded  together  to 
oppose  the  encroachments  of  the  imperial  tyrant  Frederic 
Barbarossa,  furnishes  one  out  of  many  striking  illustrations  of 
this  remark.  Pope  Alexander  III.  was  unanimously  chosen 
as  the  head  of  this  famous  League,  which,  under  his  auspices, 
succeeded  in  expelling  the  tyrant,  and  establishing,  for  a  time 
at  least,  Italian  independence.  The  free  cities  and  the  repub- 
lics of  Northern  and  Central  Italy  grew  up  and  flourished 
under  the  influence  of  this  triumph  of  patriotism  over  foreign 
invasion,  of  Italian  freedom  over  German  despotism ;  and  the 
liberated  and  grateful  Italians  named  their  newly-founded 
city  of  Alexandria,  after  the  illustrious  and  successful  cham- 
pion of  their  rights ;  while  the  imperial  tyrant  was  induced 
to  expiate  his  cruelties  by  taking  the  cross,  and  marching  as 
a  crusader  to  the  holy  land. 

But  though  foiled  in  this  attempt  to  crush  Italian  independ- 
ence, the  German  emperors  did  not  give  up  their  claim  to 
be  the  rulers — at  least  the  arbiters— of  Italy.  They  estab- 
lished and  maintained  for  centuries  in  this  beautiful  country 
a  powerful  party,  wholly  attached   to  tl  eir  interests.     The 


24  EUROPE   BEOFRE   THE    REFORMATION. 

Ghilwllines  were  imperialists,  while  the  opposing  party  of  thfl 
Guelphs  were  the  advocates  of  Italian  liberty.  The  struggles 
of  these  two  parties  for  the  ascendency  was  the  fruitful  source 
of  troubles  and  of  bloody  civil  feuds  during  all  the  latter 
half  of  the  middle  ages.  These  fratricidal  strifes  kept  alive  the 
flames  of  civil  war,  and  deluged  with  blood  the  streets  of  the 
Italian  cities,  from  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  to  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  overshadowing  influence  and 
the  rich  patronage  of  the  German  emperors,  who  lavished 
their  wealth  on  the  Ghibelline  faction,  kept  alive  this  detest* 
able  party,  and  rendered  its  powerful  members  most  danger- 
ous elements  of  Italian  society.  It  is  almost  needless  to  say, 
that  the  Popes,  while  endeavoring  to  soothe  the  angry  passions 
of  both  parties,  generally  took  sides  with  the  Guelphs,  and 
that  they  did  every  thing  in  their  power  to  heal  the  bloody 
fends  which  were  so  very  disastrous  to  Italian  interests. 
But  their  eflforts  were  not  always  successful,  and  they  them- 
selves were  compelled  frequently  to  bend  to  the  storm,  and 
to  feel  in  their  own  persons  its  desolating  influence.  They 
were  sometimes  driven  from  Rome  by  the  triumphant  im- 
perialists; and  one  cause  of  their  long  sojourn  at  Avignon 
was  precisely  this,  that  in  consequence  of  the  fearful  condition 
to  which  Central  and  Northern  Italy  had  been  reduced  by 
these  truculent  Mictions,  Rome  had  become  almost  wholly 
uninhabitable. 

Whatever  opinion  may  be  entertained  in  reference  to  the 
origin  and  merits  of  the  various  successive  contests  which 
were  carried  on  between  the  German  emperors,  and  occasion- 
ally the  French  kings,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Roman  pon- 
tifis  on  the  other,  and  particularly  in  regard  to  the  origin  and 
grounds  of  the  claim  to  temporal  power  set  up  by  several  of 
the  pontifis  during  the  period  in  question,  we  think  that  no  im- 
partial man,  who  is  well  versed  in  the  history  of  those  times, 
will  be  disposed  to  deny  any  one  of  the  three  following  propo* 
aitions — eacli  one  of  which  could  be  substantiated  by  a  volume 
of  evidence; 


THREE   GREAT   FACTS.  25 

1.  Tliat  the  Popes-  were  drawn  into  i  ie  vortex  jf  tem- 
poral afiairs  and  political  agitation  by  the  train  of  circum 
stances  —  already  alluded  to  —  which  originated  European 
society,  and  which  rendered  it  an  imperative  necessity  that 
they  should  interpose,  if  they  would  arrest  anarchy  and  seek 
to  save  society  from  utter  ruin. 

2.  That  when  thus  drawn  into  the  vortex,  their  influence 
was  generally  highly  beneficial  to  society,  by  being  thrown 
on  the  side  of  virtue  struggling  against  vice,  and  of  popular 
freedom  battling  against  imperial  or  royal  despotism. 

And,  3.  That  to  their  interposition  mainly  do  we  owe  it, 
that  the  Church  was  enabled  to  preserve,  to  a  great  extent, 
her  own  independence  and  freedom  of  action,  and  was  thus 
in  a  position  to  continue  successfully  her  heavenly  mission  for 
humanizing  and  civilizing  European  society ;  which  without 
this  influence  would  most  certainly  have  relapsed  into  barbar- 
ism— even  if  it  had  ever  been  able  to  emerge  from  barbarism. 

No  other  power  than  that  of  the  Catholic  Church,  wielded 
by  its  chief  executive  —  the  Roman  pontiflfs  —  could  ever 
have  checked  lawless  and  overwhelming  tyranny,  could  ever 
have  efiectually  shielded  popular  rights  from  oppression, 
could  ever  have  successfully  defended  female  chastity  from 
imperial  and  roval  licentiousness,  by  fully  guarantying  to  all 
the  sacred  rights,  and  by  defending  the  duties,  of  Christian 
marriage ;  cou.d  ever,  in  one  word,  have  arrested  the  torrent 
of  mere  brute  force,  which  was  sweeping  over  Europe  and 
threatening  it  with  destruction. 

Amidst  the  din  of  arms  and  the  clamor  of  the  passions,  no 
other  voice  could  be  heard  than  that  which  came  from  Rome ; 
and  even  this  voice  was  not  always  heeded  by  those,  whose 
headlong  passions  so  blinded  them  to  the  promptings  of  faith 
as  to  render  them  not  unfrequently  deaf  to  its  eloquent  ex- 
postulations or  terrible  menaces.  If  the  middle  ages  were 
pre-eminently  ages  of  faith,  they  were  none  the  less  ages  of 
violence  and  of  brute  force.  But  wo  to  European  civiJiza- 
Hon,  if  there  had  not  existed  at  the  time  a  great  moral  and 

VOL.    I. 'i 


26  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

2'eligious  power,  which  was  alone  respected  by  the  masses  of 
the  population ;  and  which,  if  not  always  heeded  in  its  warn 
ing,  by  those  against  whom  its  exercise  was  invoked,  still 
jnade  itself  generally  heard  and  respected.  If  right  finally 
triumphed  over  might,  and  the  passions  had  to  yield  at  length 
in  the  struggle  against  reason  and  religion,  we  owe  the  result 
mainly  to  the  beneficial  influence  of  the  Papacv.  Ill's  is  as 
certain  as  any  thing  else  in  all  history. 

This  leads  us  to  another  department  of  the  struggles  be- 
tween the  Popes  and  the  temporal  princes  of  Europe,  which 
is  more  nearly  connected  with  our  present  purpose,  and  upon 
which  we  shall  be  pardoned  for  dwelling  at  somewhat  greater 
length.  We  refer  to  the  efforts  of  the  Popes  to  secure  free- 
dom to  the  Church  against  the  aggressions  of  the  temporal 
power,  to  the  various  phases  of  their  contests  with  emperors 
and  kings  for  the  attainment  of  this  vital  object,  and  to  the 
final  results  of  this  great  struggle,  as  developed  on  the  eve  of 
the  Reformation  itself. 

The  chief  element  of  this  important  controversy  between 
the  spiritual  and  temporal  power  was  this :  that  the  German 
emperors  and  some  other  feudal  sovereigns  of  Europe,  often 
sought  to  enslave  the  Church,  by  making  her  higher  clergy 
wholly  dependent  upon  themselves ;  and  that  the  Popes,  on 
the  contrary,  sought  to  insure  to  the  clergy  freedom  of  elec- 
tion and  freedom  of  action.  In  regard  to  the  principle  in- 
volved, the  Popes  were  manifestly  in  the  right  throughout  the 
whole  contest,  while  the  claim  set  up  by  the  temporal  sove- 
reigns was  clearly  an  usurpation,  as  unfounded  in  reason,  as 
it  was  mischievous  in  fact. 

The  Church  had  clearly  the  right  to  appoint  her  own 
bishops  and  clergy,  and  to  exercise  over  them  such  a  super- 
vision and  control,  as  would  render  them  fully  responsible  for 
their  C(  )nduct  to  her  own  regularly  constituted  tribunals.  She 
could  not- exercise  this  undoubted  right,  nor  hold  her  own 
ministers  to  their  proper  responsibility,  if  the  temporal  sove- 
reigns had,  at  the  same  time,  a  right  to  thrust  on  her  such 


ELECTION    OF   BISHOPS.  27 

Bpiritual  officers  as  she  disapproved  of,  and  could  not  control. 
How  could  she  properly  guard  the  flock  committed  to  her 
charge,  if  others,  beyond  her  control,  were  permitted  to 
thrust  into  its  inclosure,  as  shepherds,  "  devouring  wolves  in 
sheep's  clothing."  The  very  idea  of  the  Church,  <-ogether  with 
the  primary  objects  for  which  the  Church  was  established  by 
Christ,  necessarily  carries  with  it  the  logical  inference,  that 
she  should  be  free  and  independent  of  the  temporal  power  in 
her  own  peculiar  sphere  of  action,  and  especially  in  the  ap- 
pointment and  control  of  her  own  officers  or  ministers.  With- 
out this  freedom  of  action,  she  would  be  hampered  at  every 
step,  and  she  would  be  rendered  totally  incapable  of  discharg- 
ing her  high  mission  for  the  conversion  of  the  world,  and  the 
salvation  of  mankind. 

Accordingly,  we  find  that,  from  the  very  beginning  of  the 
Church,  this  liberty  was  not  only  claimed,  but  openly  exer- 
cised, even  in  the  midst  of  the  most  violent  persecution  from 
pagan,  and  of  occasional  opposition  from  Christian  emperors. 
The  canons  enacted  in  various  early  and  mediaeval  councils, 
and  approved  by  the  Popes,  fully  provided  for  the  mode  to  be 
adopted  in  the  election  of  bishops  and  abbots,  as  well  as  the 
rules  to  be  followed  in  the  appointment  of  pastors  of  souls, 
and  of  other  inferior  ministers.  The  discipline  varied  some- 
what at  different  times,  and  in  different  countries  ;  but  every- 
where and  at  all  times  the  freedom  of  the  Church  in  the  elec- 
tion or  appointment  of  her  ministers  was  strongly  claimed 
and  triumphantly  vindicated,  though  not  without  occasional 
violent  opposition  from  the  temporal  power. 

During  the  middle  ages,  the  usual  method  of  election  for 
bishops  and  abbots,  was  that  in  which  the  cathedral  and  mo 
uastic  chapters,  composed  of  the  higher  clergy  of  the  diocese, 
or  the  most  distinguished  among  the  monks,  freely  convened 
and  freely  selected  the  candidate  whom  they  deemed  best 
qualified  for  the  vacant  place.  Tlie  Metropolitans,  or  Arch- 
bishops, were  authorized  to  exercise  a  general  supervision  over 
the  proceedings,  while  the  power  of  confirming  or  rejecting  the 


28  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

successful  candidate  rested  with  the  sovereign  pontiff,  who,  if 
he  approved  the  choice,  issued  the  necessary  commission  or 
bulls  for  the  installment  into  office  of  the  new  incumbent. 
This  was  clearly  as  it  should  be;  and  had  this  undoubted 
right  of  the  Church  been  left  untrammeled  and  unviolated, 
many  scandals  would  have  been  prevented,  and  much  evil 
avoided. 

Tlie  better  to  understand  the  motives  or  pretexts  sometimes 
alleged  by  the  temporal  sovereigns  of  Europe,  during  the 
middle  ages,  for  their  claim  to  appoint  men  of  their  own 
choice  to  the  important  offices  of  bishops  and  abbots,  we  must 
go  back  to  the  period  which  immediately  followed  the  occu- 
pation of  Europe  by  the  Northmen — the  iifth  and  following 
centuries.  The  various  barbarous  chieftains  who  parceled 
out  Europe  among  their  followers,  were  in  general  rude,  but 
generous  men.  On  their  conversion  to  Cb'-istianity,  their 
hearts,  and  those  of  their  successors,  swelled  with  gratitude 
toward  the  Church,  which  had  called  them  from  darkness  to 
the  light  of  the  faith ;  and  their  gratitude  was  fruitful  in  good 
works.  They  munificently  endowed  the  bishoprics,  and  sub- 
sequently the  monasteries;  they  allotted  to  them  large  and 
rich  domains ;  they  erected  palaces  and  castles  for  the  bishops, 
and  extensive  cloisters  for  the  monks  of'  St.  Benedict,  and  for 
other  religious  orders  which  sprang  up  at  a  later  period. 

They  did  more,  Tlieir  generosity  toward  their  spiritual 
benefactors  seemed  exhaustless,  and  its  spirit  was  communi- 
cated by  their  example  and  exhortation  to  the  entire  mass  of 
the  population.  All  classes  vied  with  one  another  in  munifi- 
cence toward  the  Church  and  toward  her  ministers.  Splen- 
did churches,  spacious  hospitals,  and  palatial  colleges  and 
universities  sprang  up  all  over  Europe.  Many  of  these  noble 
edifices  still  remain,  and  they  are,  even  at  this  day,  the  admi- 
ration of  the  world,  which  with  all  its  boasted  progress  could 
scarcely  produce  any  thing  to  equal,  certainly  nothing  to  sur- 
pass them  in  grandeur.  In  those  lands  over  which  the  storm 
of  the  B,eformation  has  swept,  many  of  those  splendid  strue- 


CATHOLIC    MUNIFICENCE    IN    MIDDLE   AGES.  29 

turep  now  lie  in  silent  and  solemn,  but  still  imposing  ruins, 
while  others  have  been  sadly  diverted  from  their  original  des- 
tination, and  have  become  the  palaces  of  worldly  pride  and 
pomp,  instead  of  asylums  for  the  poor  of  Christ. 

The  Church  of  the  middle  ages  more  than  repaid  all  this 
munificent  bounty  of  her  children.  In  return,  she  bestowed 
upon  them  her  abundant  spiritual  treasures,  and  her  rich  and 
glorious  civilization.  Her  cathedrals,  monasteries,  and  col- 
leges were  oases  in  the  mediaeval  desert,  inviting  all  to  be 
refreshed  by  their  perennial  verdure,  and  to  slake  their  thirst 
at  the  cooling  fountains  of  religion  and  learning,  which  were 
there  constantly  flowing.  To  the  oppressed  vassal,  fleeing 
from  the  anger  of  his  all-powerful  lord,  she  opened  her  peace- 
ful sanctuary,  where  he  was  safe  until  the  wrath  of  his  ruth- 
less persecutor  could  be  mollified  by  time,  or  appeased  by  her 
own  mercy-breathing  voice  of  expostulation.  To  the  heart- 
sick, and  to  those  weary  of  the  world's  turmoil,  and  panting 
for  something  higher  and  more  stable,  she  opened  her  holy 
cloisters,  devoted  to  study  and  prayer;  in  the  sanctuary  soli- 
tude of  which  they  might  find  rest  and  peace,  might  soar  on 
the  wings  of  heavenly  contemplation  to  the  throne  of  God, 
and  might  find  time  to  pray,  to  read,  and  to  labor  for  the  en- 
lightenment and  salvation  of  others  less  favored.  To  the  foot- 
sore traveler,  those  monasteries  were  ever  open  inns  for 
refreshment,  where  he  was  sure  to  meet  a  cordial  welcome, 
and  to  receive,  free  of  charge,  and  for  the  love  of  God,  all 
the  sweet  offices  of  Christian  hospitality ;  while  the  neighbor- 
ing poor  might  always  confidently  reckon  on  them,  freely  and 
bountifully  to  supply  all  their  pressing  wants. 

To  the  sick  and  the  afiiicted,  of  every  class  and  condition, 
the  Catholic  hospitals  and  asylums  of  the  middle  ages  were 
easily  accessible,  and  therein  they  might  be  sure  to  find  every 
comfort  which  munificent  charity  could  provide,  to  solace 
them  in  their  bodily  aSiictions  or  mental  sorrows. 

Finally — for  we  should  never  terminate  were  we  to  enume- 
rate all  the  benefits  bestowed  on  society  by  the  Church  of  the 


30  EUROPE   BE  ORE   THE   REFORMIST  ION. 

middle  ages — what  was  so  beautifully  called,  the  Truce  of 
God,  which  the  Church  proclaimed,  accomplishea  more  than 
perhaps  any  other  single  influence  toward  humanizing  the 
European  populations,  by  diminishing  the  frequency  and  miti 
gating  the  horrors  of  those  petty  civil  wars  which  were  so 
characteristic  of  the  period  in  question.  When,  for  the  love 
of  God,  and  out  of  reverence  for  the  passion,  death,  and 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ,  men,  at  the  call  of  the  Church, 
generally  agreed  to  suspend  all  warfare  during  four  days  in 
each  week — from  Wednesday  evening  until  the  ensuing  Mon- 
day morning,  we  might  naturally  expect  to  find  their  passions 
cooling  down,  and  charity  with  a  spirit  of  conciliation  and  for- 
giveness, taking  the  place  of  vengeance  and  bloody  civil  feuds. 
And  such,  in  effect,  was  the  practical  working  of  the  Truce 
of  God  on  European  society. 

Happy  would  it  have  been  for  Europe  and  the  world,  had 
this  merciful  and  conciliatory  spirit  of  the  Church  been  pro- 
perly met  and  duly  appreciated  by  the  princes  of  the  earth. 
The  earth  would  have  become  a  sort  of  elysium,  and  the 
development  of  a  sound  Christian  civilization  would  have 
been  hastened  by  whole  centuries.  But  unhappily,  this  was 
not  always  the  case.  So  it  is  in  all  things  human,  where  evil 
is  generally  found  mixed  with  good,  the  tares  with  the  good 
wheat.  In  return  for  their  munificence  toward  the  Church,  the 
temporal  princes  not  unfrequently  claimed  what  the  Church 
could  not  bestow,  without  surrendering  her  independence,  and 
virtually  resigning  her  divine  commission  to  rebuke  vice  in 
high  places,  and  freely  to  teach  the  world  unto  salvation. 

The  feudal  system  had  been  introduced  into  Europe  by  the 
Northmen,  and  -in  her  external  relations  with  society  the 
Chtrch  was  necessarily  brought,  more  or  less,  under  its  influ- 
ence. The  bishops  and  abbots,  in  virtue  of  the  domains  held 
by  them,  became  feudal  lords,  who,  like  others  similarly  situ- 
ated, were  expected  to  do  homage  to  their  liege  lords,  or 
suzerains,  for  their  own  territory ;  and  though  not  compelled, 
OT  even  expected,  actually  to  engage  in  warfare  themselves, 


INVESTITURES — HORRIBLE    ABUSES.  31 

thej  were  held  bound,  on  the  call  of  their  Lege  lord,  to  mar- 
shall  their  retainers  under  his  standard,  to  espouse  his  quarrel 
and  fight  his  battles.  This  incidental  connection  of  the 
Church  with  the  State,  while  it  undoubtedly  tended  to  moder- 
ate the  fierceness  of  strife  and  to  humanize  the  hearts  of  the 
people,  Dy  bringing  the  influence  of  the  Church  to  bear  directly 
on  the  turmoil  of  the  camp  and  the  bloody  scenes  of  the  battle 
field,  was,  at  the  same  time,  fruitful  with  danger  to  the  spirit 
of  the  higher  clergy.  While  thus  descending  into  the  arena 
of  busy  or  fierce  human  passions,  though  they  might  hope  to 
moderate  strife  and  to  prevent  or  diminish  bloodshed,  they 
were  exposed  to  the  peril  of  worMly-mindedness  and  to  the 
consequent  diminution  or  loss  of  the  spiritual  character  so 
essential  to  their  vocation  and  usefulness.  This  was  the  chief 
danger  of  the  connection;  its  benefits  to  society  we  have 
ah  (.ad,-  summarily  indicated. 

In  proportion  as  the  higher  clergy  became  wealthy  and  influ- 
ential, the  great  feudal  lords,  and  especially  the  emperors  of 
Germany,  sought  by  every  means  in  their  power  to  win  them 
over  to  their  interests,  and  to  make  them  subservient  to  their 
»vorldly  purposes.  And  as  they  could  not  hope  fully  to  con- 
trol the  action  of  those  bishops  and  abbots,  who  were  worthy 
of  their  high  positions  by  being  thoroughly  im.bued  with  the 
ecclesiastical  spirit,  they  sought  to  thrust  their  own  creatures 
into  the  principal  vacant  sees  and  abbeys.  The  chief  merit 
of  the  candidate,  in  their  eyes,  was  his  courtly  subserviency. 
In  carrying  out  this  wicked  scheme  for  enslaving  the  Chui"»h, 
and  virtually  ruining  it  by  foisting  iuco  its  high  places  uh 
worthy  ministers,  they  encountered  frequent  and  sturdy  oppo- 
sition from  the  bishops  and  abbots ;  but  whether  these  resisted 
the  usurpation  or  not,  the  Popes  were  sure  to  stand  forth  on 
such  occasions  as  the  uncompromising  champions  of  the  free- 
dom and  purity  of  election,  and  of  the  independence  of  the 
Church.  From  this  source  sprang  many,  if  not  most  of  the 
protracted  struggles  between  the  Popes  and  the  Germar 
emperors  during  the  middle  ages. 


32  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

A  prominent  phase  of  this  contest  is  exhibited  in  the  coL 
troversy  concerning  what  were  called  Investitures.  By  super 
ficial  or  prejudiced  writers  this  controversy  has  been  regarded 
merely  as  a  puerile  dispute  about  petty  rites  and  ceremonies, 
while  the  claims  of  the  Popes  have  been  represented  by  the 
same  class  of  writers  as  an  usurpation  on  the  rights  of  the 
emperors.  By  those,  on  the  contrary,  who  have  penetrated 
beyond  the  surface  of  history,  and  have  carefully  studied  the 
facts  as  interpreted  by  the  spirit  of  the  times,  it  has  been 
justly  looked  upon  as  the  vital  question  of  the  age — a  ques- 
tion of  liberty  or  slavery,  of  life  or  death  for  the  Church. 
Having  founded  and  endowed  the  bishoprics  and  abbeys,  the 
emperors  claimed  the  right,  not  only  of  inducting  into  office 
and  duly  investing  with  its  insignia  the  candidate  who  had 
been  regularly  and  canonically  elected  by  the  episcopal  or 
monastic  Chapter,  but,  occasionally  at  least,  of  setting  aside 
the  election  itself  or  reducing  it  to  a  mere  lifeless  form  and  a 
real  mockery.  This  was  clearly  an  usurpation  on  the  time- 
honored  and  undoubted  right  of  the  Church  freely  to  chose 
her  own  ministers.  Its  practical  effect  was,  to  thrust  into  the 
high  places  of  the  Church  unworthy  men — mere  creatures 
and  parasites  of  the  court,  and  thereby  to  entail  a  permanent 
scandal  on  Christendom. 

So  far,  in  fact,  was  this  pretension  carried,  that  some  of  the 
German  emperors  claimed  the  right  of  investing  the  new 
incumbent  with  ring  and  crozier,  the  ordinary  emblems  of 
spiritual  jurisdiction ;  thereby  giving  to  understand  that  the 
emperor  was  the  fountain,  not  only  of  temporal,  but  of 
spiritual  power!  The  evil  seems  to  have  reached  its  culmi- 
nating point  in  the  eleventh  century,  under  the  impious  and 
debauched  Henry  IV.  of  Germany,  with  whom  Pope  St. 
Gregory  VII.  carried  on  his  memorable  struggle  for  the  free- 
dom and  rights  of  the  Church.  This  wicked  emperor,  ap- 
propriately called  by  his  contemporaries  the  Nero  of  the 
middle  ages,  and  who  probably  has  no  parallel  in  Christian 
history  except  his  namesake  Henry  VIII.  of  England,  seems 


GREGORY  VII.    AND    HENRY    IV.  53 

to  have  been  the  first  who  brought  the  controversy  on  Inves- 
titures to  a  crisis.  The  abuses  to  which  his  usurpation  gave 
rise  were  truly  horrible.  Had  not  the  stern  resolve  and  iron 
nerve  of  his  papal  competitor  checked  them  in  time,  the 
Church  in  Germany  would,  in  all  human  probability,  have 
been  rendered  utterly  desolate  and  been  brought  to  the  very 
verge  of  ruin.  Even  as  it  was,  the  picture  drawn  of  its 
moral  condition  by  contemporary  writers  is  frightful  to  con- 
template. As  the  matter  is  so  vital  in  its  importance,  we 
will  be  pardoned  for  alleging  a  few  passages  from  these 
writers.     Says  Matthew  of  Tyre: 

"A  custom  had  long  prevailed,  especially  in  the  empire  (German),  that 
on  the  decease  of  the  prelates  of  the  Church,  the  ring  and  pastoral  crozier 
were  sent  to  the  lord  emperor.  Afterwards  the  emperor,  selecting  one  of 
his  own  familiars  or  chaplains,  and  investing  him  with  the  insignia,  sent  him 
to  the  vacant  church,  without  waiting  for  the  election  by  the  clergy."* 

Ebbo,  another  contemporary,  who  lived  in  the  very  palace 
of  Henry  IV.  employs  similar  language : 

"At  this  time  the  Church  had  not  a  free  election;  but  whenever  any  one 
of  the  bishops  had  entered  upon  the  way  of  all  flesh,  immediately  the  cap- 
tains of  that  city  transmitted  to  the  palace  his  ring  and  pastoral  staff;  and 
thus  the  king  or  emperor,  after  consulting  his  council,  selected  a  suitable 
pastor  for  the  widowed  flock."f 

How  far  the  persons  thus  selected  were  suitable,  the  event 

*  Inoleverat  consuetude,  praesertim  in  imperio,  quod  defungentibus  Ecclesiae 
praelatis  annulus  et  virga  pastoralis  ad  dominam  imperatorem  dirigebantur. 
Unde  postmodum  unum  quemdam  de  familiaribus  et  capellanis  suis  inves-. 
tiens  ad  ecclesiam  vacantem  dirigebat,  ut  ibi  pastoris  fungeretur  officio, 
non  expectata  cleri  electione.  (Sacri  Belli  Ilistoria,  lib.  1.  c.  18.  Apud 
Palma,  Praelectiones  Hist.  Eccles.,  II.  138,  Edit.  Rome,  1848.) 

f  Hoc  tempore  Ecclesia  liberam  electionem  non  habebat ;  sed  cum  quilibet 
antistes  viam  universae  carnis  ingressus  fuisset,  mox  Capitanei  civitatis 
ilUus  annulum  et  virgam  pastoralem  ad  palatium  transmittebant,  sicque 
regia  auctoritas,  communicato  cum  aulicis  consilio,  orbatae  plebi  idoneum 
constituebat  pastorem  (In  vita  Othonis  Bamberg.  Episcop',  T.  1-8  and  9 
A.pud  Palma,  Ibid.) 


34  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

unfortunately  proved  but  too  well.  The  men  who  we/e  thus 
thrust  into  the  vacant  sees  were,  almost  without  exception, 
the  mere  subservient  and  unscrupulous  creatures  of  the  impe- 
rial tyrant,  ready,  on  all  occasions  to  flatter  his  vices,  and  to 
do  his  bidding.  Under  the  operation  of  this  iniquitous  sys- 
tem, simony  became  prevalent  throughout  Germany  and 
Northern  Italy,  wherever,  in  fact,  the  imperial  influence  ex- 
tended. Bishoprics  and  benefices  of  all  kinds  were  unblush- 
ingly  bought  and  sold  at  the  imperial  court.  The  emperor 
often  kept  the  sees  long  vacant,  that  he  might  seize  on  their 
revenues,  which  he  squandered  in  shameless  debauchery. 
The  delay  also  had  the  efiect  of  eliciting  higher  bids  from  the 
hungry  aspirants,  who  hung  about  the  court,  and  it  thereby 
contributed  still  further  to  replenish  the  imperial  coffers. 

This  enormous  evil  could  not  be  long  endured  by  the 
Church.  St.  Peter  Damian  and  other  holy  prelates  of  Italy 
and  Germany,  inveighed  against  it  with  their  burning  elo- 
quence; and  Pope  St.  Gregory  VII.,  after  frequent  but  vain 
expostulations  with  the  imperial  monster,  drew  forth  from  the 
armory  of  the  Church  the  thunder-bolt  of  excommunication, 
and  fearlessly  hurled  it  at  his  guilty  head.  He,  the  dauntless 
"  Hercules  of  the  middle  ages,"  was  not  the  man  to  quail  be- 
fore tyranny  seated  in  high  places,  though  the  latter  was 
armed  with  suflScient  physical  power  to  crush  him  at  once  to 
the  earth.  Let  us  again  hear  Matthew  of  Tyre,  in  reference 
to  the  bold  attitude  of  the  pontiff: 

"Considering  that  this  conduct  was  opposed  to  all  justice,  and  that  by  it 
all  ecclesiastical  rights  were  trampled  under  foot,  he  admonished  the  same 
emperor  once  and  again,  even  to  the  third  time,  that  he  would  desist  from  so 
detestable  a  presumption ;  and  when,  after  having  thus  sought  to  warn  him 
with  salutary  counsel,  he  could  not  recall  him  to  the  path  of  duty,  he  bound 
him  in  the  bonds  of  an  excommunication."* 

*  Contra  omnem  fieri  honestatem  considerans,  et  jura  in  eo  facto  concul- 
cari  ecclesiastica  perpendens,  semel  et  tertio  eundem  imperatorem  commonuit 
ot  a  tarn  detcstabilidesistcretpraesuraptione,  quern  prgeceptis  salutaribus  com* 
monitum,   cum  revocare  non  posset,  vinculo  anathematis  innodavit.     Ibid. 


CONTROVERSY    SETTLED ITS    GERMS    REMAIN.  35 

The  intrepid  pontiff  did  not  stop  with  the  mere  excommuni- 
cation of  the  emperor :  he  fulminated  the  sentence  of  depriva- 
tion against  all  bishops  and  abbots  who  would  dare  receive 
their  office  "  from  the  hands  of  a  layman ;"  and  he  further 
declared  that  "  such  an  intruder  should  by  no  means  be  reck- 
oned among  bishops  and  abbots,  and  that  no  audience  should 
be  granted  to  him  in  the  capacity  of  bishop  or  abbot."  "More- 
over," he  added,  "  we  interdict  to  him  the  grace  of  St.  Peter, 
and  the  entrance  into  the  Church,  until  such  time  as  he  will 
freely  resign  the  place,  which,  through  ambition  and  disobe- 
dience— which  is  the  crime  of  idolatry — he  has  usurped.  .  .  . 
Moreover,  if  any  one  of  the  emperors,  dukes,  marquisses,  or 
counts  shall  presume  to  grant  Investiture  of  a  bishopric  or 
any  other  ecclesiastical  dignity,  let  him  know  that  he  is  bound 
under  the  same  bonds  of  excommunication."* 

This  sentence  was  confirmed  in  the  fifth  and  seventh  of  the 
Roman  councils  held  under  Gregory  VII.,  and  likewise  in  the 
Council  of  Benevento,  held  in  1087.  In  the  great  Council  of 
Clermont,  convened  by  Pope  Urban  11.  in  1096,  to  organize 
the  first  crusade,  it  was  again  confirmed,  and  solemnly  pro- 
mulgated to  all  Christendom. 

It  is  true,  that  while  greatly  harassed  and  under  duress, 
Pope  Paschal  11.  allowed  to  Henry  V.,  the  successor  of  Henry 
IV.,  the  privilege  of  investing  the  new  incumbent  with  ring 
and  crozier,  provided  full  liberty  of  election  had  been  pre- 
viously secured,  and  all  abuses  eliminated;  but  this  indul- 
gence was  greatly  abused  by  the  emperor,  who  took  occasion 
from  it  to  thrust   his   own  creatures  into  the  vacant  sees; 


*  Insuper  ei  gratiam  Sancti  Petri  et  introitum  ecclesiae   interdicimus, 
quoad  usque  locum  quern  sub  crimine  tam  ambitionis  quam  inobedientiae 

quod  esl  scelus  idolatrige  coepit,  deseraerit Item  si  quis  Imperatorum, 

Ducum,  Marchionum,  Comitum  Investituram  episcopatus  vel  alicujus  Eccle- 
siae  dignitatis  dare  proesumpserit,  ejusdcm  sententiae  vinculo  se  adstrictum 
sciat.  (Hugo,  Laviniacensis  Abbas,  in  Chronico  Verdun,  apud  Novam  Bib- 
lioth,  Labboei,  Tom.  I.  Cf.  Palma,  ibid.) 


36  EUROPE    BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

and  in  consequence,  Paschal  revoked  his  decree  in  two  conn 
oils,  held  in  the  years  1112  and  1116.  The  whole  controversy 
was  finally  settled  in  1122,  in  the  Council  of  Worms,  in  which 
Pope  Calixtus  II.  and  the  Emperor  Henry  Y.  entered  into  a 
solemn  compact  or  Concordat — probably  the  first  Concordat 
of  ecclesiastical  history — in  which  the  emperor  wholly  gave 
up  the  claim  of  investing  with  ring  and  crozier,  and  prom- 
ised to  guaranty  full  liberty  of  election,  and  also  to  make 
restitution  of  the  church  revenues,  which  had  been  usurped ; 
and  on  the  other  side,  the  pontiff  permitted  the  election  to 
take  place  in  the  presence  of  the  emperor,  but  "without 
simony  or  any  violence;"  with  the  further  stipulation,  "that 
if  any  discord  should  arise  among  the  parties,  the  emperor 
should  give  his  assent  and  aid  to  the  sounder  party,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  counsel  and  judgment  of  the  metropolitan  and 
the  provincial  bishops ;  and  the  person  so  chosen  should  be 
invested  with  the  regalia  by  the  soeptreP* 

The  controversy  was  thus  indeed  settled,  but  its  roots  were 
not  wholly  removed.  These  continued  to  send  forth  their 
noxious  shoots  during  the  following  centuries,  down  to  the 
period  of  the  Reformation.  The  oft-reiterated  claim  of  the 
temporal  sovereigns,  to  interfere,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
with  the  election  to  the  bishoprics  and  higher  benefices,  and 
their  too-often  successful  attempts  to  thrust  unworthy  men 
into  the  high  places  of  the  Church,  was  the  monster  evil  of 
the  middle  ages.  It  was  the  fruitful  source  of  grievous  scan- 
dals and  abuses. — How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?     How  could  the 


*  Absque  siraonia  et  aliqua  violentia,  ut  si  qua  discordia  inter  partes  emer- 
serit,  metropolitani  et  provincialium  consilio  et  judicio  saniori  parti  assensum 
et  auxilium  proebeas.  Electus  autem  Regalia  per  sceptrum  a  te  recipiat, 
etc.     Apud  Palma,  ibid.  p.  139-40. 

By  the  Regalia  were  understood  the  feudal  rights  of  lordship  acquired  by 
being  properly  inducted  into  possession  of  the  domain  by  the  liege  lord. 
The  only  suitable  way  of  doing  this  was  considered  to  be  that  in  which 
the  sceptre  was  employed,  and  not  the  crozier  and  ring,  the  emblems  of  spirit- 
ual authority. 


MODERN   HISTORIC   JUSTICE.  37 

Church  be  free  from  scandals,  when,  in  spite  of  all  her  exer- 
tions and  protests,  in  spite  of  the  repeated  denunciations  uttered 
by  her  Popes  and  her  councils,  bad  men  were  thus  violently 
or  by  covert  intrigue,  thrust  upon  her,  to  administer  whole  dio- 
ceses or  provinces  of  her  spiritual  domain  ?  The  only  wonder  is, 
that  the  evil  was  not  even  greater  and  more  wide-spread  *.  and 
we  owe  it  to  the  zea'  and  energy  of  the  Popes  that  it  was  not 
so.  If  the  Church  was  saved  from  utter  ruin,  it  was,  human- 
ly-speaking, mainly  by  and  through  such  men  as  St.  Gregory 
VIL,  the  Alexanders,  and  the  Innocents,  who,  from  the  chair 
of  Peter  feared  not  boldly  to  hurl  their  anathemas  at  the 
heads  of  the  ruthless  tyrants,  who  sought  for  their  own  vile 
purposes,  to  degrade  and  enslave  her  ministers.  It  was  in  this 
noble  cause  of  the  independence  of  the  Church  against  the 
dangerous  encroachments  of  the  State,  that  the  lives  of  many 
among  these  men  of  God,  who  loved  God  and  feared  not  the 
face  of  kings,  were  spent  and  worn  away.  Tliis  was  the  true 
secret  of  many  of  their  protracted  struggles  with  the  German 
emperors.  As  the  candid  Protestant  biographer  of  St.  Greg- 
ory VII. — Voiglit  —  freely  admits,  "the  Holy  See  was  the 
only  tribunal  which  could  set  any  limits  to  imperial  despotism, 
as  a  second  defender  of  humanity."*  This  is,  in  fact,  the  key 
to  many  portions  of  mediaeval  history,  without  which  the 
secrets  of  its  real  spirit  cannot  be  unlocked,  nor  its  leading 
facts  be  properly  understood  or  fully  appreciated. 

The  controversy  on  Investitures  was  a  contest  between 
moral  principle  and  brute  force, — between  reason  and  passion, 
• — between  morals  and  licentiousness, — between  religion  and 
incipient  infidelity.  Though  sometimes  seemingly  overcome  by 
the  fierce  storms  raised  against  them,  the  Popes  were  really 
the  conquerors  in  the  end,  even  in  the  midst  of  their  apparent 
defeat.  Gregory  VII.  was  driven  from  Rome  by  the  forces 
of  Henry  IV.,  and  he  died  an  exile  at  Salerno,  in  Southern 
Italy;    but   the  victory   of  principle   and   virtue   had   been 

*  Hist.  Greg.  VII.,  II.  98  ;  Abbe  Jager's  translation. 
3 


38  i:UROPE   BEIORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

already  won.  his  noble  soul  was  wholly  unsubdued,  and  on 
his  tomb  might  have  been  inscribed  the  epitaph  which  subse- 
quently marked  that  of  the  heroic  general  of  the  Knights  of 
Rhodes :  Fortun.e  Victrix  Virtus — Virtue  the  Conqueror 
OF  Fortune.  He  bequeathed  to  his  age  aid  to  his  successors 
in  the  Papacy  a  legacy  of  countless  price,  in  the  noble  prin- 
ciple which  had  moulded  his  whole  character  and  governed 
all  his  actions :  that  "  it  is  better  to  be  r'^jlit^  than  to  gain  the 
whole  world."  Gregory  embodied  this  principle  in  the  follow- 
ing passage  contained  in  one  of  his  epistles,  which  deserves 
to  be  written  in  letters  of  gold :  "  I  would  rather  undergo 
death  f>r  your  salvation,  than  obtain  the  who'e  word  to 
your  spiritual  ruin.  For  I  fear  God,  and  therefore  value  but 
little  the  pride  and  pleasures  of  the  world,"* 

Now  mark  the  justice  of  modern  history.  In  any  event 
or  emergency,  the  Popes  are  sure  to  be  blamed.  If  they 
oppose  a  German  emperor,  it  is  nothing  but  ambition  which 
prompts  their  action.  If  they  strive  earnestly  against  the 
intrusion  into  episcopal  sees  of  unworthy  men,  it  is  all  through 
sinister  motives,  and  that  they  may  extend  the  circle  of  their 
own  power.  If  the  men  thus  intruded,  in  spite  of  their 
sternest  opposition,  should  give  public  scandal,  still  the 
Church  and  the  Popes  are  in  the  wrong. — Why  did  not 
the  Popes  prevent  it?  Why  did  they  allow  scandals  so 
enormous  in  the  high  places  of  the  Church?  In  all  these 
struggles,  the  Pope  would  seem  to  be  never  right,  and  the 
emperor  never  wrong;  or  if  the  case  be  so  glaring  that  no 
sophistry  can  resist  or  even  dim  the  evidence,  then  the  Pope 
is  condemned  with  faint  praise,  and  the  emperor  is  abs)lved 
with  faint  censure.  Such  is,  in  general,  the  spirit,  and  such 
the  fairness  of  what,  in  modern  times,  is  called  history. 
Tliere  are  some  honorable  exceptions,  indeed,  but  they  ratLer 
confirm  than  weaken  the  rule.  A  few  Protestant  histori.'uis 
have  the  boldness  to  tell  the  truth  without  extenuatior;  or 


*  Epistolae,  VI.  T.     Apud    ^^)ist,  ut  sup. 


GROV/TH    OF    MAMMONISM.  39 

partiality,  wliile  a  far  greater  number  tell  it,  if  at  all,  timidly 
and  by  halves,  mixing  up  much  chaff  of  misrepresentation 
with  a  few  grains  of  truth. 

Roscoe  may  be  said,  perhaps,  to  belong  rather  to  the  formei 
than  to  the  latter  class.  He  admits,  what  every  one  at  all 
acquainted  with  history  knows  to  be  the  fiict,  that  "  the  Popes 
may,  in  general,  be  considered  as  superior  to  the  age  in  which 
they  lived."*  An  American  Protestant  writer  bears  the 
following  honorable  testimony  to  the  civilizing  influence  of 
t  '.  (  hurch  in  the  middle  ages."t 

"  Though  seemingly  enslaved,  the  Church  was  in  reality  the  life  of  Europe. 
She  was  the  refuge  of  the  distressed,  the  friend  of  the  slave,  the  helper  of 
the  injured,  the  only  hope  of  learning.  To  her,  chivalry  owed  its  noble 
aspirations ;  to  her,  art  and  agriculture  looked  for  every  improvement.  The 
ruler  from  her  learned  some  rude  justice ;  the  ruled  learned  faith  and  obedi- 
ence. Let  us  not  cling  to  the  superstition,  which  teaches  that  the  Church 
has  always  upheld  the  cause  of  tyrants.  Through  the  middle  ages  she  was 
the  only  friend  and  advocate  of  the  people,  and  of  the  rights  of  man.  To 
her  influence  was  it  owing  that,  through  all  that  strange  era,  the  slav  -s  of 
Europe  were  better  protected  by  law  than  are  now  the  free  blacks  of  the 
United  States  by  the  national  statutes." 

As  time  rolled  on,  and  European  society  was  gradually 
moulded  into  form  and  became  consolidated,  the  dangers 
which  threatened  the  Church,  instead  of  diminishing,  seemed 
rather  to  increase.  In  proportion  as  men  became  richer  and 
more  attached  to  the  world,  the  brightness  of  the  faith  was 
dimmed  in  their  hearts,  and  the  temporal  gained  the  ascend- 
ant over  the  eternal.  What  chiefly  distinguished  the  earlier 
portion  of  the  middle  ages,  down  to  the  close  of  the  Crusades 
at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  was  the  embodiment  into 
the  minds,  hearts,  and  actions  of  the  people,  of  the  great 
truth,  that  the  interests  of  eternity  are  paramount,  and  that 
those  of  time  are  as  nothing  in  comparison  therewith.  That 
was  the  golden  age  of  chivalry  and  the  crusades,  of  noble 


*  Life  of  Leo  X.,  L  53.,  quoted  by  Fredet.    Modern  History, 
f  In  the  North  American  Review  for  July,  1845. 


40  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

impulses  and  disinterested  deeds.  It  was  followed  by  the 
age  of  mammonism,  in  which  money  and  what  money  can 
procure  were  so  highly  prized  as  often  to  be  preferred  to  all 
things  else.  And  this  spirit  has  gone  on  steadily  increasing, 
even  unto  the  present  enlightened  age.  Beginning  with  the 
fourteenth  century,  we  may  trace  its  gradual  development  in 
each  successive  age  down  to  our  own,  in  which  material 
interests  threaten  to  absorb  all  others,  and  to  swallow  up 
every  thing  heavenly. 

A  brilliant  writer  in  the  Dublin  Review  thinks  that,  in 
certain  respects,  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  were 
pre-eminently  the  ages  of  darkness.     He  says : 

"  Of  course,  if  darkness  is  synonymous  with  ignorance,  the  ninth  and 
tenth  may  fairly  lay  claim  to  the  title ;  but  if  we  take  into  the  account  what 
may  be  called  the  moral  effects  of  darkness,  namely  confusion,  perplexity, 
and  dismay,  the  two  centuries  which  immediately  preceded  the  Eeformation 
may  well  rival,  if  not  outdo  their  predecessors.  The  night  of  the  tenth 
century  was  one  which  came  in  its  right  place,  and  gave  promise  of  the 
dawn.  But  the  epoch  of  which  we  speak  was  an  eclipse,  a  very  Egyptian 
darkness,  worse  than  Chaos  or  Erebus,  black  as  the  thick  preternatural  night 
under  cover  of  which  our  Lord  was  crucified.  All  at  once,  when  the 
media3val  glory  of  the  Church  was  at  its  zenith,  a  century  opens  with  the 
audacious  seizure  of  Boniface  VIII.  at  Anagni,  and  closes  with  the  great 
Schism 

"  Evidently  the  middle  ages  are  gone  or  going.  Cathedrals  were  still  built, 
and  Gregorian  chants  were  sung.  We  are  now  in  the  very  zenith  of  Gothic 
architecture  and  of  Gothic  music,  but  the  real  glory  of  mediaeval  times  is 
gone.  That  which  constituted  their  real  chai-acteristic,  that  which  separates 
them  off  from  modern  times  was  not  the  outward  form,  but  the  inward 
spirit.  Every  breast  in  that  rude  feudal  hierarchy,  from  the  king  and  noble 
down  to  the  franklin  and  the  serf,  was  animated  with  the  persuasion  that 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ  was  supreme  over  every  thing  earthly.  This  was 
the  public  opinion  of  the  time,  the  spirit  of  the  age.  But  it  was  fast  passing 
ftway,  and  the  Church  had  now  to  rule  as  best  she  might  over  disaffected 
and  disloyal  subjects,  who  watched  her  every  step  with  jealousy  and  dis- 
trust  

"Can  any  thing  further  be  needed  to  prove  that  the  fourteenth  century 
was  a  time  of  foarftil  unsettloment  ?  The  old  landmarks  were  being  re- 
moved.    Poor   humanity  was  losing  its  simple  faith  in  the  eternal  lights 


BONIFACE    VIII.    AND    PHILIP   THE    FAIR.  41 

which  had  hitherto  guided  it  for  manj^  hundred  years.  It  had  embarked 
on  a  wide,  ilhmitable  ocean,  and  was  beating  about  with  an  infinite  void 
before  it,  and  no  star  to  guide  its  way."* 

In  a  .1  this  there  is,  no  doubt,  considerable  rhetorical  flourish 
and  no  little  exaggeration,  but  there  is,  withal,  much  of  his- 
toric truth.  It  is  certain,  that  the  spirit  of  the  Catholic 
middle  ages  underwent  a  great  and  most  important  change  in 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centunes;  that  this  period  of 
transition  was  attended  with  much  unsettledness  of  the  popu- 
lar mind,  and  with  many  storms  of  popular  passion ;  and  that 
the  result  of  all  this  ferment  was  to  pave  the  way  for  the 
event  called  the  Reformation ; — which,  in  fact^  was  not  a 
reformation  but  a  revolution.  This  was  truly  "a  strange 
period  and  fruitful  in  storms;"  "an  unfortunate  period,  when 
a  spirit  of  boldness  and  violence  agitated  all  classes  of  society, 
and  produced  in  every  direction  sanguinary  disorders."!  We 
may  apply  to  it,  in  a  qualified  sense,  what  the  Roman  his- 
torian says  of  a  certain  disastrous  period  of  Roman  history : 
"  It  was  fertile  in  vicissitudes,  atrocious  in  wars,  discordant  in 
seditions,  fierce  even  in  peace."J 

The  Roman  pontiffs  had  now  to  contend,  not  with  the 
German  emperors  alone,  but  also  with  the  French  kings. 
Young,  ardent,  and  ambitious,  Philip  the  Fair  of  France,  a 
grandson  of  St.  Louis,  but  totally  unlike  his  sainted  ancestor, 
could  not  brook  the  just  rebuke  of  his  vices  and  tyranny 
administered  by  the  determined  pontifl:',  Boniface  YllL;  who, 
true  to  the  traditions  of  the  Papacy,  had  sought  in  vain  to 
mediate  between  him  and  the  kings  of  England  and  Aragon, 
with  whom  he  was  at  war ;  and  who  had  also  justly  repri- 

*  Dublin  Review  for  March,  1858,  Article, — The  German  Mystics  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century, — a  very  remarkable  production,  brilliant  and  pictur- 
esque, but  somewhat  exaggerated. 

f  The  Ref')rmers  before  the  Reformation,  by  Emile  be  Bonnechose,  1 
rol.  8vo.,  Harpers,  1844,  p.  37. 

I  Opimum  casibus,  atrox  proeliis,  discors  seditionitus,  ipsa  eliam  pace 
soew  m.     Tacitus,  Lib.  I.,  c.  2. 
VOL.   I. — 4 


42  EUROPi:    BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

manded  him  for  debasing  the  currency  of  France,  and  for 
overburdening  his  people  and  oppressing  the  Church  with 
exorbitant  taxation.  The  fiery  monarch  sent  his  emissaries 
to  Anagni,  where  the  Pope  was  then  residing;  and  these, 
true  to  the  spirit,  if  not  to  the  letter  of  their  instructions, 
heaped  insults  and  outrages  on  the  head  of  the  venerable 
Boniface,  and  one  of  them,  it  is  said,  went  so  far  as  to  add 
blows  to  insults.  The  aged  pontiff,  venerable  no  less  for  his 
learning  and  ability  than  for  his  virtues,  sank  under  the  cruel 
treatment  thus  inflicted  on  virtue  by  brute  force,  and  he  died 
soon  afterward.*  His  sainted  successor,  the  blessed  Benedict 
XL,  while  preparing  a  bull  of  excommunication  against  the 
royal  assassin,  perished  himself,  probably  fnjrn  the  effects  of 
poison. f  His  second  successor,  Clement  V.,  was  a  French- 
man, and  he  took  up  his  abode  at  Avignon,  in  France ;  where 
he  and  his  successors  remained  for  about  seventy  years — 
until  1378. 

Meantime,  while  the  Popes  resided  at  Avignon,  Italy  was 
in  a  ferment.  The  factions  of  the  Guelphs  and  the  Gliibellines 
were  raging  against  each  other  with  redoubled  ferocity,  and 

*  Baron  Macaulay,  a  prejudiced  and  therefore  unexceptional)le  vvitness, 
writes  as  follows  in  regard  to  Boniface  VIII.  and  Philip  the  Fair :  "But  some- 
thing must  be  attributed  to  the  character  and  situation  of  individuals.  The 
man  who  bore  the  chief  part  in  effecting  this  revolution  was  Philip  the  IV. 
of  France,  surnamed  the  Beautiful  —  a  despot  by  position,  a  despot  by 
temperament,  stern,  implacable,  and  unscrupulous,  equally  prepared  for 
violence  and  for  chicanery,  and  surrounded  by  a  devoted  band  of  men  of 
the  sword  and  of  men  of  law.  The  fiercest  and  most  high-minded  of  the 
Roman  [)ontifF-4,  while  bestowing  kingdoms,  and  citing  great  princes  to  his 
judgment-seat,  was  seized  in  his  palace  by  armed  men,  and  so  foully  out- 
raged that  he  died  mad  with  rage  and  terror.  'Thus,'  sang  the  great 
Florentine  poet,  'was  Christ  in  the  person  of  his  vicar,  a  second  time  seized 
by  ruffims,  a  second  time  mocked,  a  second  time  drenched  with  the  vinegar 
and  the  gall.'  The  seat  of  the  Papal  court  was  carried  beyond  the  Al;)s, 
and  the  bishops  of  Rome  became  dependents  of  France.  Then  came  the 
jrreat  Schism  of  the  West." — Miscellanies,  American  Edit.,  p.  404. 

f  Sc  thinks  the  writer  in  the  Dublin  Review,  sup.  cit. 


FACTION    AND    HERESY NEW    MANICHEANS.  43 

were  making  that  beautiful  land  a  fearful  scene  of  chaos 
and  bloodshed.  The  Ghibelline  chiefs — the  Villanis,  the 
Castruccis  and  others — seized  upon  and  ruled  with  a  rod  of 
iron  Milan  and  the  other  chief  cities  of  the  North ;  while  the 
central  Italian  cities  were  filled  with  anarchy  and  bloody 
feuds  by  the  rival  factions  struggling  for  and  alternately  ob- 
taining the  mastery.  The  ferocious  struggle  was  relieved  b); 
the  brilliant,  but  brief  and  evanescent  attempt  of  "  the  Last 
of  the  Tribunes" — Rienzi — to  rear  the  banner  of  popular  fi  ee- 
dom  in  the  ancient  city  of  the  Csesars. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  confusion,  a  new  actor  appears  upon 
the  agitated  and  bloody  arena.  The  Popes  at  Avignon  are 
called  upon  to  contend,  not  merely  with  the  hydra  of  faction 
in  Italy,  but  with  the  hosts  of  the  weak  and  unprincipled 
Louis  of  Bavaria,  whom  the  German  diet  had  elected  emperor. 
Reading  his  character  aright — as  the  event  proved — Pope  John 
XXIL,  availed  himself  of  his  time-honored  right  as  the  pro- 
tector of  the  "Holy  Roman  Empire,"  and  refused  to  confirm 
the  election.  Thus  the  Papacy  had  scarcely  emerged  from 
the  fiery  contest  with  the  French  monarch,  before  it  was 
hurried  into  another,  if  possible,  even  more  bitter  and  pro- 
tracted struggle  with  its  hereditary  adversary,  the  German 
emperor.  Whether  this  contest  was  politic  or  not,  or  whethei 
it  could  have  been  avoided  without  sacrificing  principle,  and 
especially  without  sacrificing  the  interests  of  Italy  over  which 
the  Popes  felt  it  a  sacred  duty  to  watch,  we  are  scarcely  able 
at  this  distance  of  time  to  determine.  Certain  it  is,  that  the 
newly  elected  emperor,  true  to  the  policy  of  his  predecessors, 
sought  to  subvert  Italian  independence,  and  that  the  leaders 
of  the  Ghibelline  faction,  which  had  always  been  the  most 
deadly  foe  of  Italian  peace  and  liberty,  openly  took  sides  with 
him  in  the  contest. 

The  pontiflP  having  refused  to  crown  Louis,  the  latter  set 
up  an  anti-pope  to  perform  this  ceremony,  which  was  still 
deemed  essential.  He  marched  his  army  into  Italy,  where  the 
blood  stained  Ghibelline  leaders  gave  him  a  hearty  welcome 


44  EUROPK   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

Whithersoever  he  went,  his  court  and  camp  became  the 
focus  in  which  were  concentrated  all  the  elements  of  disaffec- 
tion, discord,  and  heresy,  which  were  then  floating  over  the> 
surface  of  European  society. 

"  The  intellect  of  Italy  lent  its  aid  to  the  sword  of  Germany.  Heretical 
canonists  and  apostate  monks  met  Louis  on  his  way.  Marsilius  of  Padua 
broached  theories  such  as  those  which  afterward  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  and  James  I.  Opinions,  which  hitherto  had  only  scandal- 
ized and  agitated  the  schools  and  universities,  were  now  backed  by  the 
swords  of  German  troopers.  Jansenist  war-cries  and  appeals  to  future 
councils,  were  anticipated  in  the  camp,  where  Bavarian  cavalry  mingled 
with  the  men-at-arms  of  Milan  and  Lucca.  Excommunicated  bishops 
placed  on  the  head  of  Louis  the  iron  crown  of  Lombardy  in  the  basilica  of 
St.  Ambrose ;  and  in  a  few  months,  the  whole  mingled  mass,  made  up  of 
rival  ambitions  for  the  moment  reconciled,  national  jealousies  of  long  stand- 
ing laid  aside,  and  all  sorts  of  discordant  elements  welded  together  by  one 
common  hatred  of  the  Church,  rolled  on  toward  Rome."* 

The  prestige  which  surrounded  a  German  emperor,  who 
thus,  in  spite  of  the  Pope,  seized  on  the  crown  of  Italy, 
flaunted  his  victorious  banner  in  the  face  of  the  Papacy,  and 
marched  triumphant  to  the  eternal  city,  brought  to  a  head  the 
mischievous  factions  and  wild  heresies  which  had  hitherto, 
for  more  than  a  century,  remained  scattered,  but  had  lain  in 
a  great  measure  hidden,  over  the  different  countries  of  Europe. 
The  boiling  cauldron  of  civil  commotion  and  revolution  al- 
ways brings  the  dross  and  the  scum  to  the  surface  of  society. 
The  remnants  of  the  old  Manichean  heretics,  whose  ranks  had 
been  broken  and  scattered  by  the  crusade  against  the  Albi- 
genses,  nearly  two  centuries  before,  now  came  forth  from  their 
lurking  places,  openly  preached  their  abominable  doctrines, 
and  unblushingly  indulged  in  their  licentious  practices.  They 
assumed  different  names  in  different  places,  but  they  were  all 
marked  with  the  general  characteristics  of  that  semi-pagan 
and  ruinous  heresy,  which  Manes  had  attempted  to  graft  on 
the  Christian  system,  as  early  as  the  third  century.     This  de- 

*  Dublin  Review,  Ibid. 


THE   FLAGELLANTS THE   GREAT    SCHISM.  45 

testable  heresy  liad  infested  different  parts  of  Europe  ever 
since  the  ninth  century,  traveling  generally  from  East  to  West. 
Beguards,  Paterins,  Cathari,  Fratricelli,  Brethren  of  the  Free 
Spirit,  obscure  and  obscene  Mystics  of  every  hue  and  shade 
— from  the  openly  obscene  Fratricelli,  to  the  more  demure  and 
decorous  Waldenses — all  were  off-shoots  from  that  impure 
root  of  Manicheism,  which  had  produced  the  licentious  and 
bloody  Albigenses  of  the  twelfth  century. 

These  restless  sectaries  overran  a  great  portion  of  Europe 
in  the  fourteenth  century.  Along  the  banks  of  the  Rhine, 
and  in  the  interior  cities  of  Germany  and  France,  as  well  as 
in  Northern  Italy,  marching  in  the  train  of  the  camp  of  Louis 
of  Bavaria,  they  preached  their  wicked  doctrines,  and  prac- 
ticed their  wild  or  obscene  fanaticism.  They  everywhere 
agitated  the  popular  mind,  and  made  it  ripe  for  innovation. 
There  was  danger  that,  amidst  the  fearful  commotions  of  the 
time,  wild  fanaticism  would  take  the  place  of  sober  faith,  dan- 
gerous mysticism,  that  of  calm  and  enlightened  piety.  Says 
the  writer,  whom  we  have  already  quoted  more  than  once : 

"After  all  this,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  among  the  Brethren  of  the 
Free  Spirit,  as  they  called  themselves,  still  darker  and  more  shameful  errors ; 
and  when  the  Black  Death  came  down  with  all  its  horrors  upon  a  popula- 
tion already  half-crazed  with  fanaticism,  and  thrown  off  their  balance  by  the 
dissensions  which  raged  between  the  Church  and  State,  then  the  wild  wail 
of  the  Flagellants  was  heard  over  all  the  hubbub  of  sounds  which  mingled 
with  the  rushing  waters  of  the  Rhine.  From  all  the  villages  around,  and 
from  scattered  homes  in  sequestered  valleys,  thousands  of  men  and  women 
came  in  long  procession  through  the  streets  of  Strasburg  and  Cologne ;  friars 
and  priests  forgot  their  dignity  to  join  in  the  motley  crowd  under  the  com- 
mand of  the  layman  who  marshaled  the  array,  while  sober  citizens,  with 
their  wives  and  daughters,  laid  aside  their  costly  robes,  to  bare  their  shoulders 
to  the  scourge,  and  chimed  in  with  the  melancholy  chant  which  called  on  all 
to  mingle  their  blood  with  that  of  Jesus,  to  obtain  mercy  of  God."* 

It  is  almost  needless  to  say,  that  all  these  ebullitions  of  fanati- 
cism were  almost  as  transitory  as  they  were  violent.     Even  that 


*  Dublin  Eeview,  Ibid. 


46  liUIlOPE   BEFORE   THE    REFOll.MATlON. 

of  the  Flagellants,  the  most  excusable  of  them  all,  as  mingling 
with  extravagance  a  deep  faith  in  the  necessity  of  uniting 
t)ui-  personal  sufferings  with  the  atoning  blood  of  Christ,  for 
the  expiation  of  our  sins,  was  openly  condemned  by  the 
Church,  on  account  of  its  dangerous  tendency.  The  Popes 
and  the  bishops  everywhere  set  the  seal  of  their  condemna- 
tion on  the  doctrines  and  practices  of  the  more  dangerous 
fanatics;  while  the  persuasive  eloquence  of  the  gentle  Tauler, 
and  the  pathetic  appeals  of  the  blessed  Henry  de  Suso,  grad- 
ually calmed  down  the  extravagant  enthusiasm  or  fanaticism 
of  the  German  Mystics  along  the  banks  of  the  Rhine.  The 
fearful  storm  passed  away  almost  as  rapidly  as  it  had  gathered, 
and  the  Catholic  atmosphere  was  again  comparatively  calm, 
if  not  unclouded.  This  danger  had  passed  like  a  thousand 
others  before,  and  the  Church  still  stood  in  unimpaired  vigor. 
Next  came  the  Great  Schism  of  the  West,  which  lasted  for 
nearly  forty  years,  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  and  the  beginning 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  was  occasioned  by  the  return  of 
the  Popes  from  Avignon  to  Rome  in  1378,  and  it  was  perpet- 
uated by  the  French  cardinals,  who  were  encouraged  by  the 
French  court.  As  we  have'  elsewhere  spoken  somewhat  at 
.cngth  upon  this  deplorable  epoch  in  Church  History,*  we 
shall  not  here  dwell  upon  it,  further  than  to  remark  on  its  in 
lluence  on  the  minds  of  men  in  preparing  them  for  the  startling 
revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century.f 

*  In  the  paper  on  the  Great  Schism,  in  the  Miscellanea,  p.  169,  seq. 

f  Miicaulay  speaks  as  follows  of  the  manner  in  which  the  imminent  dan 
ger  threatened  by  the  Great  Schism  was  averted : 

"The  Church,  torn  by  schism,  and  fiercely  assailed  at  once  in  England 
and  the  German  empire,  was  in  a  situation  scarcely  less  perilous  than  at  the 
crisis  which  preceded  the  Albigensian  crusade.  But  this  danger  also  passed 
by.  The  civil  power  gave  its  strenuous  support  to  the  Church,  and  the 
Church  made  some  .show  of  reforming  itself.  The  Council  of  (Constance 
put  an  end  to  the  .schism.  The  whole  Catholic  world  was  again  united 
mider  a  single  chief,  and  rules  were  laid  down  which  seemed  to  make  it  im- 
probable that  the  power  of  that  chief  would  be  grossly  abused." — MiscelL 
snip.  cit.  p.  405 


THE   PAPACY    UNSCATHED.  47 

Tliere  is  but  little  doubt  that  the  evils  and  abuses  which  then 
afflicted  the  Church  were  even  greater  and  more  deplorable 
than  they  became  a  century  later,  at  the  era  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. The  minds  of  men  were  then,  if  possible,  even  more  un- 
settled, in  consequence  of  the  long-standing  scandal  of  rival 
claimants  to  the  Papacy  contending  for  the  tiara  in  the  face 
of  a  shocked  and  startled  Christendom.  Yet  in  neither  of  the 
rival  obediences^  did  Catholic  faith  waver  for  a  moment.  The 
Papacy  passed  through  this  fiery  ordeal  unscathed,  and  it 
emerged  from  it,  shorn  somewhat,  indeed,  of  its  temporal  con- 
sequence, but  still  as  vigorous  as  ever  in  its  divine  strength. 
Nay,  more  so;  for  it  was  now  thrown  upon  its  own  innate 
and  inherent  spirituality,  in  which  lay  the  real  source  of  its 
power,  and  the  true  secret  of  its  divine  vitality. 

Tlie  human  element  of  the  Papacy  was  useful  in  its  day ;  it 
was  even  necessary  for  the  saving  of  society  from  barbarism 
and  anarchy.  But  new  social  and  political  organizations  had 
arisen  under  its  fostering  auspices,  and  its  day  for  mingling 
actively  in  political  events  was  already  passed,  or  was  fast 
passing  away.  Catholics  have,  in  all  ages,  accurately  distin- 
guished between  the  accidental  appendages  of  the  Papacy, 
and  its  inherent  divine  character.  Even  in  the  hight  of  the 
Great  Schism,  not  a  Catholic  voice  was  raised  against  the  Pa- 
pacy itself — against  its  divine  institution  and  vital  necessity 
for  the  Church.  The  only  controversy  was  a  merely  personal 
one :  which  of  the  rival  claimants  was  fairly  entitled  to  the 
place,  or  which  was  the  true  and  lineal  successor  of  St.  Peter. 
Thus,  in  later  days,  our  present  illustrious  pontiii'  was,  to  the 
full,  as  much  respected  and  as  reverently  obeyed  while  an 
exile  at  Gaeta,  as  when  seated  in  the  Vatican. 

Though  there  were  crying  abuses  during  the  continuance 
of  the  Schism  and  at  its  close,  and  though  the  good  and  great 
of  the  Church  cried  out  "  for  a  reformation  in  the  head  and 
m  the  members,"  yet  no  one  then  appears  even  to  have 
thought  of  attempting  this  ref(»rmation  by  a  revolution  out- 
tide  the  Church,  instead  of  a  reformation  within.     Sensible 


48  EUROPE    BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

and  considerate  men  knew  full  well,  that  the  former  was  tlie 
part  of  true  wisdom,  while  the  latter  would  be  sheer  madness, 
aggravating  a  hundred-fold  the  evil  it  was  intended  to  heal. 
A  sick  man  is  not  to  be  cured  by  abandoning  him  to  his  fate, 
with  taunts  and  denunciation  at  his  wickedness  for  being  sick, 
but  by  remaining  patiently  with  him,  studying  his  symptoms, 
and  applying  the  necessary  remedies.  "  A  sore  throat  may  be 
healed  by  proper  remedies,  one  that  is  cut,  never,"  as  an  old 
writer  quaintly  remarks.  The  Church  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, with  the  proceedings  of  the  reforming  Council  of  Con- 
stance and  that  of  Basle, — even  after  the  latter  had  degener- 
ated into  a  schismatical  conventicle,  denouncing  the  Pope, 
and  impiously  setting  up  an  anti-pope — might  have  taught 
the  reformers  of  the  sixteenth  century  a  lesson  of  moderation  ; 
for  amidst  all  the  excitement  of  the  former,  and  with  all  the 
excesses  of  the  latter,  not  a  man  in  either  of  those  ecclesiasti- 
cal conventions  ever  entertained  a  serious  thought  of  severing 
the  unity  of  the  Church,  by  setting  up  a  ref armed  communion 
outside  its  pale.  The  schism  caused  by  the  conventicle  at 
Basle  was  based  on  no  doctrinal  difference,  and  it  was  soon 
healed  by  the  love  of  unity  which  was  re-awakened  in  the 
bosom  of  the  anti-pope  himself.  The  schism  of  the  sixteenth 
century  was  permanent,  and  it  was  based  on  doctrinal  issues 
all  wrong  in  themselves — as  their  transparent  contradictions 
and  perpetual  variations  abundantly  proved — but  what  is 
more  to  our  present  purpose,  all  the  more  glaringly  wrong, 
because  outside  of  unity,  and  under  the  ban  of  the  Church 
built  on  a  rock,  and  secured  from  falling  by  the  infallible 
promises  of  her  divine  Founder. 

Far  from  being  appalled  at  the  existence  of  abuses  and 
scandals  in  the  Church,  or  having  their  faith  thereby  weak- 
ened, enlightened  Catholics  expect  them  almost  as  a  matter 
of  course ;  considering  human  frailty,  and  the  fact  that  God 
has  made  man  a  free  agent,  and  will  not  infringe  his  liberty 
of  action.  The  grace  of  God  is  indeed  strong,  but  it  may  be, 
and  often  is,  resisted.     God  will  compel  no  one  either  to  ac- 


A   CATHOLIC    REFORMATION OVERCOMING    SCANDALS.        49 

cept  His  truth,  or  to  be  governed  by  His  commandments.  Hh 
will  compel  none  into  heaven  against  their  own  free  wiL  or 
without  their  own  co-operation.  Christ  foretold  that  scandals 
should  come,  and  we  naturally  look  for  them.  What  would 
have  been  thought  of  the  disciple  of  Christ  who  should  have 
abandoned  His  holy  standard,  and  set  up  one  in  opposition, 
because  of  the  scandal  resulting,  under  the  very  eyes  of  Christ 
himself,  from  the  treason  of  Judas?  Would  he  have  been 
viewed  as  a  sound  Protestant,  or  simply  as  an  unreasoning 
madman  ? 

To  our  minds,  one  of  the  most  persuasive,  if  not  strongest 
evidences  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  in  reality  the  Church 
of  Christ — "  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth" — is  precisely 
her  continued  triumph  over  accumulated  scandals  and  abuses, 
which  would  have  crushed  any  merely  human  institution. 
Had  not  the  Church  and  the  Papacy  been  divine  in  origin, 
and  divine  in  energy,  the  torrent  of  evils  which  overflowed 
society  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  would  have 
overwhelmed  the  former,  and  the  Great  Schism  would  have 
ruined  the  latter.  That,  under  such  circumstances,  with  the 
princes  of  the  world  so  often  arrayed  against  the  Church,  and 
the  masses  of  the  people  stirred  up  everywhere  by  the  storms 
of  fanaticism — with  almost  all  the  elements  of  society  seem- 
ingly ripe  for  revolt,  and  prepared  to  rush  in  determined 
unison  to  the  attack,  she  should  still  have  conquered,  and  not 
only  conquered,  but  become  even  stronger  after,  and  seeming- 
ly in  consequence  of  having  passed  through  disasters  which 
are  so  frightful  to  contemplate,  even  after  the  lapse  of  nearly 
•five  centuries ; — this  fact  is,  to  our  judgment,  one  of  the  most 
palpable  and  unanswerable  arguments  for  establishing  her 
superhuman  origin,  and  her  ever-enduring,  because  divine 
vitality.  If  the  world,  and  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  all  com- 
bined together,  could  have  conquered  her,  they  would  surely 
have  done  so  centuries  ago. 

In  fact,  the  wonderful  vitality  of  the  Church  was  nevei 
perhaps  more  strikingly  exhibited  than  it  wa?  precisely  at  the 

VOL.    I. — 5 


50  EUROPE    BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

close  of  the  Great  Schism,  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  fifteeniL 
century.  Then  she  put  down  the  mischievous  heresy  of  the 
Hussites,  after  having  in  the  previous  century  put  down  the 
kindred  or  rather  parent  heresy  of  the  Wickliffites  or  LolUirds 
in  England.  Her  triumph  in  the  fourteenth  century  over  the 
numerous  fanatical  sects,  to  which  we  have  already  alluded, 
though  truly  wonderful,  happening  as  it  did  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  Schism  or  immediately  before,  was  almost  as 
nothing  compared  with  her  triumph  over  the  truculent  Hussite 
system,  which,  if  successful,  would  have  destroyed  both 
society  and  religion  in  Europe,  and  throughout  the  world.* 
For  this  heresy  was  based  on  principles  which  were  utterly 
subversive  of  all  law  and  of  all  government;  on  principles 
which  were  not  a  mere  speculation  or  destined  to  remain  a 
dead  letter.  Tliis  is  apparent  from  the  civil  wars  which  the 
Hussites  stirred  up  throughout  Bohemia,  which  covered  that 
kingdom  with  ruins  and  stained  its  soil  with  the  blood  of  its 
citizens,  and  which  threatened  to  penetrate  through  Germany 
into  Western  Europe  and  to  make  the  whole  structure  of 
European  society  a  complete  wreck.  The  fierce  and  trucu- 
lent spirit  of  this  pestilent  heresy  is  embodied  in  the  fearful 
bequest  of  the  Hussite  leader,  Ziska,  who,  dying  amidst 
bloody  civil  wars  which  he  and  his  master  had  caused,  left 
his  skin  to  be  used  on  a  war  drum,  the  very  sound  of  which 
might  frighten  his  enemies !  f 

*  The  most  prominent  and  dangerous  principle  of  the  heresies  of  both 
Wickliffe  and  Huss  was  that  which  declared,  that  no  man  who  was  in  the 
state  of  mortal  sin  had  any  right  to  hold  office,  to  govern,  or  to  require  obedi- 
ence from  others,  whether  in  Church  or  State.  This  principle  plainly  opened 
the  door  to  anarchy,  both  civil  and  religious,  and  it  was  a  direct  encourage- 
ment and  provocative  to  rebellion  agtiinst  constituted  authority;  for  the 
rebel,  whether  in  Church  or  State,  had  but  to  imagine  and  denoimce  his 
rulers  as  sinners  before  God — a  very  easy  thing — and  then  his  reljellion  was 
fully  justified. 

f  We  have  elsewhere  treated  this  subject  at  some  length,  in  special  essays 
nn  Huss  and  the  Council  of  Constance.     (Miscellanea.)     We  think  that  the 


HOLINESS    OF   'AlE   CHURCH THE   MONASTERIES.  51 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  during  all  •  these  terrible 
struggles  with  the  powers  of  the  earth  and  the  hosts  of  dark- 
ness, and  all  these  lamentable  scandals,  the  sanctity  of  the 
Church  was  impaired.  Very  far  from  it.  On  the  contrary, 
perhaps  at  no  period  of  her  history,  before  or  since,  has  the 
holiness  of  the  Church  shone  forth  with  greater  lustre.  Those 
scandals  were  but  the  shadows  which  served  to  bring  out 
more  clearly  and  prominently  the  lights  in  the  picture  of  her 
sanctity.  Her  heavenly  splendor  gleamed  forth  the  more 
brilliantly,  precisely  in  consequence  of  the  surrounding  dark- 
ness. Wo  to  the  world,  had  that  light  been  extinguishf;d ! 
Mankind  would  have  been  left  in  utter  and  hopeless  darkness. 
During  the  very  worst  period  of  her  history,  while  bloody 
commotions  and  turbulent  heresy  were  threatening  her  from 
without,  and  protracted  schism  was  dividing  her  strength 
from  within,  she  manifested  an  energy  and  a  holiness  of  pur- 
pose, which  baffled  her  enemies,  encouraged  her  friends,  and 
proved  to  all  her  heavenly  origin  and  divine  power. 

Notwithstanding  scandals  and  defections  from  her  ranks, 
the  great  body  of  the  clergy  and  laity  remained  sound  and 
faithful,  even  during  the  worst  times.  The  Popes  were  far 
in  advance  of  their  age,  and  were,  in  general,  men  of  pure 
lives  and  upright  conduct  in  their  public  administration.  The 
liionasteries,  as  in  previous  ages,  continued  to  be  the  retreat 
of  learned  and  pious  men,  who,  after  having  become  thor- 
oughly imbued  with  the  spirit  of  God  in  holy  solitude  and 
contemplation,  went  forth  from  their  retreats  to  instruct  the 
people  and  to  scatter  among  them  that  heavenly  fire  which 


facts  therein  developed,  fully  reftite  the  usual  popular  charges  against  the 
Council  of  Constance  and  the  Catholic  Church,  and  prove  how  pernicious  and 
dangerous  were  the  maxims  promulgated  by  Huss,  and  sought  by  him  and 
his  disciples  to  be  established  by  force.  If  Huss  and  Wickliflfe  were  suitable 
forerunnei-s  of  the  German  reformers,  the  latter  certainly  do  not  borrow  any 
special  lustre  from  the  former.  As  we  shall  see,  both  sets  of  reformers  were 
animated  by  the  same  unscrupulous  and  truculent  spirit,  and  both  succeeded 
in  bringing  about  similar  commotions  in  society. 


52  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

was  burning  in  their  own  hearts.     As  the  candid  Protestant, 
Dr.  IMaitland,  well  remarks : 

•'  Monasteries  were  beyond  all  price  in  those  days  of  misrule  and  turbu 
lence,  as  places  where  (it  may  be  imperfectly,  but  better  than  elsewhere)  God 
was  worshiped ;  as  a  quiet  and  religious  refuge  for  helpless  infancy  and 
old  age,  a  shelter  of  respectful  sympathy  for  the  orphan  maiden  and  the 
desolate  widow ;  as  central  points  whence  agriculture  was  to  spread  over 
bleak  hills  and  barren  downs  and  marshy  plains,  and  deal  bread  to  mllions 
perishing  with  hunger  and  its  pestilential  train ;  as  repositories  of  the  learn- 
ing which  then  was,  and  well-springs  for  the  learning  which  was  to  be  ;  as 
nurseries  of  art  and  science,  giving  the  stimulus,  the  means,  and  the  reward 
to  invention,  and  aggregating  around  them  every  head  that  could  devise  and 
every  hand  that  could  execute ;  as  the  nucleus  of  the  city,  which,  in  after 
days  of  pride,  should  crown  its  palaces  and  bulwarks  with  the  crowning 
cross  of  its  cathedral.  This,  I  think,  no  man  can  deny.  I  believe  it  is  true, 
and  I  love  to  think  of  it.  I  hope  that  I  see  the  good  hand  of  God  in  it,  and 
the  visible  trace  of  His  mercy  that  is  above  all  His  works.  But  if  it  is  only 
a  dream,  however  grateful,  I  shall  be  glad  to  be  awakened  from  it ;  not 
indeed  by  the  j'elling  of  illiterate  agitators,  but  by  a  quiet  and  sober  proof 
that  I  have  misunderstood  the  matter.  In  the  meantime,  let  me  thankfully 
believe  that  thousands  of  persons  at  whom  Robertson  and  Jortin,  and  other 
such  very  miserable  second-hand  writers  have  sneered,  were  men  of  enlarged 
minds,  purified  affections,  and  holy  lives — that  they  were  justly  reverencea 
by  men — and  above  all,  favorably  accepted  by  God,  and  distinguished  bj"  the 
highest  honor  which  He  vouchsafes  to  those  whom  He  has  called  into 
existence,  that  of  being  the  channels  of  His  love  and  mercy  to  their  fellow- 
creatures."* 

In  the  learned  work  from  which  this  is  a  quotation,  Dr. 
Maitland,  original  documents  in  hand,  scatters  to  the  winds 
the  injurious  statements  made  by  Dr.  Robertson  in  his  View 
of  Europe  introductory  to  his  widely  circulated  and  much 
read  history  of  Charles  V.  He  convicts  the  Scotch  historian 
of  grevious  misstatement  at  almost  every  step.     He  shows 

*  The  Dark  Ages.  A  series  of  essays  intended  to  illustrate  the  state  of 
religion  and  literature  in  the  ninth,  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  centuries. 
By  the  Rev.  S.  R.  Maitland,  D.  D.,  F.  R.  S.,  and  F.  S.  A.,  sometime  librarian  to 
the  late  Archbishp  of  Canterbiuy,  and  keeper  of  the  MSS.  at  Lamlieth. 
Third  edition,  London,  1853.     Preflice,  iv,  v. 


UR.    MAITLAND    AND    DR.    ROBt:RT?ON.  5o 

also  how  Mosheim  and  McClaine,whom  Kobertson  calls  ''his 
learned  and  judicious  translator,"  were  also  guilty  of  frequent 
and  unpardonable  perversion  and  garbling  of  their  authori- 
ties, which  they  nevertheless  professed  to  quote  from  the 
original  sources.  The  refutation  is  ample  and  it  leaves  noth- 
ing to  be  desired,  so  far  as  it  goes.  Our  limits  will  not  per- 
mit us  to  enter  into  many  specifications ;  yet  we  can  not  help 
referring  to  his  well-merited  castigation  of  Roberston  in  refer- 
ence to  the  quotation  made  by  the  latter  from  the  well-known 
Homily  on  the  duty  of  a  Christian,  by  St.  Eligius  or  St.  Eloy, 
Bishop  of  Noyon,  in  France,  in  the  seventh  century.  This  is 
a  pretty  fair  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  "  such  miser- 
able second-hand  writers"  as  Robertson  and  his  numerous 
copyists,  are  wont  to  deal  with  the  facts  of  history,  whenever 
the  Catholic  Church  is  concerned. 

To  prove  his  reckless  assertion,  that  before  the  Reformation 
the  whole  duty  of  a  Christian  was  regarded  as  being  com- 
prised in  certain  merely  external  observances,  which  "were 
either  so  unmeaning  as  to  be  altogether  unworthy  of  the 
Being  to  whose  honor  they  were  consecrated,  or  so  observed  as 
to  be  a  disgrace  to  reason  and  humanity,"  Dr.  Robertson, 
following  Mosheim,  alleges  the  Homily  of  St.  Eligius.  He 
culls  here  and  there  from  the  homily  such  extracts  as  suit  his 
purpose,  wholly  omitting  others  in  the  context  itself  which 
would  have  clearly  proved  the  precise  contrary  of  his  propo- 
sition! Mosheim  had  given  the  original  extract  from  the 
homily,  with  marks  indicating  that  passages  had  been  omit- 
ted; while  in  the  version  as  given  by  Robertson  all  such 
indications  are  carefully  removed.  White,  in  the  Brampton 
Lectures  ascribed  to  him,  "  goes  a  step  further,  and  prints  the 
Latin  text  without  any  break  or  hint  of  omission ;"  while  a 
previous  writer — Jortin — had  indicated  in  his  translation  but 
one  out  of  at  least  seven  such  breaks  in  t]ie  text.  Now  what 
will  be  thought  of  Mosheim,  Robertson,  and  all  their  imita- 
tors, when  it  appears  from  the  original  homily  itself — a  large 
portion  of  which  is  translated  by  Dr.   Maitland — that  the 


54  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

holy  Bishop  spoke  in  it  of  almost  all  the  duties  of  man 
toward  God  and  his  neighbor,  of  the  solemn  promises  made 
by  every  Christian  at  his  baptism,  of  the  necessity  of  keep- 
ing the  commandments  of  God  and  of  the  Church,  in  order 
to  be  saved,  of  the  obligation  of  guarding  against  pride,  im- 
purity, and  the  other  deadly  sins;  and  in  general,  of  all 
those  things  which  the  most  enlightened  Christian  preacher 
of  the  present  day  would  consider  as  embi-aced  in  the  "  whole 
duty  of  a  Christian  ?"  Such  being  the  case,  what  judgment 
is  to  be  formed  of  the  miserable  partisans,  like  Mosheim  and 
his  copyists,  who,  pretending  to  write  h'tstory^  pick  out 
a  sentence  here  and  a  phrase  there  from  a  discourse,  tear 
them  rudely  from  their  connection,  omit  the  most  important 
parts,  and  then  wind  up  with  a  flourish,  that  they  have  con- 
victed the  mediaeval  preacher  of  confining  the  whole  duty 
of  a  Christian  tc  certain  merely  external  observances,  to  which 
he  had  only  incidentally  referred  in  his  homily?  As  Dr. 
Maitland  proves,  the  extract  furnished  does  not  embrace  more 
than  about  a  one-hundredth  part  of  the  homily,  and  it  does  not 
present  two  consecutive  passages  together. 

To  show  that  we  do  not  exaggerate,  we  will  present  a  some- 
what copious  extract  from  the  homily  itself,  which  will  serve 
the  double  purpose  of  convicting  Dr.  Robertson,  Mosheim, 
Jortin,  and  many  other  Protestant  writers,  of  the  most  griev- 
ous misrepresentation,  and  of  showing  in  what  the  "whole 
duty  of  a  Christian"  was  deemed  to  consist  in  the  middle 
ages.  The  garbled  extracts  of  Dr.  Robertson  are  printed  in 
italics. 

"  It  is  not  enough,  most  dearly  beloved,  for  you  to  have  received  the  name 
of  Christians,  if  you  do  not  do  Christian  works.  To  be  called  a  Christian 
profits  him  who  always  retains  in  his  mind,  and  fulfills  in  his  action.s,  the 
commands  of  Christ;  that  is,  who  does  not  commit  theft,  does  not  bear  false 
witness,  who  neither  tells  lies  nor  swears  falsely,  who  does  not  commit  adul- 
tery, who  does  not  hate  any  body,  but  loves  all  men  as  himself,  who  does 
not  render  evil  to  his  enemies,  but  i-ather  prays  for  them,  who  does  not  stir 
VL\)  strife  but  restores  peace  between  those  who  are  at  variance.  For  these 
precepts  Christ  ha.s  deigned  to  give  by  his  own  mouth  in  the  gospel,  saying 


HOMILY  OF    ST.  ELIGIUS.  55 

'Thou  shalt  do  no  murder,  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,  Thou  sh.alt 
not  steal.  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness,  Thou  shalt  not  swear  folsely, 
nor  commit  fraud ;  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother :  and,  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself.'  (Matt.  xix.  18,  19.)  And  also,  'AH  things  what- 
soever ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them  :  for  this  i.s 
the  law  and  the  prophets.'  (Matt.  vii.  12.) 

"And  he  has  given  )^et  greater,  but  very  strong  and  fruitftil  (valde  fortia 
atque  fructifera)  commands,  saying,  '  Love  your  enemies,  do  good  to  them 
that  hate  you,'  and  'pray  for  them  which  despitefuUy  use  you  and  persecute 
you.'  (Matt.  v.  44.)  Behold,  this  is  a  strong  commandment,  and  to  men  it 
seems  a  hard  one ;  but  it  has  a  great  reward ;  hear  what  it  is — '  That  ye  may 
be,'  he  saith,  '  the  children  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven.'  Oh,  how  great 
a  grace !  Of  ourselves  we  are  not  even  worthy  sei-vants ;  and  by  loving  our 
enemies  we  become  sons  of  God.  Therefore,  my  brethren,  both  love  your 
friends  in  God,  and  your  enemies  for  God  ;  for  he  that  loveth  his  neighbor,  as 
saith  the  apostle,  hath  ftilfiUed  the  law.'  (Rom.  xiii.  8.)  For  he  who  will  be 
a  true  Christian,  must  needs  keep  these  commandments ;  because  if  he  does 
not  keep  them,  he  deceives  himself  He,  therefore,  is  a  good  Christian,  who 
puts  faith  in  no  charms  or  diabolical  inventions,  but  places  all  his  hope  in 
Christ  alone ;  who  receives  strangers  with  joy,  even  as  if  it  were  Christ 
himself,  because  he  will  say — '  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in,  and  in- 
asmuch as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye 
have  done  it  unto  me.'  He,  I  say,  is  a  good  Christian,  who  washes  the  feet 
of  strangers,  and  loves  them  as  most  dear  relations ;  who,  according  to  his 
means,  gives  alms  to  the  poor ;  loJw  comes  frequently  to  church :  who  presents 
the  oblation  ivhich  is  offered  to  Qod  upon  the  altar ;  who  doth  not  taste  of  his 
fruits  hefore  he  has  offered  somewhat  to  God ;  who  has  not  a  flilse  balance  or 
deceitful  measures ;  who  hath  not  given  his  money  to  usury ;  who  both  lives 
chastely  himself,  and  teaches  his  sons  and  his  neighbors  to  live  chastely  and 
in  the  fear  of  God ;  and  as  often  as  ike  liohj  festivals  occur,  lives  continently 
even  with  his  own  wife  for  some  days  previously,  that  he  may,  with  safe  con- 
sdeiice,  draw  near  to  the  altar  of  Qod ;  finally,  who  can  repeat  the  Creed  or  tlie 
Lord's  Prayer,  and  teaches  the  same  to  his  sons  and  servants.  He  wlio  is 
such  an  one,  is,  without  doubt,  a  true  Christian,  and  Christ  also  dwelleth  in 
him,  who  hath  said,  'I  and  the  Father  will  come  and  make  our  abode  with 
him.'  (John  xiv.  23.)  And,  in  Uke  manner,  he  saith  by  the  prophet,  '  I  will 
dwell  in  them,  and  walk  in  them,  and  I  will  be  their  God,  and  they  shall  be 
my  people.'  (2  Cor.  vi.  16.) 

"  Behold,  brethren,  ye  have  heard  what  sort  of  persons  are  good  Christians ; 
and  therefore  labor  as  much  as  you  can,  with  God's  assistance,  that  the 
Christian  name  may  not  be  Msely  applied  to  you ;  but,  in  order  that  you 
may  be  true  Christians,  always  meditate  in  your  heart,  on  the  commands  of 


56  EUROPE    BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

Christ,  and  fulfill  them  in  your  practice;  rede-em  your  souls  from  pum'shmeni 
while  you  have  the  means  in  your  power;  give  alms  according  to  your  meant; 
maintain  peace  and  charity,  restore  harmony  among  those  who  are  at  strife, 
avoid  lying,  abhor  perjury,  bear  no  false  witness,  commit  no  theft,  offer  ohla- , 
tions  and  yifts  to  churches,  provide  lights  for  sacred  places  according  to  your 
means,  retain  in  your  memory  the  Creed  and  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  teach 
them  to  your  sons.  Moreover,  teach  and  chastise  those  children  for  whom 
you  are  sponsors,  that  they  may  always  live  with  the  fear  of  God.  Know 
that  you  are  sponsors  for  them  with  God.  Come  frequently  also  to  church ; 
humbly  seek  the  patronage  of  the  saints ;  keep  the  Lord's  day  in  reverence  of 
the  resurrection  of  Christ,  without  any  servile  work ;  celebrate  the  festivals 
of  the  saints  with  devout  feeling ;  love  your  neighbors  as  yourselves ;  what 
you  would  desire  to  be  done  to  you  by  others,  that  do  to  others ;  what  you 
would  not  have  done  to  you,  do  to  no  one ;  before  all  things  have  charity,  for 
'charity  covereth  a  multitude  of  sins ;'  be  hospitable,  humble,  casting  all 
your  care  upon  God,  for  he  careth  for  you ;  visit  the  sick,  seek  out  the  cap- 
tives, receive  strangers,  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  naked ;  set  at  nought 
soothsayers  and  magicians ;  let  your  weights  and  measures  be  fair,  your  bal- 
ance just,  your  bvishel  and  your  pint  fair;  nor  must  you  claim  back  more 
than  you  guve,  nor  exact  from  any  one  usury  for  money  lent.  Which,  if  you 
observe,  coming  with  security  before  the  trihumd  of  the  eternal  Judge,  in  the 
day  of  judgment,  you  may  say,  '  Give,  Lord,  for  we  have  given ;'  show  mere}'', 
for  we  have  shown  mercy ;  we  have  fulfilled  what  thou  hast  commanded, 
do  thou  give  what  thou  hast  promised.'  "* 

'^  Given  by  Dr.  Maitland,  in  the  work  above  quoted,  p.  Ill,  seqq.,  where 
the  greater  portion  of  the  homily  is  translated.  It  will  be  seen  that  he  em- 
ploy's the  words  of  the  Protestant  version  in  the  scriptural  quotiitions.  In 
another  place,  (p.  150,)  he  fiirnishes  an  additional  extract  fi-om  the  homily, 
in  which  the  holy  bishop  warns  his  people  against  all  superstition  and  idol- 
atry, in  the  following  imi^ressive  language  : 

"Before  all  things,  however,  I  declare  and  testify  unto  you,  that  you 
should  observe  none  of  the  impious  customs  of  the  pagans  ;  neither  sorcer- 
ers, nor  diviners,  nor  soothsayers,  nor  enchanters ;  nor  must  you  presume 
for  any  cause,  or  any  sickness,  to  consult  or  inquire  of  them,  for  he  who 
commits  this  sin  immediately  loses  the  sacrament  of  baptism.  In  like  man- 
ner, pay  no  attention  to  auguries,  and  sneezings ;  and,  when  you  are  on  a 
journey,  do  not  mind  the  singing  of  certain  little  birds.  But,  whether  you 
are  setting  out  on  a  journey,  or  beginning  any  other  work,  cross  yourselves 
in  the  name  of  Christ,  and  say  the  Creed  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  with  faitb 
and  devotion,  and  then  the  enemy  can  do  you  no  harm.     Let  no  Chiistian 


A  MODEL  MEDLEVAL  HOMILY.  57 

While  on  the  subject  of  mediaeval  homilies,  we  cannot  re- 
frain from  extracting  one  entire  from  Dr.  Maitland.*  It  was 
delivered  by  the  Foreman  of  the  Goldsmith,  the  latter  of 
whom  had  built  a  splendid  monastery,  and  the  former  had 
been  ordained  priest,  after  having  first  become  a  monk. 
The  people  often  visited  his  solitude  to  be  edified  by  his  vir- 
tues, and  to  profit  by  the  words  of  simple,  but  touching  elo- 
quence which  fell  from  his  lips.  His  homilies  on  such  occa- 
sions were  short,  and  to  the  purpose.  The  following  is  the 
one  to  which  we  referred  above: 

"Brethren,  hear  what  I  say,  with  attention,  and  sedulously  meditate  on 
it  in  your  hearts.  God  the  Father,  and  His  Son,  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who 
gave  His  precious  blood  for  us,  you  must  love  with  all  your  soul,  and  with 
all  your  mind.  Keep  your  hearts  clean  from  wicked  and  impure  thoughts ; 
maintain  brotherly  love  among  yourselves ;  and  love  not  the  things  that  are 
in  the  world.  Do  not  think  about  what  you  have,  but  what  you  are.  Do 
you  desire  to  hear  what  you  are  ?  The  prophet  tells  you,  saying,  '  All  flesh 
is  grass,  all  the  goodliness  thereof  as  the  flower  of  the  field.'  (Isaiah  xl.  6.) 
Consider  how  short  the  present  life  is;  always  fearing,  have  the  judgment 
of  God  before  your  eyes.  While  there  is  opportunity,  redeem  your  sins  by 
aljns  and  good  works." 

This,  for  its  brevity  and  comprehensiveness,  may  be  viewed 
as  a  model  sermon.  We  doubt  whether,  even  at  the  present 
more  enlightened  day,  any  one  could  say  more  good  things 
better,  in  so  few  words,  and  with  so  much  simplicity  and  unc- 
tion. Probably  the  best  possible  vindication  of  our  Catholic 
ancestors  is  that  which  is  contained  in  their  own  words,  so  far 
as  these  have  been  preserved  to  us,  and  in  such  of  their  works 
— as,  for  instance,  their  noble  cathedrals,  hospitals,  and  monas- 

observe  the  day  on  which  he  leaves')  or  returns  home,  for  God  made  all  th« 
days.  Let  none  regulate  the  beginning  of  any  piece  of  work  by  the  day,  oi 
by  the  moon.  Let  none  on  the  calends  of  January,  join  in  the  wicked  and 
ridiculous  things,  the  dressing  like  old  women,  oi-  like  stags,  or  othei-  fooler- 
ies, nor  make  feasts  lasting  all  night,  nor  keep  up  the  custom  of  gifts  and 
intemperate  drinking." 
*  Ibid,  p.  93-4. 


58  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

teries — as  time  and  the  Vandalism  of  the  sixteenth  centuij 
have  spared  to  us.  Digby  and  Maitland — the  former  a  Cath 
olic  and  the  latter  a  Protestant — ^have  done  much  to  give  us 
an  adequate  idea  of  their  usual  trains  of  thought,  and  of  their 
sometimes  rude,  but  always  earnest,  simple,  and  eloquent  man- 
ner of  expressing  them.  As  Dr.  Maitland  clearly  proves,  by 
numerous  examples,  they  not  only  were  well  acquainted  with 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  but  their  very  thoughts  were  wont  to  run 
in  the  channel  of  scriptural  imagery,  and  their  words  were 
often  little  else  but  a  tissue  of  scriptural  quotations.* 

Take  them  all  in  all,  they  will  compare  most  favorably  with 
the  men  of  the  present  day ;  and  in  faith,  piety,  and  love  of 
God  and  their  neighbor,  as  well  as  in  disinterestedness,  they 
will  certainly  bear  off  the  palm. 

Let  it,  then,  be  borne  steadily  in  mind,  that  the  evils  and 
scandals  to  wdiich  we  have  referred  above,  and  which  we  have 
not  sought  to  conceal  or  even  to  palliate,  were  exceptional ;  and 
that  even  after  the  original  simplicity  and  fervor  of  the  middle 
ages  had  greatly  diminished,  and  their  disinterested  and  sim- 
ple spirit  of  faith,  as  the  all-moving  and  animating  principle 
of  action,  had,  in  a  great  measure,  passed  away  along  with  the 
age  of  chivalry  and  the  crusades,  there  still  remained  in  the 
great  body  of  the  Church — in  the  laity  as  well  as  in  the  clergy 
— the  solid  foundations  of  truth  and  virtue,  which  found  forci- 
ble expression  in  the  general  popular  horror  of  heresy,  and  in 
the  general  detestation  of  the  obscenities  of  vice  so  unblush- 
ingly  exhibited  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries. 
Though  sorely  tried  by  wild,  but  fortunately  transient  here- 
sies, and  afflicted  by  grievous  scandals  during  the  two  centu- 
ries immediately  preceding  the  Reformation,  the  Church  waa 
still  sound,  not  only  in  her  truth,  which  could  never  fail,  but 
in  the  general  faith  and  fervent  piety  of  the  great  body  of  her 
clergy  and  members. 

This  was  clearly  proved  by  the  wonderful  effects  produced 


*  Ibid,  p  187,  seqq.,  and  p.  466,  seqq. 


Sr.  VINCENT    FERRER THE  PRAGMATIC    SANCTION.  59 

all  over  Europe,  during  this  very  period,  by  the  preaching  of 
that  wonderful  man  of  God — St.  Vincent  Ferrer — who  came 
forth,  like  another  John  the  Baptist  from  the  wilderness,  to 
preach  penance,  and  to  arouse  into  greater  activity  the  faith 
and  piety  of  the  people.  Whithersoever  he  went,  vast  multi- 
titudes  hung  upon  his  lips ;  and  the  results  of  his  preaching 
were  most  consoling  to  the  afflicted  Church.  Such  men  as  he, 
and  his  illustrious  predecessor  in  the  same  career,  St.  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux — were  real  reformers  according  to  the  true  apos- 
tolic type;  such  reformers  as  the  Church  has  been  blessed 
with  in  all  ages,  and  as  she  has  always  delighted  to  honor. 

Even  the  unscrupulous  D'Aubigne,  is  compelled  to  do  some 
measure  of  justice  to  the  Catholic  Church  of  the  middle  ages. 
He  makes  the  following  avowal ;  which  is  invaluable,  coming 
from  so  prejudiced  a  source:* 

"  But  first  let  us  do  honor  to  the  Church  of  that  middle  period,  which 
intervened  between  the  age  of  the  Apostles  and  the  Reformers.  The  Church 
was  still  the  Church,  although  fallen  and  more  and  more  enslaved.  In  a 
word,  she  was  at  all  times  the  most  powerful  friend  of  man.  Her  hands, 
though  manacled,  still  dispensed  blessings.  Many  eminent  servants  of  Christ 
diffused  during  these  ages  a  beneficent  light ;  and  in  the  humble  convent — 
the  sequestered  parish — there  were  found  poor  monks  and  poor  priests  to 
alleviate  bitter  sufferings." 

But  if  the  Church  was  still  enabled,  through  the  divine  pro- 
tection, to  preserve  pure  the  great  body  of  her  bishops  and 
clergy,  it  was  not  surely  from  any  aid  which  her  pontiffs  de- 
rived for  this  purpose,  from  the  princes  of  the  world.  Tliis 
good  result  was  obtained,  not  in  virtue  of  the  co-operation  of 
the  latter,  but  often  in  spite  of  their  untiring  opposition.  It 
seemed  to  have  become  an  almost  settled  policy  of  the  Ger- 
man emperors,  and  subsequently  of  the  French  kings,  to  throw 
every  possible  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  appointment  of  good, 
disinterested,  and  zealous  bishops.  They  thwarted  the  Topes 
at  almost  every  step  in  the  continued  and  earnest  endeavors 
of  the  latter  to  secure  good  pastors  to  the  vacant  sees.     Tliey 


*  Vol.  I.,  p.  40,  Edit,  of  Carter,  1843. 


60  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REtORMAIION. 

unscrupulously  charged  on  the  Popes  the  very  crime  of  which 
they  were  themselves  openly  guilty — an  avaricious  grasping 
after  the  goods  of  the  Church.  When  calumny  failed,  they 
had  recourse  to  secret  fraud  and  open  violence;  and  they 
were  always  sure  to  find  aiders  and  abettors  among  the  higher 
clergy,  several  of  whom  their  wicked  and  dangerous  policy 
had  already  partially  tainted. 

This  unfortunate  spirit  was  strikingly  exhibited  in  the  adop 
tion  of  what  was  called  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  by  the  French 
king,  Charles  VII.,  in  the  year  1438,  and  in  the  persistent 
efibrts  made  by  the  French  Parliaments  and  German  Diets 
to  carry  out  its  mischievous  provisions  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury ,  and  all  this  in  spite  of  the  earnest  protests  and  eloquent 
appeals  of  the  pontiifs.  The  pro.visions  of  this  instrument  vir- 
tually annihilated  the  primacy  of  the  Pope  in  France  and 
wherever  else  they  were  adopted  and  acted  on.  While  pro- 
fessing great  reverence  for  the  chair  of  Peter,  and  promising 
obedience  to  the  Pope  as  his  successor,  the  French  monarch, 
Charles  VII.,  more  than  two  centuries  in  advance  of  le 
Grand  Monarque,  Louis  XIV., — adopted  a  code  of  Galilean 
liberties,  probably  far  more  mischievous  in  their  tendency 
than  those  contained  in  the  subsequent  Declaration  of  the 
Galilean  clergy  in  1682.  And  like  Louis,  Charles  was  backed 
in  his  war  with  the  Pope,  by  a  large  body  of  the  higher 
clergy  of  France ;  who  should  surely  have  already  seen  and 
felt  enough  of  the  dangers  of  court  influence,  to  beware  how 
they  contributed  to  increase  its  patronage.  But  a  species  of 
vertigo  had  seized  on  many  minds  in  consequence  of  the  late 
schism ;  and  this  feeling  of  distrust  of  the  Pope  found  ex- 
pression in  the  schismatical  proceedings  of  the  conventicle  at 
Basle,  which  dared  continue  its  sessions  after  the  papal  pro- 
hibition, in  1433,  and  even  after  it  had  been  dissolved,  in 
1437,  by  the  undoubted  Pope  Eugenius  IV.*     In  spite  of  all 

*  Eugenius  issued  a  bull  dissolving  the  Council,  and  ordering  the  bishojw 
to  convene  a^ain  at  Ferrara. 


ITS    MISCHIEVOUS    TENDENCY LETTER    OF    PIUS    II.  61 

canonical  law,  a  schismatical  remnant  of  the  bishops  still  con- 
tinued to  hold  their  sessions,  and  even  went  to  the  extreme 
length  of  attempting  to  depose  the  Pope,  and  thereby  to  origi- 
nate another  fearful  schism. 

The  Pragmatic  Sanction  was  nominally  abrogated  by  the 
French  king,  Louis  XL,  in  1461 ;  but  this  feeble  or  diplomatic 
monarch  showed  little  disposition  to  compel  his  Parliament  to 
repeal  their  previous  enactments  in  its  favor.  Thus  the  evil 
went  on  almost  unchecked  for  more  than  fifty  years  longer; 
until  the  Sanction  was  finally  annulled  by  the  General  Coun- 
cil of  Lateran,  in  a  session  held  in  1515.  Its  final  abrogation 
was  fully  agreed  to  by  the  French  king,  Francis  L,  in  a  con- 
ference held  in  the  same  year  at  Bologna,  between  him  and 
Pope  Leo  X. 

How  very  mischievous  this  parliamentary  enactment  was, 
and  how  many  evils  it  must  have  entailed  on  the  Church  in 
France,  especially  in  the  way  of  foisting  unworthy,  or  worldly- 
minded  and  courtly  bishops  into  many  of  its  sees,  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  fact,  that  it  gave  to  the  French  monarch  and 
his  Parliament  almost  unlimited  control  over  all  such  appoint- 
ments, and  forbade  any  interference  therewith  on  the  part  of 
the  Pope  without  their  own  previous  consent.  The  king  and 
his  Parliament  would  be  sure  to  appoint,  not  the  best  and  the 
most  holy  men,  but  such  as  would  be  most  likely  to  subserve 
their  own  worldly  views,  and  to  stand  by  them  in  their  con- 
tests with  the  Pope.  The  spirit  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction, 
with  its  manifold  evils,  extended  also  to  Germany,  and,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  throughout  all  Christendom ;  and  we 
have  not  a  doubt  that  it  contributed  as  much  perhaps,  as  any 
other  single  agency,  to  prepare  the  minds  of  men  for  the  sub- 
sequent religious  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

To  exhibit  still  more  clearly  the  true  spirit  and  real  tendency 
of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  we  will  here  give  an  extract  from 
a  letter  written  on  the  subject  by  the  renowned  pontiff",  Pius 
II.,  previously  well  known  in  the  world  of  letters  as  -^neaa 
Sylvius : — 


62  E   ROPE    HEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

"We  ardently  desire  to  see  the  nation  of  the  Franks  holy  a^d  without 
blemish ;  but  this  cannot  be,  unless  this  stain  or  wrinkle  of  the  Sanction  be 
removed,  the  manner  of  the  introduction  of  which  you  all  know.  It  was 
certainly  not  received  on  the  authority  of  a  general  council,  nor  by  a  decree 
of  the  Roman  pontiffs,  though  no  enactment  on  ecclesiastical  matters  can 
stand  as  valid  without  the  consent  of  the  Roman  See We  do  not  at- 
tach so  much  importance  to  the  hearing  of  causes,  the  bestowal  of  benefices, 
and  many  other  things  which  we  are  thought  to  value.  This  it  is  which  fills 
us  with  anguish,  that  we  witness  the  perdition  and  luin  of  souLs,  and  that 
the  glory  of  a  most  noble  king  is  thereby  tarnished.  For  how  can  it  be 
tolerated,  that  laymen  should  become  the  judges  of  the  clergy  ?  That  the 
sheep  should  hear  and  decide  on  the  causes  of  their  shepherds  ?  Is  it  for 
this  that  we  are  'a  royal  and  priestly  race'  ?  We  will  not,  for  the  sake  of 
your  honor,  explain  how  greatly  the  sacerdatol  authority  has  been  impaired 
in  France.  This  is  well  known  by  the  bishops,  who,  at  the  beck  of  the 
secular  power  now  draw,  now  sheathe  the  spiritual  sword.  But  the  Roman 
bishop,  whose  parish  is  the  world,  whose  ecclesiastical  territory  is  not  bound- 
ed even  by  the  ocean,  has,  in  the  kingdom  of  France,  only  so  much  jurisdic- 
tion as  the  Parliament  may  be  pleased  graciously  to  assign  to  him  !  He  is 
not  permitted  to  punish  the  sacrilegious,  the  parricide,  the  heretic,  though 
an  ecclesiastic,  unless  with  the  previous  consent  of  the  Parliament,  whose 
authority  is  so  great  in  the  opinion  of  some,  as  to  shut  the  door  against  our 
ecclesiastical  censures.  Thus  the  Roman  pontiff,  the  judge  of  judges,  is  sub- 
ject to  the  judgment  of  Parliament.  If  we  admit  this,  we  make  the  Church 
a  monster,  we  introduce  a  hydra  with  many  heads,  and  thereby  totally  ex- 
tinguish unity.  This  is  a  dangerous  matter,  venerable  brethren,  which 
would  bring  confusion  into  the  whole  hierarchy."* 


*  Giesler.  Text  Book  of  Ecclesiastical  Historj',  Vol.  III.,  p.  223-4,  note. 
This  prejudiced  Protestant  or  infidel  historian  furnishes  the  original  of  the 
Letter  to  the  French  Bishops,  as  follows : 

"  Cupimus  sanctam  esse  Franconim  gentem  et  omni  carere  macula :  at  hoc 
fieri  non  potest,  nisi  hgec  Sanctionis  macula  seu  ruga  deponatur,  qua3  que- 
modo  introducia  sit  ipsi  nostis.  Certe  non  auctoritate  generalis  synodi  nee 
Romanorum  decreto  pontiflcum  recepta  est,  quamvis  de  causis  ecclesiasticis 

tiactatus  absque  phicito  Romanaj  Sedis  stare  non  possit Non  pon- 

deramus  causarum  auditionem,  non  bcneficiorum  coUationem,  non  alia  multa 
quEB  curare  putamur.  lUud  nos  angit,  quod  animarum  perditionem  ruinam- 
que  cernimus,  et  nobilissimi  regis  gloriam  labefiictari.  Nam  quo  pacto  tole- 
randum  est  clericorum  judices  laicos  esse  factos  ?  Pastorum  causas  ores 
c«)jj;noscere  ?    Siccine  regale  genus  et  sacerdotale  sumus  ?  Non  explicabimus, 


OTHER    AGENCIES-  -THE   POPE    AND    LIBERTY.  63 

Though  abrogated  by  Francis  L,  the  sph-it  and  the  sting  of 
the  Pragmatic  Sanction  still  remained.  As  we  shall  aee  here- 
after, its  spirit  strongly  influenced  or  rather  infected  the 
policy,  and  contributed  to  the  misfortunes  of  this  brilliant, 
but  frivolous  French  monarch ;  it  subsequently  led,  step  by 
step,  to  the  bloody  civil  v,^ars  brought  upon  France  by  the  Hu- 
guenots; and  finally  its  evil  germs  produced  the  poisonous 
tree  of  infidelity,  which  difiused  its  fatal  and  upas-like  influ- 
ence over  France  in  the  awful  revolution  of  1792-3.  The 
French  monarchs  sowed  the  seeds  of  Gallicanism — first  undei 
Charles  VII.  in  1438,  and  then  under  Louis  XIV.  in  1682— 
and  they  reaped  the  final  harvest  of  anarchy  and  revolution 
in  1792 !     History  has  its  logic  as  well  as  philosophy. 

Besides  the  spirit  of  disunion  and  distrust  of  the  Papacy, 
which  had  been  kept  alive  for  centuries,  chiefly  by  the  princes 
of  the  earth,  other  agencies  also  more  immediately  contributed 
to  prepare  the  way  for  the  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, and  to  facilitate  its  success.  Tlie  revival  of  learning, 
and  the  invention  of  the  art  of  printing,  afibrded  incidental 
aids  to  the  spread  of  the  new  gospel.  The  former  came  from 
Italy ;  the  latter  from  Germany.  The  active  Italian  mind 
originated  the  intellectual  movement,  the  more  practical 
German  mind  seized  on  it,  and  scattered  its  thoughts  over 
the  earth  on  the  wings  of  the  press.     Both  the  revival  of 


honoris  causa,  quantum  diminuta  est  in  Gallia  sacerdotalis  auctoritas.  Epis- 
copi  norunt  qui  pro  nutru  Sfficularis  potestatis  spiritualem  gladium  nunc 
exercent,  nunc  recludunt.  Prsesul  vero  Romanus,  cujus  parochia  orbis  est, 
cujus  provincia  nee  oceano  clauditur,  in  regno  Francis  tantum  jurisdictionis 
habet,  quantum  placet  Parlaraento.  Non  sacrilegum,  non  paricidam,  non 
haereticum  punire  permittitur,  quamvis  ecclesiasticum,  nisi  Parlamenti  con- 
sensus adsit,  cujus  tantam  esse  auctoritatem  nonnulli  existimant,  ut  censuris 
etiam  nostris  prnecludere  aditurapossit.  Sicjudcx  judicum  Romanus  pontifex 
judicio  Parlamenti  subjectus  est.  Si  hoc  admittimus,  monstruosam  ecclesiam 
6icimus,  et  hydram  multorum  capitum  introducimus,  et  unitatem  prorsus 
^xtinguimus.  Periculosa  res  h'«c  est,  venerabiles  fratres,  quae  hieiarchiam 
omnem  confundei-et." 


64  EUROPE  BEFORE  THE  REFORMATION. 

letters  and  the  art  of  printing  were  of  Catholic  origin ;  the} 
were  both  abused,  and  treacherously  turned,  as  powerful 
batteries,  against  the  Church. 

That  Europe  was  indebted  to  Italy  for  the  preservation  of 
the  ancient  learning  in  the  middle  ages,  and  for  the  revival 
of  letters  in  the  fifteenth  century ;  and  that  Italy,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Popes,  was,  during  all  those  centuries,  very 
far  in  advance  of  all  other  European  nations,  is  freely 
admitted  by  such  prejudiced  English  writers  as  Ilallam  and 
Macaulay.  The  latter  writes  as  follows  on  this  important 
historical  fact;  and  we  feel  confident  that  the  length  of  the 
extract  will  be  pardoned  on  account  of  the  interest  which 
attaches  to  the  subject: 

"During  the  gloomy  and  disastrous  centuries  which  followed  the  down- 
fall of  the  Roman  Empire,  Italy  had  preserved,  in  a  far  greater  degree  than 
any  other  part  of  Western  Europe,  the  traces  of  ancient  civilization.  The 
night  which  descended  upon  her,  was  the  night  of  an  Arctic  summer : — the 
dawn  began  to  reappear  before  the  last  reflection  of  the  preceding  sunset  had 
faded  from  the  horizon.  It  was  in  the  time  of  the  French  Merovingians,  and 
of  the  Saxon  Heptarch}^,  that  ignorance  and  ferocity  seemed  to  have  done 
their  worst.  Yet  even  then  the  Neapolitan  provinces,  recognizing  the 
authority  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  preserved  something  of  Eastern  knowledge 
and  refinement.  Roine,  protected  by  the  sacred  character  of  its  pontitEs, 
enjoyed  at  least  comparative  security  and  repose.  Even  in  those  regions 
where  the  sanguinary  Lombards  had  fixed  their  monarch}',  there  was  incom- 
parably more  of  wealth,  of  information,  of  physical  comfort,  and  of  social 
order,  than  could  be  found  in  Gaul,  Brittain,  or  Germany." 

Under  the  auspices  of  the  pontiffs,  liberty,  manufactures, 
and  commercial  prosperity  were  inaugurated;  for  Macaulay 
adds : 

"  Thus  literty,  partially,  indeed,  and  transiently  revisited  Italy ;  and  with 
liberty  came  commerce  and  empire,  science  and  taste,  all  the  comlbrts  and 
all  the  ornaments  of  life.  The  crusades,  from  whicli  the  inhabitants  of 
other  countries  gained  nothing  but  relics  and  wounds,  brought  the  rising 
commonwealths  of  the  Adriatic  and  Tyrrhene  seas  a  large  increi\t;e  of 
wealth,  dominion,  and  knowledge.  Their  moral  and  their  geograpliical 
position  enabled  them  to  profit  alike  by  the  barbarism  of  the  West,  and  the 
civilization  of  the   East.      Their  ships  covered  every  sea.      Their  factories 


tTALY    AND    THE   POPES MACAULAY.  65 

rose  on  every  shore.  Their  money  changers  set  their  tables  in  every 
city.  Manufactures  flourished.  Banks  were  established.  The  operations 
of  the  commercial  machine  were  facilitated  by  many  useflil  and  beautiful 
inventions.  We  douVjt  whether  any  country  of  Europe,  our  own  perhaps 
excepted,  have  at  the  present  time  reached  so  high  a  point  of  wealth  and 
civilization  as  some  parts  of  Italy  had  attained  four  hundred  years  ago."  .  .  . 
"  Fortunately  John  -Villani  has  given  us  an  ample  and  precise  account  of 
the  state  of  Florence  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  fourteenth  ccntuiy.  The 
revenue  of  the  republic  amoimted  to  three  hundred  thousand  florins,  a  sum 
which,  allowing  for  the  depreciation  of  the  precious  metals,  was  at  least 
equivalent  to  six  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling ;  a  larger  sura  than 
England  and  Ireland,  two  centuries  ago,  yielded  annually  to  Elizabeth — a 
larger  sum  than,  according  to  any  computation  which  we  have  seen,  the 
Grand-duke  of  Tuscany  now  derives  from  a  territory  of  much  greater 
extent.  The  manufacture  of  wool  alone  employed  two  hundred  factories  and 
thirty  thousand  workmen.  The  cloth  annually  produced  sold,  at  an  average, 
for  twelve  hundred  thousand  florins ;  a  sum  fairly  equal,  in  exchangeable 
value,  to  two  millions  and  a  half  of  our  money.  Four  hundred  thousand  florins 
were  annually  coined.  Eighty  banks  conducted  the  commercial  operations, 
not  of  Florence  onl}^,  but  of  all  Europe.  The  transactions  of  these  establish- 
ments were  sometimes  of  a  magnitude  which  may  surprise  even  the  con- 
temporaries of  the  Barings  and  the  Rothchilds.  Two  houses  advanced  to 
Edward  III.,  of  England,  upwards  of  three  hundred  thousand  marks,  at  a 
time  when  the  mark  contained  more  silver  than  fifty  shillings  of  the  present 
day,  and  when  the  value  of  silver  was  more  than  quadruple  of  what  it  now 
is.  The  city  and  its  environs  contained  a  hundred  and  seventy  thousand 
inhabitants.  In  the  various  schools  about  ten  tho'usand  children  were  taught 
to  read ;  twelve  hundred  studied  arithmetic ;  six  hundred  received  a  learned 
education.  The  progress  of  elegant  literature  and  of  the  flne  arts  was  pro- 
portioned to  that  of  the  public  prosperity No  tongue  ever  furnished 

more  gorgeous  and  vivid  tints  to  poetry ;  nor  was  it  long  before  a  poet 
appeared  who  knew  how  to  employ  them.  Early  in  the  fourteenth  century 
came  forth  the  Divine  Comedy,  beyond  comparison  the  greatest  work  of 
imagination  which  had  appeared  since  the  poems  of  Homer.  The  following 
generation  produced,  indeed,  no  second  Dante ;  but  it  was  eminently  dis- 
tinguished by  general  intellectual  activity.  The  studv  of  the  Latin  writers 
had  never  been  whoUy  neglected  in  Italy.""" 

The  literary  sect  of  the  Humanists  arose  in  Italy  about  the 
middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.     These  new  men  of  letters 

*  Miscell.  Am.  Edit.,  p.  21  seqq.     Keview  of  the  Works  of  Macchiavelli. 
VOL.  I, — 6 


66  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

Bought  to  revive  Greek  literature,  and  the  Platonian  phi 
losophy  in  opposition  to  that  of  Aristotle,  which  had  long 
obtained  a  firm  foothold  in  the  schools.  They  disparaged  all 
barbarisms  in  style,  and  they  valued  a  finely  turned  sentence 
conveying  a  sneer  against  the  clergy  more  highly  than  a 
sound  and  orthodox  sentiment  conveyed  in  the  more  homely 
language  of  the  school-men.  The  Dominicans  were  their 
special  aversion,  for  two  principal  reasons:  first,  their  theo- 
logians were  usually  more  or  less  barbarous  in  their  Latin ; 
and  secondly,  they  had  been  appointed  censors  of  books,  and, 
in  virtue  of  their  ofiice,  they  were  compelled  often  to  condemn 
the  works  of  the  Humanists,  in  spite  of  their  elegant  Latinity. 
This  last  fact  has  special  significance,  when  we  reflect  that 
Tetzel,  the  preacher  of  the  Indulgences  in  Germany,  was  a 
Dominican ;  and  that  Erasmus,  the  leader  of  the  German 
Humanists,  united  with  Luther  in  hurling  at  the  devoted  head 
of  the  Dominicans  his  polished  but  envemoned  shaft  of  ridi- 
cule and  invective. 

The  early  progress  of  the  German  Reformation  was  also 
facilitated  by  the  over-indulgence,  if  not  negligence  of  the 
Italian  Humanists,  who,  with  their  great  and  munificent 
patron,  Leo  X.,  were  at  first  inclined  to  look  upon  the  contro 
versy  between  the  Augustinian  monk  Luther,  and  the  Domi 
nican  monk  Tetzel,  as  a  mere  "  monkish  squabble."  Soon, 
indeed,  they  discovered  their  mistake ;  but  it  was  too  late  fully 
to  check  the  evil.  It  was  not  a  merely  local  or  transient 
rebellion  against  Church  authority  which  was  at  hand,  but  a 
mighty  revolution,  which  was  to  shake  Christendom  to  ita 
very  centre ;  and  to  endure,  with  its  long  and  pestilent  train 
of  evils,  with  its  Babel-like  sound  and  confusion  of  tongues, 
with  its  first  incipient  and  then  developed  infidelity,  probably 
to  the  end  of  the  world ! 

Another  weapon  which  the  German  reformers  wielded  with 
terrible  efiect  against  the  Church,  was  their  impassioned  and 
reiterated  declaration,  that  the  Primacy  of  the  Pope  was  sub- 
versive of  all  German  liberty.     All  the  contests  between  the 


TESTIMONY    OF   LAING SUMMING    UP.  67 

German  emperors  and  the  Popes  during  the  middle  ages  were 
brought  up  again,  exaggerated  and  distorted  by  passion,before 
the  public  mind,  and  the  Germans  were  told  that  they  must 
throw  off  the  yoke  of  the  Pope,  if  they  would  preserve  their 
ancient  franchises.  This  appeal  to  national  prejudices  was  as 
successful  as  the  basis  on  which  it  rested  was  wholly  unfounded 
in  the  facts  of  history.  The  truth  is,  that  the  Germans  owed 
almost  every  thing,  their  liberties  included,  to  the  interposition 
of  the  Popes  checking  the  usurpations  and  despotism  of  their 
emperors.  This  is  apparent  from  the  fact,  that  they  were 
really  less  free  after  than  they  had  been  before  the  Refor- 
mation. This  we  hope  to  prove  hereafter.  In  the  mean 
time,  we  invite  attention  to  the  following  testimony  on  this 
subject,  furnished  by  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  writer,  Samuel 
Laing,  surely  an  unexceptionable  witness.  He  is  speaking 
of  the  past  and  present  condition  of  Germany ;  in  reference 
precisely  to  the  influence  exercised  by  the  Papacy  on  its 
liberty : 

''  The  principle  that  the  civil  government,  or  State,  or  Church  and  State 
united,  of  a  country  is  entitled  to  regulate  its  religious  belief,  has  more  of 
intellectual  thraldom  in  it  than  the  power  of  the  popish  Church  ever  exer- 
cised in  the  darkest  ages ;  for  it  had  no  civil  power  joined  to  its  religious 
power.  It  only  worked  through  the  civil  power  of  each  country.  The 
Church  of  Rome  was  an  independent,  distinct,  and  often  an  opposing  power 
in  every  country  to  the  civil  power ;  a  circumstance  in  the  social  economy 

OF    THE    middle    AGES,   TO    WHICH,  PERHAPS,  EUROPE    IS    INDEBTED   FOR    HER 

CIVILIZATION  AND  FREEDOM — ^for  uot  being  in  the  state  of  barbarism  and 
slavery  of  the  east,  and  of  every  country,  ancient  and  modern,  in  which  the 
civil  and  religious  power  have  been  united  in  one  government.  Civil  liberty 
is  closely  connected  with  religious  liberty — with  the  Church  being  independ- 
ent of  the  State In  Germany  the    seven  Catholic  sovereigns  have 

12,074,700  Catholic  subjects,  and  2,541,000  Protestant  subjects.  The 
twenty-nine  Protestant  sovereigns,  including  the  four  free  cities,  have 
12,113,000  Protestant  subjects,  and  4,966,000  Catholic.  Of  these  popu- 
lations in  Germany,  those  which  have  tlieir  point  of  spiritual  government 
without  their  States,  and  independent  of  them— as  the  Catholics  have  at 
Rome — enjoy  certainly  more  spiritual  independence,  are  less  exposed  to  the 
intermeddling  of  the  hand  of  civil  power  with  their  religious  concerns, 


68  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

than  the  Protestant  populations,  which,  since  the  Reformation,  have  had 
Church  and  State  united  in  one  government,  and  in  which  each  autocratic 
sovereign  is  de  facto  a  home-pope.  The  Church  affairs  of  Prussia  in  this 
half  century,  tliosc  of  Saxony,  Bavaria,  and  the  smaller  principalities,  such 
as  Anhalt  Koihen,  in  all  of  which  the  State  has  assumed  and  exercised 
power  inconsistently  with  the  principles,  doctrines,  obsei-vances,  and  privi- 
leges of  the  Protestant  religion,  clearly  show  that  the  Protestant  church  or 
the  continent,  as  a  power,  has  become  an  administrative  body  of  clerical 
functionaries,  acting  under  the  orders  of  the  civil  power  or  State."* 

From  the  foregoing  summary  view  of  the  events  affecting 
religion  in  Europe,  during  the  centuries  which  preceded  the 
Reformation,  we  draw  the  following  conclusions,  in  the  sound- 
ness of  which  we  believe  that  every  well-informed  and  impar- 
tial man  will  be  disposed  to  concur  with  us : 

1.  That  the  amount  and  extent  of  the  scandals  and  abuses 
complained  of  during  this  period  have  been  greatly  exaggerated ; 
and  that  the  good  more  than  counterbalanced  the  evil.  Evil 
always  excites  more  attention  and  makes  more  noise  in  the 
world  than  good;  and  what  contemporary  writers,  even  if 
they  were  otherwise  good  men,  say  of  abuses,  and  of  the  per- 
sons to  whom  they  are  to  be  ascribed,  will  generally  be  found 
to^be  highly  colored ;  especially  if  the  writers,  as  is  often  the 
case,  have  their  feelings  enlisted  as  partisans  on  one  side  or 
the  other.  Feeling  must  be  calmed  down,  excitement  must 
pass  away,  and  affairs  must  fully  work  themselves  out,  before 
a  correct  and  reliable  judgment  can  be  formed  on  any  series 
of  events. 

2.  That  these  abuses  and  scandals  generally  originated  in 
the  world  and  its  princes,  not  in  the  Church  and  its  chief 
pastors ;  most  of  them  being  due  to  the  fact,  that  bad  men 
were  thrust  into  the  high  places  of  the  Church  by  worldly 

*  Notes  of  a  Traveler  on  the  Social  and  Political  State  of  France,  Prussia, 
Switzerland,  Italy,  and  other  parts  of  Europe,  during  the  present  century. 
By  Samuel  Laing,  Esq.,  author  of  "A  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  Norway'" 
and  "  A  Tour  in  Sweden."  From  the  second  London  edition.  Philadelphia. 
Cary  &  Hart,  1840.     1  vol.  8vo.  p.  194. 


FOUR  CONCLUSIONS  REACHED.  69 

mir.ded  and  avaricious  princes  in  spite  of  the  Popes,  whose 
settled  policy  it  was  to  protest  with  all  their  might  against  a 
line  of  conduct  so  very  ruinous  to  the  best  interests  of  re- 
ligion. And  such  being  clearly  the  case,  it  is  most  unjust  to 
charge  those  scandals  on  the  Church  or  on  the  pontifls.  If 
the  princes  of  the  earth  could  have  ruined  the  Church,  they 
would  have  done  so  by  their  iniquitous  and  oppressive  enact- 
ments. That  they  did  not  succeed  in  inflicting  on  her  more 
than  occasional  and  temporary  wounds,  we  owe  it  to  the  divine 
vitality  of  the  Church,  and  to  the  noble  and  dauntless  oppo- 
sition of  the  Popes. 

3.  Tliat  there  was  a  lawful  and  efficacious  remedy  for  all 
such  evils,  which  consisted  in  removing  their  obvious  cause, 
and'  giving  to  the  Popes  their  due  power  and  influence  in  the 
nomination  of  bishops,  and  in  the  deliberations  of  general 
ecclesiastical  councils,  the  judgments  of  which  had  hitherto 
been  always  viewed  as  final :  that,  in  one  word,  reformation 
within  the  Church,  and  not  revolution  outside  of  it,  was  the 
only  proper,  lawful,  and  efficacious  remedy  for  existing  evils, 
and  the  one  which  had  always  been  invoked  by  the  wise  and 
the  good  in  all  previous  ages  of  Christianity. 

4.  Finally,  that  the  fact  of  Christians  having  at  length  felt 
prepared  to  resort  to  the  desperate  and  totally  wrong  remedy 
of  revolution,  was  owing  to  a  train  of  circumstances  which 
had  caused  faith  to  wane  and  grow  cold,  and  which  now  ap- 
pealed more  to  the  passions  than  to  reason,  more  to  human 
considerations  than  to  the  principles  of  divine  faith  and  tho 
interests  of  eternity. 

That  the  drama  was  strictly  in  accordance  with  its  pro- 
gramme, and  that  the  Protestant  Reformation  throughout 
Europe,  both  in  its  inception  and  in  its  consummation,  was 
rather  the  working  out  of  the  three  great  concupiscences 
referred  to  by  an  inspired  apostle,  than  of  a  sincere  and  earn- 
est love  of  truth,  and  of  a  real  desire  of  reformation,  will, 
unless  we  are  greatly  mistaken,  sufficiently  appear  from  the 
facts  contained  in  the  following  pages.  In  regard  to  Germany 
5 


70  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

and  Switzerland,  we  propose,  in  the  first  volume,  to  examine 
the  following  questions : 

1.  Whether  the  men  who  brought  about  the  Reformation 
in  Germany  were  such  as  God  could  or  would  have  employed 
to  do  His  work  ? 

2.  Whether  the  motives  which  prompted,  and  the  means 
which  were  employed  to  accomplish  that  revolution,  were 
such  as  God  could  sanction  ? 

3.  Whether  the  Reformation  really  efiected  a  reform  m 
religion  and  in  morals  ? 

And  4,  whether  its  influence  was  beneficial  to  society,  by 
developing  the  principles  of  free  government,  and  promotinjr 
literature  and  civilization  ? 


PART  I. 

CHARACTER    OF    THE    REFORMERS. 


CHAPTERI. 

LUTHER  AND  THE  OTHER  GERMAN  REFORMERS. 

D  Aubigne's  opinion — A  reformed  key — Luther's  parents — His  early  train- 
ing— A  naughty  boy— Convents — Being  "led  to  God,"  and  "not  led  to' 
God"  —  He  enters  the  Augustinian  convent — Austerities — A  "bread 
bag" — His  faith  and  scruples — His  humihty  and  zeal — Luther  a  reforraei 
— Grows  worse — becomes  reckless — His  sincerity  tested — Saying  anJ 
unsaying — Misgivings — Tortuous  windings — How  to  spite  the  Pope — 
Curious  incident — Melancthon  and  his  mother — Luther's  talents  and  elo 
quence — His  taste — His  courage  and  fawning — His  violence  and  coarse 
ness — Not  excusable  by  the  spirit  of  his  age — His  blasphemies — Recrim- 
ination— Christian  compliments — "Conference  with  the  devil" — Which 
got  the  better  of  the  argument — Luther's  morality — Table-talk — His  ser- 
mon on  marriage — A  Vixen — How  to  do  "mischief  to  the  Pope" — A 
striking  contrast — How  to  fulfill  vows — His  marriage — Misgivings — Epi- 
grams and  satires — Curious  incidents  in  his  last  sickness — Death-bed 
confession — His  death — The  reformed  key  used — Character  of  the  other 
reformers. 

D'AuBiGNE  compares  the  reformers  to  the  Apostles;*  and 
his  favorite  theory  is,  that  the  Reformation  itself  was  but 
"  the  reappearance  of  Christianity."!  Speaking  of  the  life 
and  character  of  Luther,  he  says  "  the  whole  Reformation 
was  there,"!  "  The  different  phases  of  this  work  succeeded 
each  other  in  the  mind  of  him  who  was  to  be  the  instrument 
for  it,  before  it  was  publicly  accomplished  in  the  world.  The 
knowledge  of  the  Reformation  effected  in  the  heart  of  Luther 

*  B.  ii,  p.  118,  vol.  i.  Our  quotations  from  D'Aubigne  are  from  the  first 
American  edition,  in  three  volumes  12mo,  to  which  two  others  Kive  been 
since  added,  to  which  we  i  ay  refer  hereafter. 

f  Pref.  iv.  t  Vol.  i.  p.  118. 

(71) 


<Z  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

himself  is,   in    truth,   the   key   to   the   Reft  imation   of  the 
Church."* 

We  will  abide  by  this  test.  We  will  examine  for  a  brief 
space  the  external  form,  and  the  internal  structure — the  many 
tortuous  turnings  and  intricate  wards  of  this  "  key"  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation ;  and  we  will  be  enabled  to  estimate 
the  character  of  the  latter, — which,  as  we  hope  to  show,  was 
a  "  lock  on  the  understanding" — from  the  properties  of  the  for 
mer.  Dropping  the  figure,  we  will  compare  the  character  of 
Luther  while  he  continued  a  Catholic,  during  the  first  thirty 
four  years  of  iiis  nfie,  with  what  it  subsequently  became  after 
he  had  turned  reformer,  or  foi  the  last  twenty-nine  years  of 
his  life — from  1.^17  to  1546.  If  we  ascertain  that  his  own 
character  uiiuerweni  a  change  greatly  for  the  worse  during 
the  latter  period,  we  will  be  compelled,  by  D'Aubigne's  own 
rule,  to  admit  that  the  general  tendency  of  the  Reformation 
was  evil. 

To  facilitate  the  understanding  of  our  remarks,  and  to 
obviate  repetition,  we  here  state  that  Luther  was  born  at  Eis- 
leben,  in  Saxony,  on  the  10th  of  November,  1483 ;  that  he 
attended  successively  the  schools  of  Mansfeld,  Magdeburg, 
and  Eisenach,  and  completed  his  education  in  the  university 
of  Erfurth ;  that  he  was  ordained  priest  in  1506,  turned  re- 
former in  1517,  was  married  in  1525,  and  died  on  the  I7th 
of  February,  1546,  in  the  sixty-third  year  of  his  age. 

While  under  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  Church,  he  was 
probably  a  moderately  good  man ;  he  was  certainly  a  very 
bad  one  after  he  left  its  communion.  His  parents  were  poor, 
but  they  seem  to  have  been  pious,  especially  his  mother. 
From  an  early  age,  they  labored  to  train  him  up  in  senti 
nients  of  piety,  as  well  as  to  imbue  his  mind  with  the  ele 
ments  of  learning.  "As  soon  as  he  was  old  enough  to  receive 
mstruction,"  says  D'Aubigne,  "his  parents  endeavored  to 
communicate  to  him  the  knowledge  of  God,  to  train  him  in 

*  D'Aubigne,  voL  i,  p.  118. 


MARTIN   LUTHER.  73 

His  fear,  and  to  form  him  to  the  practice  of  the  Christian 
virtues.  They  applied  the  utmost  care  to  his  earliest  domestic 
education.*  He  was  taught  the  heads  of  the  catechism,  the 
ten  commandments,  the  Apostles'  creed,  the  Lord's  prayer, 
some  hymns,  some  forms  of  prayer,  a  Latin  grammar  com- 
posed in  the  fourth  century  by  Donatus ;  in  a  word,  all  that 
was  studied  in  the  Latin  school  of  Mansfeld."t — In  the  good 
old  Catholic  times,  then,  parents  knew  their  duty  to  their 
children,  and  people  were  not  so  stupidly  ignorant  after  all ! 

Luther  seems  to  have  been  a  very  naughty  boy  ;  for  while 
at  school  in  Mansfeld,  "  his  master  flogged  him  fifteen  times 
in  one  day  fX  and,  in  his  after-life,  he  was  wont  to  complain 
of  the  cruel  treatment  he  received  from  his  parents.  "  My 
parents  treated  me  cruelly,  so  that  I  became  very  timid :  one 
day,  for  a  mere  trifle,  my  mother  whipped  me  till  the  blood 
came.  They  truly  thought  they  were  duing  right ;  but  they 
had  no  discernment  of  character,  which  is  yet  absolutely 
necessary,  that  we  may  know  when,  on  whom,  and  how,  pun- 
ishment should  be  inflicted."§ — ^His  parents  probably  acted 
on  the  old  maxim,  "  spare  the  rod  and  spoil  the  child ;"  and 
if  he  was  subsequently  so  much  spoiled,  even  with  all  the 
previous  training  of  the  rod,  what  would  he  have  been  with- 
out its  salutary  restraint  ? 

Though  "it  appears  that  the  child  was  not  yet  led  to 
God,"|]  still  he  evinced  a  great  fund  of  piety.  "  But  even  at 
this  early  age,  the  young  man  of  eighteen  did  not  study 
merely  with  a  view  of  cultivating  his  understanding ;  there 
was  within  him  a  serious  thoughtfulness,  a  heart  looking  up- 
wards, which  God  gives  to  those  whom  He  designs  to  make 
His  most  zealous  servants.  Luther  felt  that  he  depended 
entirely  on  God, — a  simple  and  powerful  conviction,  which  is 
at  once  a  principle  of  deep  humility,  and  an  incentive  to 
great  undertakings.     He  fervently  invoked  the  Divine  bless- 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  122.  f  Ibid.  p.  123.  |  Ibid. 

{  Luth.  0pp.  Witteirh.  xxii,  1785.  ||  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  123. 

VOL.  I. — 7 


74  REFORMATION   IN    GERMANY. 

ing  upon  his  labors.  Every  morning  lie  began  the  day  with 
prayer ;  then  he  went  to  church ;  afterwards  he  commenced 
his  studies,  and  he  never  lost  a  moment  in  the  course  of  the 
day.  '  To  pray  well,'  he  was  wont  to  say,  '  was  the  better 
half  of  study.'"*— This  looked  a  little  like  being  "led  to 
God." 

On  the  17th  of  August,  150.5,  he  entered  into  the  Augus- 
tinian  convent  at  Erfurth,  being  then  in  the  22d  year  of  his 
age.  He  was  induced  to  take  this  important  step  by  a  vow 
he  had  made  to  consecrate  himself  entirely  to  God,  in  case 
of  his  deliverance  from  a  terrific  storm,  by  which  he  was 
overtaken  near  Erfurth,  and  in  which,  according  to  one 
account,!  his  friend  Alexis  was  stricken  dead  by  lightning  at 
his  side.  "At  lengtii  he  is  with'  God,"  says  D'Aubigne. 
"  His  soul  is  safe.  He  is  now  to  obtain  that  holiness  he  so 
ardently  desired."^ — The  monasteries  were  then  not  so  bad 
as  Protestants  would  fain  represent  them.  "  They  often  con- 
tained Christian  virtues" — D'Aubigne  himself  tells  us — 
"  which  grew  up  beneath  the  shelter  of  a  salutary  retire- 
ment; and  which  if  they  had  been  brought  forth  to  view, 
would  have  been  the  admiration  of  the  world.  They  who 
possessed  these  virtues,  living  only  with  each  other  and  with 
God,  drew  no  attention  from  without,  and  were  often  unknown 
even  to  the  small  convent  in  which  they  were  inclosed — their 
life  was  known  only  to  God."§ 

Luther,  it  would  seem,  entered  the  convent  with  the  purest 
motives,  and  labored  in  it  to  overcome  himself  by  mortifica- 
tion and  self-denial,  and  to  acquire  humility  and  all  the 
Christian  virtues.  "But  it  was  not  to  gain  the  credit  of 
being  a  great  genius  that  he  entered  the  cloister ;  it  was  to 
find  the  aliments  of  piety  to  God."||  The  monks  "  imposed 
Dn  him  the  meanest  offices.     They  perhaps  wished  to  humble 

*  Mathesius,  3,  apud  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  130. 

f  Discredited,  perhaps  with  reason,  by  D'Aubigne  (ibid.,  p.  135,  note.) 

I  Ibid.,  p.  136.  5  Ibid.,  p.  146-7.  1|  Ibid.,  p.  141. 


HIS    EARLY    LIFE.  75 

the  doctor  of  philosophy,  and  to  teach  him  that  his  learning 

did  not  raise  him  above  his  brethren The  former  master  of 

arts  was  obliged  to  perform  the  functions  of  door-keeper,  to 
open  and  shut  the  gates,  to  wind  up  the  clock,  to  sweep  the 
church,  to  clean  the  rooms.  Then,  when  the  poor  monk,  who 
was  at  once  porter,  sexton,  and  servant  of  the  cloister,  had 
finished  his  work — 'cum  sacco  per  civitatem' — 'with  your 
bag  through  the  town  !'  cried  the  brothers ;  and,  loaded  with 
his  l;)read-bag,  he  was  obliged  to  go  through  the  streets  of 
Erfurth,  begging  from  house  to  house,  and  perhaps  at  the 
doors  of  those  very  persons  who  liad  been  either  his  friends 
or  his  inferiors.  But  he  bore  it  all.  Inclined  from  his  natu- 
ral disposition  to  devote  himself  heartily  to  vdiatever  he 
undertook,  it  was  with  his  whole  soul  that  he  had  become  a 
monk.  Besides,  could  he  wish  to  spare  the  body  ?  To  regard 
the  satisfying  of  the  flesh  ?  Not  thus  could  he  acquire  the 
humility,  the  holiness  he  had  come  to  seek  within  the  walls 
of  a  cloister'"* 

How  strongly  does  not  this  spirit  of  self-denial  contrast 
with  the  gross  self-indulgence  of  his  subsequent  life,  when 
he  had  thrown  off  all  those  wholesome  but  now  anti 
quated  restraints!  Well  does  his  panegyrist  remark,  that 
"  there  was  then  in  Luther  little  of  that  which  made  him  in 
after-life  the  refoi-mer  of  the  church."f  As  we  shall  see,  tiiis 
remark  is  strikingly  true.  The  change  which  was  wrought  in 
his  own  life  and  conduct,  by  the  principles  he  subsequently 
broached  and  earned  out  in  practice,  was  indeed  striking  and 
radical,  but  certainly  greatly  for  the  worse. 

He  received  ordination  with  fear  and  trembling  at  his  own 
unworthiness.  So  great  was  his  awe  of  the  holy  sacrament, 
that  in  a  procession  at  Eisleben,  on  the  feast  of  Corpus 
Christi,  he  almost  fainted  through  overpowering  reverence 
for  Christ  truly  present.J  He  was  scrupulous  to  a  fault.  He 
freq\^.i;ntly  gave  way  to  fits  of  despondency  and  melancholy, 


•  D'Au^igne,  vol.  i,  p.  139.  f  Tbi^i-,  P-  1^8.  t  Ibid-,  P  157 


76  REFORMATION   IN    GERMANY. 

which  were  with  difficulty  removed.  As  a  panacea  for  hi& 
'troubled  mind,  an  aged  monk  called  his  attention  to  that 
article  of  the  Apostles'  creed  in  which  we  profess  to  believe 
"  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins."*  The  humble  confidence  in  oui 
forgiveness  through  God's  mercy,  which  this  article  is  so  well 
calculated  to  inspire,  was  afterwards  reduced  by  the  reformer 
to  an  absolute  and  infallible  certainty,  that  his  own  sins  were 
forgiven.  So  apt  are  men  to  run  into  extremes,  especially 
those  who  are  addicted  to  scruples!  "When  these  are  re- 
moved— as  was  unhappily  the  case  with  Luther — they  too 
often  are  exchanged  for  the  opposite  extreme  of  wanton  reck- 
lessness. This  remark  may  furnish  a  key  to  the  reformer's 
whole  subsequent  life. 

His  deep  humility,  we  are  further  informed,  caused  him  to 
shrink  from  the  office  of  preaching.  It  was  with  great  diffi- 
culty that  Staupitz,  his  superior,  could  overcome  this  reluct- 
ance. "In  vain  Staupitz  entreated  him:  'No,  no,'  replied 
he,  '  it  is  no  light  thing  to  speak  to  men  in  God's  stead.' " 
"  An  affecting  instance  of  humility  in  this  great  reformer  of 
the  church,"!  adds  D'Aubigne.  He  unhappily  gave  no 
evidence  of  any- such  spirit,  after  he  had  turned  reformer,  as 
we  shall  see  presently.  Had  he  always  preserved  this  humble 
and  truly  Christian  spirit,  the  peace  of  the  Church  would  in 
all  probability  never  have  been  disturbed. 

In  1510,  but  one  year  before  the  commencement  of  the 
Reformation,  Staupitz  directed  him  to  make  the  visitation  of 
the  forty  convents  belonging  to  the  Augustinian  Order  in 
Germany.^  He  discharged  this  difficult  office  with  singular 
prudence  and  zeal.  He  labored  to  reform  abuses,  gave 
salutary  counsels,  and  animated  the  monks  to  the  practice  of 
every  virtue.  A  little  later,  he  gave  additional  evidence  of 
Christian  humility.  Having  received  a  new  gown  from  the 
elector  Frederick  of  Saxony,  he  thus  wrote  to  Spalatin,  the 
elector's  secretary:  "It  would  be  too  fine,  if  it  were  not  a 

*  D'Aubignr,  vol.  i,  p.  154.  +  Tljid.,  p.  161.  t  Tl'ifl-.  P-  191.  soq<l 


AS    A    CATHOLIC.  77 

prince's  gift.  I  am  not  worthy  that  any  man  should  think 
of  me,  much  less  a  prince,  and  so  noble  a  prince.  Those  are 
most  useful  to  me  who  think  worst  of  me.  Present  my 
thanks  to  our  prince  for  his  favor,  but  know  that  I  desire 
neither  the  praises  of  thyself  nor  of  others:  all  the  praise  of 
man  is  vain,  the  praise  that  cometh  from  God  being  alone 
true."* 

During  this  period  of  his  Catholic  life,  it  would  appear 
from  the  testimony  of  his  eulogist,  that  he  was  no  less  zealous 
and  devoted  than  he  was  humble.  When  the  plague  broke 
out  in  Wittenburg,  in  1516,  his  friends  advised  him  to  fly 
from  a  malady  which  swept  off  whole  multitudes.  Luther 
answered :  "  You  advise  me  to  flee — but  whither  shall  I  flee  ? 
I  hope  the  world  will  not  go  to  pieces,  if  brother  Martin 
should  fall.  If  the  plague  spreads,  I  will  send  the  brethren 
away  in  all  directions ;  but  for  my  part,  I  am  placed  here :  obe- 
dience does  not  allow  me  to  leave  the  spot,  until  lie  who  called 
me  hither,  shall  call  me  away."f  He  did  not  behave  thus 
courageously,  when  the  pest  again  visited  Wittenburg,  after 
he  had  left  the  Church.  When  the  blessed  light  of  the  new 
gospel  had  broken  upon  his  beclouded  spirit,  he  was  not  so 
well  prepared  to  meet  death  in  order  to  succor  his  sufiering 
brethren,  but  he  openly  proclaimed  the  narrow  and  selfish 
doctrine,  that  the  minister  of  God  fulfilled  his  duty,  if  he 
administered  the  sacrament  to  his  flock  four  times  in  the 
year ;  and  that  it  was  an  intolerable  burden  to  be  under  the 
obligation  to  do  more,  especially  in  time  of  plague !  J 

Such  was  Luther  before  he  began  the  Reformation  in  1517. 
How  changed,  alas !  was  he  after  this  period — heu !  quantum 
mutatus  ab  illo!  He  is  no  longer  the  humble  monk,  the 
scrupulous  priest,  the  fervent  Christian,  that  he  was  before! 

*  Lutheri  Epistolas,  edit.  De  Wette,  i,  p.  45, 46  :  apud  D'Aub.  vol.  i,  p.   195. 

f  Epist.  i,  p.  42.     26  Oct.  1516.     Apud  D'Aub.  vol.  i,  p.  194. 

I  Apud  Audin,  Life  of  Luther,  American  translation,  p.  27.  He  quotes 
Miclielet's  Memoires  de  Luther.  This  is  the  edition  of  Audin  from  which 
we  s)i:dl  usually  quote 


78  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

Amidst  the  storm  which  he  excited,  lie  gradually  suffered 
shipwreck  of  almost  every  virtue,  and  became  reckless  and 
depraved ;  the  mere  creature  of  impulse,  the  child  of  pride, 
the  victim  of  violent  and  degrading  passion.  We  trust  to 
make  all  this  appear  from  certain  and  undoubted  facts,  which 
no  one  can  deny.  And  the  result  of  our  reasoning  will  be 
the  irresistible  conclusion,  that  for  him  at  least,  the  Reforma- 
tion was  a  down-hill  business  :  and,  according  to  D'Aubigne's 
test,  that  this  was  its  general  tendency. 

His  own  deterioration,  and  the  work  of  the  Reformation 
were  both  gradual ;  and  they  went  hand  in  hand.  He  did 
not  at  first  seem  to  aim  at  any  change  in  the  doctrines  and 
institutions  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  this  thought  was  devel- 
oped only  afterwards.  In  the  38th,  G7th,  and  7lst  of  his 
famous  ninety-five  theses  published  against  Tetzel  on  the  1st 
of  Nov.  1517,  he  expressly  maintained  the  authority  of  the 
Pope,  and  the  Catholic  doctrine  on  indulgences.  He  professed 
only  to  aim  at  the  correction  of  abuses. 

It  is  a  mooted  question,  whether  jealousy  of  the  Dominican 
order,  which  had  been  intrusted  with  the  preaching  of  the  in- 
dulgences, to  the  exclusion  of  his  own  rival  order  of  the  Au- 
gustinians,  influenced  him  in  his  first  attack  on  Tetzel.  Such 
seems  to  have  been  the  opinion  of  the  enlightened  Pontiff, 
Leo  X.,  who,  when  the  controversy  was  first  reported  to  him, 
remarked,  smiling,  "  that  it  was  all  a  m.erc  monkish  squabble 
originating  in  jealousy."*  Sucn  alsx^was  the  opinion  of  many 
other  ancient  writers.  Certain  it  is  that  this  jealousy,  if  it 
did  not  originate,  at  least  fed  ana  maintained  the  discussion. 
liUther's  order,  with  its  principal  members — Staupitz,  Link, 
Lange,  and  others — were  his  warmest  advocates  ;  while  the 
Dominicans — Cajetan,  Hochstraet,  Eck,  and  Prierias — were 
his  chief  opponents.    The  Dominican  order  continued  faithful 


*  Che  coteste  erano  invidie  fratesche.     Brandelli,  a  contemporary  Domini- 
3an  writer.     Hist.  Trag.  pars  3. 


HE    TURNS    REFORjVIER.  79 

to  the  church  ;  the  Augustinians  of  Germany  abandoi.eil  it 
almost  without  an  exception.* 

Had  he  paused  at  the  proper  time,  had  he  continued  to  leave 
untouched  the  venerable  landmarks  of  Catholic  ftiith,  and 
confined  himself  to  the  correction  of  local  disorders,  all  Catho- 
lics would  have  applauded  his  zeal.  Instead  of  being  reck- 
oned with  Arius,  Pelagius,  Wicliffe,  and  other  heresiarchs,  he 
would  then  have  found  a  niche  in  the  temple  of  Catholic  fame, 
with  an  Ambrose,  a  Gregory  VIL,  and  a  Bernard  !  His  great 
talents,  properly  regulated,  might  have  been  immensely  bene- 
ficial to  the  Church  of  God.  But,  standing  on  the  brink  of  a 
precipice,  he  became  dizzy,  and  fell ;  and,  like  Lucifer  of  old, 
he  drew  after  him  one-third  of  the  stars  of  God's  kingdom  on 
earth.  The  old  Catholic  tree  bore  some  evil  fruits  of  abuses — 
generally  local  and  unauthorized,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  proper 
place — and,  instead  of  pruning  it  discreetly  and  nurturing  its 
growth,  he  recklessly  lopped  ofi"  all  its  branches,  and  even  at- 
tempted to  tear  it  up  by  the  roots,  under  the  pretext,  forsooth, 
of  making  it  bear  fruit ! 

The  question  has  often  been  asked,  was  Luther  sincere  ? 
We  have  no  doubt  of  his  sincerity  nor  much  of  his  piety, 
until  he  turned  reformer.  Perhaps,  too,  he  might  have  been, 
to  a  certain  extent,  sincere  during  the  first  year  of  his  reform- 
ative career.  God  only  can  judge  the  human  heart ;  and  it 
would  be  rash  in  us  to  attempt  to  fathom  what  only  He  can 
search  with  unerring  accuracy.  Still  we  have  some  facts 
whereon  to  base  a  judgment  in  the  particular  case  of  the  Ger- 
man reformer. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  he  had  some  misgivings  at  first. 
He  himself  tells  us  that  "he  trembled  to  find  himself  alone 
against  the  whole  Church."  f     He  testifies  on  this  subject  as 

*  Several  of  the  members,  however,  seem  to  have  subsequently  relumed 
to  the  communion  of  the  Church,  and  among  them  Staupitz,  the  superior, 
t  "  Solus  primo  eram."    0pp.  in  Praef.  Edit.  Wittenb.     Quoted  by  D'Au- 


80  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

follows  ;  "  How  often  has  my  conscience  disturbed  me !  Ho\^ 
often  have  I  said  to  myself:  dost  thou  imagine  thyself  wiser 
than  all  the  rest  of  mankind  ?  Darest  thou  imagine  that  all 
mankind  have  been  in  eiTor  for  so  long  a  series  of  years."* 
And  again  :  "  I  am  not  so  bold  as  to  assert  that  I  have  been 
guided  in  this  aifair  by  God ;  upon  this  point  I  would  not 
wish  to  undergo  the  judgment  of  God."t 

He  regretted  at  first  that  his  Theses  had  become  so  public, 
and  had  made  so  great  a  stir  among  the  people.  "  My  de- 
sign," says  he  "  was  not  to  make  them  so  public.  I  wished 
to  discuss  the  various  points  comprised  in  them  with  some  of 
our  associates  and  neighbors.  If  they  had  condemned  them, 
I  would  have  destroyed  them ;  if  they  had  approved  of  them, 
I  would  have  published  them."  J  "  He  was  disturbed  and 
dejected  at  the  thought" — of  standing  alone  against  the  Church 
— "doubts," which  he  thought  he  had  overcome,  returned  to 
his  mind  with  fresh  force.  He  trembled  to  think  that  he  had 
the  whole  authority  of  the  Church  against  him.  To  withdraw 
himself  from  that  authority — to  resist  that  voice  which  nations 
and  ages  had  humbly  obeyed — to  set  himself  in  opposition  to 
that  Church  which  he  had  been  accustomed  from  his  infency 
to  revere  as  the  mother  of  the  faithful :  he,  a  despicable  monk 
— it  was  an  effort  beyond  human  power."  § 

Luther  himself  tells  us  how  he  struggled  against  this  feel- 
ing ;  how  he  lulled  to  rest  that  still  small  voice  of  conscience 
within  his  bosom.  "  After  having  triumphed,  by  means  of 
the  Scriptures,  over  all  opposing  arguments,  I  at  last  over 
came,  by  the  grace  of  Christ  (!)  with  much  anguish,  labor,  and 
great  difficulty,  the  only  argument  that  still  stopped  me, 
namely,  '  that  I  must  hear  the  Church ;'  for,  from  my  heart,  I 
lionored  the  Church  of  the  Pope  as  the  true  Church,"  etc.U 

*  0pp.  Lutheri.  Germ.  Edit.  Geneva,  vol.  ii,  fol.  9. 

+  Ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  364. 

\  Epist.  Collect.  De  Wette,  vol.  i,  p.  95. 

{  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  257.  H  Luth.  0pp.  Lat.  i,  49.    Ibid.,  i,  258 


WAS    HE    SINCERE?  81 

He  foresaw  the  dreadful  commotions  of  which  he  would  be 
the  author,  and  trembled  at  the  thought!  "I  tiemble — I 
shudder  at  the  thought,  that  I  may  be  an  occasion  of  discord 
to  such  mighty  princes."*  —Still  he  recklessly  persevered! 

But  these  scruples  were  but  "a  remnant  of  popery:"  soon 
he  succeeded  in  lulling  his  conscience  into  a  fatal  security. 
An  awful  calm  succeeded  the  storm.  The  pride  of  being  at 
the  head  of  a  strong  party ;  the  praises  of  the  students  and 
professors  of  the  Wittenburg  university;  the  flattery  of 
friends,  and  the  smiles  of  the  powerful  elector  of  Saxony ; 
soon  quieted  the  rising  qualms  of  conscience.  The  following 
facts,  selected  almost  at  random  from  a  mass  of  evidence  of 
the  same  kind,  may  contribute  to  throw  additional  light  on 
the  question  of  his  sincerity. 

On  the  30th  of  May,  1518,  which  was  Trinity  Sunday,  he 
wrote  a  letter  to  Pope  Leo  X.,  of  which  the  following  is  the 
concluding  passage: 

"  Therefore,  most  holy  father,  I  throw  myself  at  the  feet  of  your  holiness, 
and  submit  myself  to  you  with  all  that  I  have  and  all  that  I  am.  Destroy 
my  cause  or  espouse  it ;  pronounce  either  for  or  against  me ;  take  my  life 
or  restore  it,  as  you  please :  I  will  receive  your  voice  as  that  of  Christ  him- 
self, who  presides  and  speaks  through  you.  If  I  have  deserved  death,  I 
refuse  not  to  die  :  the  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fullness  thereof.  May  He 
be  praised  for  ever  and  ever.  May  He  maintain  you  to  all  eternity! 
Amen."f 

The  sequel  tested  the  sincerity  of  this  declaration.  But 
even  while  he  was  penning  it,  or  very  shortly  afterwards, 
he  preached  from  the  pulpit  of  Wittenburg  against  the  powei 
of  the  Pope  to  fulminate  excommunication,  and  he  was  en- 
gaged in  circulating  inflammatory  tracts  breathing  the  same 
spirit.J 

*  "Inter  tantos  principes  dissidii  origo  esse  valde  horreo  et  timeo."  Ep.  i,  93, 

t  Luth.  Epist.  vol.  i,  p.  121.     Edit.  De  Wette. 

I  "  Habui  nuper  sermonem  ad  populum  de  virtute  excommunicationis,  ubi 
taxavi  obiter  tyraimidem  et  inscitiam  sordidissimi  illius  vulgi  ofBcialiunc 
oommis-sariorum  vicariorum,"  etc. — Epist.  ad  Wencesl.  Link,  Julii,  1518. 


82  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

In  1519  he  had  a  conference  with  Miltitz,  the  papal  envoy, 
to  whose  perfect  satisfaction  he  arranged  every  thing,  pron> 
ising  to  keep  silence  in  future  as  to  the  questions  in  contro 
versy.  The  good  nuncio  embraced  him,  wept  with  joy,  and 
invited  him  to  a  banquet,  at  which  he  loaded  him  with 
caresses.  While  this  affecting  scene  was  enacted,  Luther,  in 
a  private  letter  to  a  friend,  called  him  "a  deceiver,  a  liar, 
who  parted  from  him  with  a  Judas-like  kiss  and  crocodile 
tears;"*  and,  in  another  letter,  to  Spalatin,  he  wrote:  "Let 
me  whisper  in  your  ear;  I  do  not  know  whether  the  Pope  is 
Antichrist,  or  only  his  apostle,"f  etc.  And  yet,  in  less  than  a 
month  after  this  very  time,  on  the  3d  of  March,  1519,  he  wrote 
to  the  Pope  in  these  words  of  reverence  and  submission : 

"  Most  holy  father,  I  declare  it  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  of  all  the 
world,  I  never  have  sought,  nor  will  I  ever  seek,  to  weaken  by  force  or  arti- 
fice the  power  of  the  Roman  church  or  of  your  holiness.  I  confess  that 
there  is  nothing  in  heaven  or  earth  that  should  be  preferred  above  that 
church,  save  only  Jesus  Christ  the  Lord  of  all."J: 

The  same  man  who  wrote  this,  impugned  the  Primacy  of 
the  Pope  the  very  same  year  in  the  famous  discussion  with 
Doctor  Eck  at  Leipsic !  Was  he — could  he  be  sincere  in 
all  this?  But,  further,  when  on  the  3d  of  October,  1520,  he 
became  acquainted  with  the  bull  of  Leo  X.,  by  which  his 
doctrines  were  condemned,  he  wrote  these  remarkable  words : 
"I  will  treat  it  as  a  forgery,  though  I  believe  it  to  be 
genuine."§ 

The  following  evidence  will  greatly  aid  us  in  judging  of  the 
motives  which  guided  Luther  in  pushing  forward  the  work 
of  the  Reformation.  What  those  motives  were  he  surely  was 
the  best  judge.  Let  us  then  see  what  himself  tells  us  on  this 
subject. 

Li  his  famous  harangue  against  Karlstadt  and  the  image 
breakers,  delivered    from    the  pulpit  of  the   church  of  All 

*  Epist.  Sylvio  Egrano,  2  Feb.,  1519. 

•f  Epist.  Spalatino,  12  Feb.,  1519.  See  Audin,  Life  of  Luther,  p.  91,  and 
D  Aubigne,  vol.  ii,  p.  15-16. 

t   Epist.  i,  p.  234.  5  D'Aubigne,  vol.  ii,  p.  128. 


HIS    MOTIVES.  83 

Saints  at  Wittenberg,  he  plainly  says  that,  if  liis  recreant 
disciples  will  not  take  his  advice,  "  he  will  not  hesitate  to 
retract  every  thing  he  had  either  taught  or  written,  and  leave 
them ;"  and  he  adds  emphatically :  "  This  I  tell  you  once  for 
all."*  In  an  abridged  confession  of  faith,  which  he  drew  up 
for  his  partisans,  he  says  in  a  vaunting  tone :  "  I  abolished 
the  elevation  of  the  host,  to  spite  the  Pope ;  and  I  had  retained 
it  so  long  to  spite  Karlstadt."t  In  the  new  form  of  service, 
which  he  composed  as  a  substitute  for  the  Mass,  he  says  in  a 
similar  spirit :  "  If  a  council  were  to  order  the  communion  to 
be  taken  in  both  kinds,  he  and  his  would  only  take  it  in  one 
or  none ;  and  would,  moreover,  curse  all  those  who  should,  in 
conformity  with  this  decree  of  the  council,  communicate  in 
both  kiuds."J — Could  the  man  be  sincere  who  openly  boasted 
of  being  governed  by  such  motives  ? 

We  might  continue  to  discuss  the  question  of  his  sincerity, 
by  showing  how  he  said  one  thing  to  Cardinal  Cajetan,  and 
in  the  diet  of  Worms  in  1521,  and  other  things  precisely  con- 
tradictory to  his  friends,  at  the  same  time:  how,, before  Caje- 
tan, he  appealed  first  to  the  universities,§  then  to  the  Pope, 
better  informed,]]  and  subsequently  to  a  general  council  :*j[y  and 
how,  when  all  these  tribunals  had  decided  against  him,  he 
would  abide  by  none  of  their  decisions,  his  reiterated  solemn 
promises  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding !  Did  the  Spirit  of 
God  direct  him  in  all  these  tortuous  windings  of  artful  policy  ? 
Do  they  manifest  aught  of  the  uprightness  of  a  boasted  apostle  ? 
Do  they  not  rather  bespeak  the  wily  heresiarch — an  Arius,  a 
Nestorius,  or  a  Pelagius  ? 

We  say  nothing  at  present  of  his  consistency:  we  speak 
only  of  his  sincerity  and  common  honesty.  No  one  has  ever 
yet  been  found  to  praise  his  consistency.     He  was,  confess- 

*  "Non  dubitabo  funem  reducere,  et  omnium  qua3  aut  scripsi  aut  docui 
palinodiam  canere  :  hoc  vobis  dictum  esto."  Sarmo  docens  abusus  non  mani- 
bus,  etc.  f  Confessio  Parva. 

I  Forma  Missae.  5  1^'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  357. 

II  Ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  376.  H  Ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  389,  and  again,  vol.  ii,  p.  134 


84  REFORMATION    IN    GFJIjNUNY. 

edly,  a  mere  creature  of  impulse  and  of  passion,  constant  in 
nothing  but  in  bis  batred  of  tbe  Pope  and  of  tbe  Catboljc 
Cburcb.  His  inconsistencies  would  fill  a  volume,  and  a  mere 
enumeration  of  tbem  would  swell  tbis  cbapter  to  an  unwar- 
rantable lengtb.* 

But  tbere  is  one  incident  in  tbe  private  life  of  Lutber  too 
curious  to  be  passed  over  in  silence.  We  give  it  in  tbe 
words  of  M.  Audin,  witli  bis  references  to  contemporary- 
historians  : 

"After  the  labors  of  the  day,  he  would  walk  with  Catharine" — the  nun 
whom  he  had  sacrilegiously  wedded — "  in  the  little  garden  of  the  convent, 
near  the  ponds  in  which  colored  fish  were  disporting ;  and  he  loved  to  explain 
to  her  the  wonders  of  the  creation,  and  the  goodness  of  Him  who  had  made 
it  with  His  hands.  One  evening  the  stars  sparkled  with  unwonted  bright- 
ness, and  the  heavens  appeared  to  be  on  fire.  '  Behold  what  splendor  those 
luminous  points  emit,'  said  Catharine  to  Luther.  Luther  raised  his  eyes. 
'What  glorious  light,'  said  he:  'it  shines  not  for  us.'  'Why  not?'  re 
plied  Bora ;  '  have  we  lost  our  title  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ?'  Luther 
sighed — 'Perhaps  so,'  said  he,  'because  we  have  abandoned  our  state.* 
'We  ought  to  return  to  it,  then,'  said  Catharine.  'It  is  too  late — the 
CAR  is  sunk  too  DEEPLY,'  added  the  doctor.     The  conversation  dropped."! 

"We  may  here  be  pardoned  for  making  a  digression,  to 
relate  a  somewhat  analogous  incident  of  Melanctbon,  Luther's 
bosom  friend  and  cherished  disciple.  Luther  was  wont  to 
flatter  him  immoderately,  and  tbe  grateful  disciple  repaid  him 
with  interest  in  tbe  same  gilded  coin.  When  the  latter 
bad  finished  his  Scholia  —  or  short  commentaries  —  on  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  Lutber  said  to  him,  after  having 
read  the  work :  "What  matter  is  it  whether  it  pleases  you 
or  not,  if  it  pleases  me?  I  tell  you  that  tbe  commentaries 
of  Origen  and  Jerome,  compared  with  yours,  are  nothing 
but    absurdities."t      Melanctbon,   too,   had   bis   misgivings. 

*  Those  who  may  be  curious  to  investigate  this  subject  still  further  will 
find  abundant  facts  in  Audin's  Life  of  Luther.  We  direct  the  attention 
of  such  to  the  following  pages  :  81,  82,  85,  94,  95,  102,  110,  238,  239,  240, 
291,  312,  354,  397,  398,  410,  430,  472,  511,  etc.,  etc. 

+  Georg  Joanneck — Norma  Vitae.  Kraus — Ovicul.  part  ii,  fol.  39,  Apnd 
Audin,  p.  382.  t  ^.pud  Audin,  p.  445. 


HIS  BOLDNESS  AND  ELOQUENCE.  85 

"He  recalled  to  his  mind  the  image  of  his  old  ftither, 
George  Schwartzerde,f  the  smith,  whose  lively  faith  made 
him.  rise  often  at  night  to  offer  up  his  prayer  to  God. 
He  thought  of  the  last  prayer  of  his  dying  mother,  who, 
raising  her  hands  towards  him,  said :  '  My  son,  it  is  for  the  last 
time  you  see  your  mother.  I  am  about  to  die :  your  turn 
will  one  day  come,  when  you  must  render  an  account  of  your 
actions  to  your  Judge.  You  know  that  I  was  a  Catholic,  and 
that  you  have  induced  me  to  abandon  the  religion  of  mv 
fathers.  Tell  me  now,  for  God's  sake,  in  what  religion  I 
ought  to  die.'  Melancthon  answered:  'Mother,  the  new 
doctrine  is  the  more  convenient;  the  other  is  the  more 
secure.'  "f  But  the  gentle  and  wavering  Melancthon  was  kept 
in  error  by  the  fascination  of  his  imperious  master  Luther, 
who,  serpent-like,  had  coiled  himself  around  his  very  heart- 
strings, and  held  him  captive. 

Lutlier's  intellectual  attainments  were  of  a  high  order.  As 
a  popular  orator,  few  surpassed  him  whether  in  ancient  or  in 
modern  times.  Nothing  could  withstand  the  foamy  torrent 
of  his  eloquence,  or  resist  the  effect  of  his  withering  invective : 

"  When  he  preached,  the  people  listened  with  trembling  expectation  tc 
the  words  which  fell  from  his  lips.  His  eye,  which  seemed  to  revolve  in  a 
fiery  orbit — his  large  and  seer-like  forehead — his  animated  flgiire,  especially 
when  much  excited — his  threatening  gesture,  his  loud  voice  which  thun- 
dered on  the  ear — the  spirit  of  inspiration  with  which  he  seemed  possessed 
— all  awakened  either  terror,  or  ecstatic  admiration  in  his  auditory."  | 

An  excellent  judge,  the  great  Frederick  Von  Schlegel, 
passes  the  following  opinion  on  his  mental  powers. 

"  In  the  first  place,  it  is  evident  of  itself  that  a  man  who  accomplished  so 
mighty  a  revolution  in  the  human  mind,  and  in  his  age,  could  have  been 
endowed  with  no  common  powers  of  intellect,  and  no  ordinary  strength  of 
character.  Even  his  writings  display  an  astonishing  boldness  and  energy 
of  thought,  united   with  a  spirit  of  impetuous,  passionate,  and  convulsive 


*  Schwarzerde  means  literally  hla'-k  earth. 

•f  ^gidius  Albertinus  im  4.  Theil  des  Deutschen  Lust-Hauses,  vol.  V  p. 
143. — Apud  Audin,  p.  447,  note.  X  Audin,  p.  225. 

6 


86  REFORMATION    IN   GERMANY. 

enthusiasm.     The  latter  quaHties  are  indeed  not  very  compatible  with  a 
prudent,  enlightened,  and  dispassionate  judgment."* 

His  indefatigable  industry  and  untiring  energy  brought  out 
all  his  mental  resources.  He  was  restless  and  uneasy  in 
mind  and  heart :  his  spirit  could  never  be  still,  after  it  had 
lost  the  peace  it  once  possessed  in  the  bosom  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  His  mind  was  not  elevated  or  refined ;  it  could  not 
appreciate  the  beauties  of  art  in  Rome,  which  he  visited 
during  the  splendid  pontificate  of  Leo  X.  He  seems  to  have 
gleaned  nothing  else  from  his  journey  to  the  eternal  city  but  a 
few  "house-wife  stories  or  mendacious  anecdotes."f 

Much  has  been  said  of  his  courage,  and  of  his  utter  disre- 
gard of  danger.  That  he  was  bold  and  daring,  we  do  not  pre- 
tend to  deny.  It  however  required  but  little  courage  to  be  bold 
in  his  interview  with  Cardinal  Cajetan,  or  at  the  diet  of  Worms 
in  1521.  With  the  safe-conduct  of  the  emperor,  and  the  cer- 
tain protection  of  the  powerful  elector  of  Saxony,  he  had  little 
io  apprehend.  Besides,  any  man  might  become  courageous, 
it  least  at  times,  who  had  a  powerful  party  to  sustain  him  in 
every  thing,  Luther  was  certainly  most  courageous  where 
there  was  least  danger.  He  is  altogether  a  different  charac- 
ter at  the  diet  of  Worms,  and  at  Wittenberg.  He  could  hurl 
defiance  at  Popes,  emperors,  and  princes,  when  these  were 
far  off*,  and  he  was  out  of  their  reach :  but  if  he  had  any  thing 
to  fear  from  them,  the  scene  changed  altogether.  He  then 
became  as  obsequious  and  crouching,  as  he  had  before  been 
bold  and  reckless. 

How  meanly  sycophantic  was  he  on .  all  occasions  to  the 
elector  of  Saxony !  We  will  give  one  instance  of  this.  When 
Henry  VHL,  of  England,  complained  to  the  elector  of  Luther's 
outrageous  insults  to  his  royal  majesty,  the  elector  barely  inti- 
mated the  ftict  in  a  very  mild  and  indirect  way  to  the  reformer, 
i^'lthout  even  insinuating  the  propriety  of  the  latter  making  any 


*   Philosophy  of  History,  vol.  ii,  p.  204. 

+  See  Audin,  p.  135,  for  facts  under  this  head. 


HIS   SUBSERVIENCY    TO   PRINCES.  87 

reparation.  Luther  at  once  seized  his  pen,  and  indited  the  fol- 
lowing singular  amende  honorable.  "  Most  serene  king !  most 
illustrious  prince !  I  should  be  afraid  to  address  your  majesty, 
when  I  remember  how  much  I  must  have  offended  you  in  the 
book  which,  under  the  influence  of  bad  advice,  rather  than  of 
my  own  feelings,  I  published  against  you,  through  pride  and 

vanity I  blush  now,  and  scarcely  dare  to  raise  my 

eyes  to  you — I,  who,  by  means  of  these  workers  of  iniquity, 
have  not  feared  to  insult  so  great  a  prince — I,  who  am  a 
worm  and  corruption,  and  who  only  merit  contempt  and  dis- 
dain  If  your  majesty  thinks  proper  that,  in  another 

work,  I  should  recall  my  words,  and  glorify  your  name,  vouch- 
safe to  transmit  to  me  your  orders.  I  am  ready  and  full  of 
good  will,"*  etc.  In  fact,  as  we  shall  hereafter  prove,  Luther 
was  indebted,  in  a  great  measure,  to  his  sycophancy  to  princes 
for  the  success  of  his  pretended  Reformationf . 

His  passions  were  violent,  and  he  seems  to  have  made  little 
effort  to  govern  them.  His  violence,  in  fact,  often  drove  him 
to  the  very  verge  of  insanity.  His  cherished  disciple,  Melanc- 
thon,  deplored  his  furious  outbursts  of  temper.  "  I  tremble 
when  I  think  of  the  passions  of  Luther:  they  yield  not  in 
violence  to  the  passions  of  Hercules."J  The  weak  and  timid 
disciple  had  reason  to  tremble;  for  he  testifies  that  Luther 
occasionally  inflicted  on  him  personal  chastisement.§ 

If  he  thus  treated  his  most  intimate  friends,  what  are  we  to 
suppose  his  conduct  was  towards  his  opponents  and  enemies  ? 

*  0pp.  Lutheri,  Tom.  ix,  p.  234.  Cochlaeus,  p.  156,  Ulenberg,  p.  502. 
See  Audin,  p.  300. 

f  Mr.  Hallam,  speaking  of  this  letter  of  apology  addressed  by  Luther  to 
Henry  VIIL,  says :  "  Among  the  many  strange  things  which  Luther  said  and 
wrote,  I  know  not  one  more  extravagant  than  this  letter,  which  almost  justi- 
fies the  supposition  that  there  was  a  vein  of  insanity  in  his  very  remarkable 
ciiaracter." — Constitutional  History  of  England,  Harper's  edition,  1857; 
j(.  45,  note. 

I  Melancthon  Epist.  ad  Theodorum. 

{  "Ab  ipso  colaphos  accepi." — Epist.  ad  eundem. 


38  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

In  his  conferences  with  Cajetan  and  Miltitz,  and  in  hhs  iettei 
to  Leo  X.,  as  well  as  in  his  famous  .speech  at  Worms,  he 
acknowledged  the  violence  of  his  writings  :  Still,  instead  of 
correcting  this  fault,  it  seems  to  have  grown  with  his  growth 
Witness  the  manner  in  which  he  replies  to  Tetzel.  "  It  seems 
to  me,  at  the  sound  of  these  invectives,  that  I  hear  a  great  ass 
braying  at  me.  I  rejoice  at  it,  and  should  be  sorry  that  such 
people  should  call  me  a  good  Christian."* 

He  exhausts  all  the  epithets  of  the  coarsest  ribaldry  against 
his  opponents,  no  matter  how  respectable  these  may  have 
been.  We  can  not  pollute  our  pages  with  a  tithe  of  his  foul 
language.  Behold  the  spirit  that  breathes  in  the  following 
passage,  in  which  he  speaks  of  his  theological  antagonist 
Emser :  "  After  a  little  time  I  will  pray  against  him ;  I  will 
beseech  God  to  render  to  him  according  to  his  works :  it  is 
better  that  he  should  perish,  than  that  he  should  continue  to 
blaspheme  Christ.  I  do  not  wish  you  to  pray  for  this  wretch  ; 
pray  for  us  alone."f  His  adversaries  are  full  of  devils :  if  they 
die,  the  devil  has  strangled  them ;  "  one  foams  at  the  mouth  ; 
another  has  the  horns  and  tail  of  Satan.  This  one  is  clad  as 
Antichrist ;  that  man  changed  into  a  block.  Oftentimes  the 
same  personage,  in  the  same  page,  is  travestied  as  a  mule,  a 
camel,  an  owl,  and  a  mole."J 

What  are  we  .to  think,  for  instance,  of  the  spirit  of  the 
following  language,  addressed  to  an  assembly  of  his  own 
disciples ! 

"  My  brethren,  be  submissive,  and  communicate  only  under  one  kind.  If 
you  do  what  I  say  to  you,  I  will  be  to  you  a  good  master ;  I  will  lie  to  you 
a  father,  brother,  fi-iend.  I  will  obtain  graces  and  privileges  from  his  majesty 
for  you.  If  you  disobey  me,  I  declare  that  I  will  become  your  enemy,  and 
do  all  the  mischief  possible  to  this  city."  ^ 

Volumes  might  be  filled  with  extracts  from  Luther's  writ- 
ings, replete  with    the  coarsest  vulgarity  and   the  grossest 

*  Luth.  0pp.  Leipsic,  xvii,  132. 

f  Epist.  ad  Nicholas  Hausman,  26  April,  1520. 

t  Audin.,  p.,  11,8.  §  Table  Talk,  p.  376. 


HIS   COARSENESS.  89 

obscenity :  the  specimens  we  have  given  are  among  the  mild- 
est and  least  objectionable,* 

It  is  usual  to  excuse  this  coarseness  of  Luther  by  the  spirit 
of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  This  is  scarcely  a  valid  apology 
for  one,  who  set  himself  up  as  a  reformer  of  religion  and  of 
morals,  and  who  claimed  a  divine  commission  to  establish  a 
new  system  of  doctrine.  Besides,  we  look  in  vain  for  any 
such  examples  of  vulgarity  among  his  chief  opponents  in  the 
Catholic  Church  :  Eraser,  Eck,  Cajetan,  Erasmus,  and  the 
great  Leo  X.,  were  far  too  refined  to  employ  any  such  vulgar 
weapons.  The  reformers  seemed  to  claim  a  special  privilege 
in  this  way.  Let  us  exhibit  a  few  specimens  of  the  manner 
in  which  some  of  those  rival  champions  of  reform,  who  dif- 
fered from  Luther  in  their  doctrinal  views,  spoke  of  the  Saxon 
reformer.     They  returned  railing  for  railing.f 

"  This  man,"  says  one  of  his  contemporary  reformers,  "  is 
absolutely  mad.  lie  never  ceases  to  combat  truth  against 
all  justice,  even  against  the  cry  of  his  own  conscience."J 
"  He  is  puffed  up,"  says  another,  "  with  pride  and  arro- 
gance, and  is  seduced  by  Satan."§  "  Yes,"  re-echoes  another, 
"  the  devil  is  master  of  Luther  to  such  a  degree  as  to  make 
one  believe  that  he  wishes  to  gain  entire  possession  of 
him."  II 

The  same  brother  reformer  adds :  "  that  he  was  possessed 
not  by  one,  but  by  a  whole  troop  of  devils  ;"T[  and  that  "  he 
wrote  all  his  works  by  the  impulse  and  the  dictation  of  the 

*  For  more  instances  consult  the  following  pages  of  Audin,  136,  16?», 
235,  237,  239,  240,  248,  273,  285,  287,  288,  299,  etc.,  etc. 

f  It  was  well  for  such  men  as  these  to  turn  refonners,  and  to  cry  out 
against  the  holj^  Catholic  Church  !  There  was  certainly  great  need  of  refor- 
mation, not  of  the  Church,  but  of  the  coarse  hypocrites  who,  reeking  with 
vice  and  impurity,  lifted  up  their  voices  to  calumniate  better  men  than  them- 
selves— a  device  to  avert  suspicion  from  their  own  conduct ! 

I  Hospinian.  !j  CEcolampadius.  ||  Zuingle. 

IT  Non  obsessum  ab  uno  spiritu,  sed  occupatum  a  caterva  daemonum.— 
Jontra  Lutherum.     Apud  Audin,  p.  188. 
VOL,    I. — 8 


90  llEFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

devil,  with  whom  he  had  dealings,  and  who  in  the  struggle 
seemed  to  have  thrown  him  by  victorious  arguments."* 

This  last  charge  was  not  without  foundation,  Luther  him- 
self relates  his  "conference  with  the  devil"  in  full,  and 
acknowledges,  at  the  close  of  it,  that  he  was  unable  to  answer 
the  arguments  of  Satan  !f  The  devil,  as  was  quite  natural, 
argued  against  the  lawfulness  of  private  Masses,  which  Luther 
feebly  defended :  and  so  convincing  were  the  reasons  of  his 
satanical  majesty,  that  Luther  wrote  to  his  intimate  friend 
Melancthon  immediately  after:  "I  will  not  again  celebrate 
private  Masses  fore/er."  J  And  he  faithfully  kept  his  prom- 
ise !  It  was  a  favorite  saying  of  his  that,  "  unless  we  have 
the  devil  hanging  about  our  necks,  we  are  but  pitiful  specula 
tive  theologians  !"§ 

Can  we  wonder,  then,  at  this  compliment  paid  him  by  his 
brother  Protestants  of  the  church  of  Zurich :  "  But  how 
strangely  does  this  fellow  let  himself  be  carried  away  by  his 
devils!  How  disgusting  is  his  language,  and  how  full  are 
his  words  of  the  devil  of  hell  !"|| 

If  these  sayings  are  hard,  it  is  surely  not  our  fault;  Luther 
bore  similar  testimony  of  himself,  and  of  his  brother  Protest- 
ants, who  happened  to  differ  from  him ;  and  these  did  but 
retort  on  him  similar  compliments !  We  are  but  the  humble 
witnesses  and  historians  of  the  conflict.  The  reformers  are 
certainly  unexceptionable  witnesses  of  the  characters  of  one 

*  Contra  Confessionem  Lutheri,  p.  61.  For  more  testimonies  of  the 
kind,  see  Note  A.  at  the  end  of  this  volume. 

t  In  his  treatise  De  Missa  private.  See  also  Note  B.  at  the  end  of  the 
present  volume,  where  we  will  give  the  Satanic  interview  in  full.  It  is  a 
document  as  curious  as  it  is  important,  in  forming  an  estimate  of  Luther's 
character, 

I  "  Sed  et  ego  amplius  non  (liciam  missam  privatam  in  aeternum." — Ad 
Melancth.  Aug.  1,  1521. 

5  "Nisi  dialx)lum  habemus  coUo  affixum,  nihil  nisi  speculativi  theologi 
sumus."  —  CoUoquia  Mensalia,  fol.  23.  Apud  Audin,  i,  366.  TurnbuU's 
translation,  two  vols.  8vo,  London. 

II  Church  of  Zurich — Contra  Confess.  Lutheri. 


HIS   MORALITY.  9 1 

another.  Is  it  likely  that  God  selected  such  instruments  tc 
reform  Bis  church? 

Luther's  standard  of  morality  was  about  as  high  as  that 
of  his  good  breeding.  St.  Paul  tells  us  that  a  Christian's 
"  conversation  is  in  heaven  ;"*  Luther's,  on  the  contrary,  wah 
not  only  earthly,  but  often  immoral  and  revolting  in  the  ex- 
treme. He  discussed,  in  all  their  most  disgusting  details, 
subjects  which  St.  Paul  would  not  have  so  much  as  "  named 
among  Christians."t  His  famous  "Table  Talk"  is  full  of  such 
specimens  of  the  new  gospel  decency.  Wine  and  women, 
the  Pope  and  the  devil,  are  the  principal  subjects  of  which 
the  reformer  liked  to  treat,  when  alone  with  his  intimate 
friends,  in  private  and  unreserved  conversation.  For  fifteen 
years — from  1525  to  1540 — he  usually  passed  the  evenings  at 
the  Black  Eagle  tavern  of  Wittenburg,  where  he  met  and 
conversed,  over  the  ale-jug,  with  his  bosom  friends,  Melanc- 
thon,  Amsdorf,  Aurifaber,  Justus  Jonas,  Lange,  Link,  and 
Staupitz. 

His  disciples  carefully  collected  and  published  these  con- 
versations of  their  "beloved  master,"  as  so  many  precious 
oracles  from  heaven,  delivered  by  the  mouth  of  the  new 
apostle.  Erasmus  Albert,  one  of  them,  tells  us,  in  a  work 
against  Karlstadt,  that  "  these  table  discourses  of  the  doctor 
are  better  than  any  sermons ;"  and  Frederick  Mecum,  another 
early  Lutheran,  calls  them  "affecting  conversations,  which 
ought  to  be  diffused  among  the  people."J  The  first  editions 
of  the  work  were  published  in  German  and  in  Latin,  by 
Mathesius,  Peter  Rebstock,  and  Aurifaber,  all  zealous  disci- 
ples of  the  reformer.§  If  there  was  any  indiscretion  in  thus 
revealing  to  the  world  the  secret  conversations  of  this  "ale- 
pope  of  the  Black  Eagle"  with  his  boon  companions,  their 

*  Philippians,  iii :  20.  f  Ephes.  v  :  3.  \  Apud  Audin,  p.  386. 

\  The  first  edition  was  that  of  Eisleben,  Luther's  birth-place,  in  1566, 
twenty  years  after  his  death.  It  was  speedily  followed  by  others,  at  Frank- 
fort on  the  Oder  in  1567  and  1571;  at  Jena  in  1591;  at  Leipsic  in  1603 
and  1700 ;  at  Dresden  and  again  at  Leipsic  in  1723. 


92  REFORMATION   IN    GERMANY. 

zeal  is  alone  to  blame  for  the  exposure.  The  Table  lalk,  oi 
Tisch  Reden^  as  it  is  called  in  German,  revealing  as  it  does 
the  heart  of  Luther  in  his  most  unguarded  moments,  is  per- 
haps the  best  key  to  his  real  character.* 

We  will  not  soil  our  pages  with  extracts  from  the  Table 
Talk,  revealing  the  moral  turpitude  of  Luther.  Those  who 
may  doubt  the  truth  of  the  picture  we  have  drawn,  or  who 
may  feel  a  curiosity  in  such  matters,  are  referred  to  the  work 
itself — a  ponderous  folio  of  1350  pages,  besides  an  index, 
which  alone  would  make  a  volume  of  considerable  size.f 
Luther's  immorality  was  not,  however,  confined  to  private 
conversations  at  the  Black  Eagle :  he  unblushingly  and  sacri- 
legiously exhibited  it  in  the  very  sanctuary  of  God's  holy 
temple.  His  Sermon  on  Matrimony,  delivered  in  the  German 
language,  from  the  pulpit  of  the  public  church  of  All  Saints 
at  Wittenburg,  enters  into  the  most  revolting  details  upon  a 
most  delicate  subject.  The  perusal  of  that  sermon,  even  in 
the  French  language — under  the  veil  of  which  the  translator 
of  M.  Audin  has  wisely  thought  proper  to  leave  it  partially 
concealed — is  enough  to  raise  a  blush  on  the  cheek  of  mod- 
esty! He  preached  this  sermon  in  1521,  immediately  after 
his  return  from  the  Castle  of  the  Wartburg,  where  he  had 
held  his  famous  "  conference  with  the  devil ;"  and  it  is  worthy 
of  such  a  master,  if  indeed  the  demon  himself,  who  is  said  to 
have  little  taste  for  such  matters,  would  not  have  blushed  at 
the  obscenity  of  his  wanton  disciple ! 

*  Never,  perhaps,  was  there  a  better  or  more  striking  illustration  of  the 
old  Latin  adage,  in  vino  Veritas — in  wine  there  is  truth — than  in  these  un- 
guarded and  confidential  conversations  between  Luther  and  his  intimate 
friends.  Though  concealment  was  no  characteristic  element  of  Luther's 
character,  even  in  his  more  sober  moments,  yet  the  whole  depths  of  his 
heart  were  more  fully  unveiled  over  his  cups,  in  which  he  appears  to  have 
indulged  more  and  more  as  he  advanced  in  years.  Verily,  he  had  now  fully 
given  up  all  those  practices  of  penitential  austerity  concerning  which  he 
had  been  so  scrupulous  while  a  Catholic  ! 

f  M.  Audin  pnblisnes  copious  extracts  from  the  work,  p.  387,  seqq.        .^ 


HIS   TABLE   TALK.  93 

"We  may  as  well  remark  here,  that  it  was  in  this  same 
church,  about  the  same  time,  that  Luther  delivered  the  wither- 
ing invective  against  Karlstadt  and  some  other  ultra  reform- 
ers, who  had  torn  down  or  defaced  the  statues  and  paintings 
of  the  church,  during  his  absence  at  the  Wartburg.  The  fol- 
lowing extract  from  this  oration  contains  a  boast  characteristic 
of  Luther :  "  I  have  done  more  mischief  to  the  Pope,  even 
while  I  slept,  or  was  drinking  beer  with  Philip  and  Amsdorf. 
than  all  the  princes  and  emperors  put  together  !"* 

We  shudder  while  we  record  the  following  horrid  bias 
phemies,  taken  from  his  Table  Talk;  and  we  should  have 
refrained  from  publishing  them,  had  he  not  set  himself  up  as 
a  reformer  of  God's  Church,  and  in  that  garb  seduced  many 

from  the  faith.     "  May  the  name  of.  the  Pope  be  d d : 

may  his  reign  be  abolished  ;  may  his  will  be  restrained !  If 
I  thought  that  God  did  not  hear  my  prayer,  I  would  address 
the  devil ."t  Again:  "I  owe  more  to  my  dear  Catharine  and 
to  Philip,  than  to  God  himself."J  Finally :  "  God  has  made 
many  mistakes.  I  would  have  given  him  good  advice  had  I 
assisted  at  the  creation.  I  would  have  made  the  sun  shine 
incessantly;  the  day  would  have  been  without  end."§  Could 
human  wickedness  or  temerity  have  gone  further  than  this  ?  1| 

*  0pp.  Lutheri,  Tom.  vii,     Chytr.  Chron.  Sax.  p.  247. 

t  Table  Talk,  p.  213,  Edit.  Eisleben. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  124.  5  Id.  Ed.  Frank,  part  ii,  fol.  20. 

II  In  his  Standard  Library,  Bohn  publishes  (in  one  volume  12mo,  pp.  374, 
London,  1857,)  what  purports  to  be  Luther's  Table  Talk.  We  are  indebted 
for  a  copy  of  this  production  to  our  friend  James  Slevin,  Esq.,  of  Phila- 
delphia. It  is  said  to  be  a  reproduction  of  a  translation  made  about  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  by  one  Captain  Henry  Bell,  an  English- 
man, who  tells  us  a  most  marvellous  story  concerning  "the  miraculous 
preserving  of  Dr.  Martin  Luther's  book,  entitled  CoUoquia  Mensalia,  or  his 
Divine  Discourses  at  his  Table,  etc."  According  to  the  account  of  this  gal- 
lant romancer,  he  by  chance  found  in  Germany  a  copy  of  the  precious  book 
hidden  away  in  a  deep  hole  in  the  ground,  this  being  the  only  copy  that 
was  left,  all  the  rest  having  been  burned  by  order  of  the  Pope  and  the 
emperor !  He  reverently  cari'ied  the  book  to  England ;  and  when  he  was 
di'atory  in  the  translation,  a  nocturnal  apparition  frightened  him  into  com 


94  REFORMATION   UN    GERMANY. 

It  is  not  a  litttle  remarkable,  that  from  the  date  of  his  coi> 
ference  witli  the  devil,  Luther's  moral  career  was  constantly 
downward ;  until  at  last  he  reached  the  lowest  grade  of  io 
famy,  and  became  utterly  steeped  in  vice.  How  strongly 
does  his  reckless  conduct,  after  this  period,  contrast  with  his 
vigils,  long  prayers,  and  fasts,  while  an  humble  monk  in  the 
Catholic  Church !  He  himself  draws  the  contrast  in  his  own 
forcible  manner. 

He  tells  us  that  while  a  Catholic,  "  he  passed  his  life  in 
austerities,  in  watchings,  in  fasts  and  praying,  in  poverty, 
chastity  and  obedience."*  When  he  had  abandoned  Catho- 
licity, he  says  of  himself,  that  he  was  no  longer  able  to  resist 
the  vilest  propensities,t  and  that,  "  as  it  did  not  depend  upon 
him  not  to  be  a  man,  so  neither  did  it  depend  upon  him  to  be 
without  a  woman."J  His  immorality  was  generally  known, 
and  he  himself  often  acknowledged  it.  "  He  was,"  says  Slei- 
dan,  a  Protestant  historian  of  the  time,  "so  well  aware  of 
his  immorality,  as  we  are  informed  by  his  favorite  disciple 
(Melancthon,)  that  he  wished  they  would  remove  him  from 
the  office  of  preaching."§     In  his  Table  Talk,  he  often  avowed 

mencing  the  task,  causing  him  "  to  fall  into  an  extreme  sweat !"  See  hia 
narrative  in  full,  prefixed  to  Bohn's  edition. 

He  does  not  choose  to  tell  us  whether  the  apparition  was  "white  or 
black" — a  question  which  had  seriously  puzzled  more  than  one  reformer. 
Verily,  some  people  arc  prepared  to  betieve  almost  any  absurdity,  provided 
it  only  tally  with  their  prejudices,  and  almost  any  marsel,  provided  it  do 
not  point  in  the  direction  of  the  truth.  We  have  never  seen  a  more  stupid 
or  clumsy  imposture  than  this  whole  attempt  to  palm  off  on  the  public  the 
dreams  of  a  miserable,  and  it  would  seem,  disreputable  adventurer ;  and  we 
are  surprised  that  such  a  man  as  William  Hazlitt  should  have  lent  it  his 
countenance.  The  book  itself  is  a  bad  abridgment  of  Luther's  Table  Talk, 
with  the  more  objectionable  portions  carefully  left  out.  Only  think  of  pub- 
lishing the  immense  folio  of  1350  pages  in  a  small  12nio  volume!  Yet 
there  is  no  indication  of  its  abridgment. 

*  Tom.  V,  0pp.  Commentar.  in  c.  i  ad  Gralatas  v,  14. 

f  "  Carnis  mea3  indomitae  uror  magnis  ignibus,  carne,  libidine."  Apud 
Audin,  p.  355.  I  0pp.  Tom.  v,  fol.  119.     Sermo  de  Matrimonio. 

5  Sleidan,  B.  ii,  An.  1520. 


HIS    MARRIAGE.  95 

the  base  passions  which  raged  within  him;  but  in  language 
much  too  gross  for  our  pages.  He  sometimes  complained, 
that  "  the  Wittenbergers  who  supply  all  the  monks  with 
wives,  will  not  give  me  one."* 

Though  he  had  made  a  solemn  vow  of  chastity;  and 
though  the  Holy  Scriptures  command  us  to  fulfill  our  vows  ;t 
yet  he  married  Catharine  Bora,  a  nun  bound  by  similar  sacred 
engagements  !J  He  hesitated  long  before  he  took  this  step, 
and  had  some  conscientious  twitchings  even  while  taking  it: 
his  conscience  did  not  become  wholly  seared,  until  some  time 
afterwards!  While  at  the  Wartburg  in  1521 — a  little  before 
his  satanical  interview — he  uttered  the  following  exclamation 
r)f  horror,  on  being  shown  some  theses  of  his  recreant  dis- 

*  See  Meyer — Ehren  Gedachtniss,  fol.  26.  f  Psalm  Ixxv  :  12. 

I  The  Protestant  historian  of  Germany,  Wolfgang  Menzel,  speaking  of 
Luther's  marriage,  says :  "  Luther,  in  defiance  of  the  ancient  prophecy,  that 
antichrist  would  spring  from  the  union  of  a  monk  and  nun,  wedded  (A.  D. 
1525,)  the  beautiful  young  nun  Catharine  Von  Bora,  who  brought  him  sev- 
eral children."  Vol.  ii,  p.  249,  edit.  Bohn,  London,  1853.  He  was  not  the 
first  apostate  priest  who  married  at  the  period  of  the  Reformation ;  Karl- 
stadt,  Bernhard,  and  others  had  preceded  him  in  the  reformatory  race  mat- 
rimonial.    Ibid.,  p.  232. 

As  we  shall  have  occasion  to  quote  Menzel  frequently  hereafter,  we  may 
as  well  remark  here,  that  though  occasionally  candid  in  his  statement  of 
facts,  he  takes  little  pains  to  disguise  his  prejudice  against  the  Catholic 
Church ;  which  circumstance  renders  his  testimony  the  more  unexception- 
able whenever  it  is  favorable  to  the  Church.  One  can  hardly  have  patience 
while  reading  the  flippant  and  stupid  calumnies,  which  he  heaps  together 
on  p.  218,  seqq.,  of  this  second  volume,  in  reference  to  the  character  of  the 
Popes  who  preceded  Leo  X.,  the  sale  of  indulgences,  and  the  first  move- 
ments of  the  Reformation  in  Germany.  He  assigns  no  authority  whatever 
for  his  calumnious  and  almost  incredible  statements.  Among  other  things, 
for  instance,  he  says  that  the  ignorance  of  the  clergy  "  was  countenanced  by 
the  Popes,  who  expressly  decreed  that  out  of  ten  ecclesiastics  only  one  was 
to  study !"  P.  220.  The  Popes  had  always  decreed  precisely  the  contrary, 
as  every  one  knows  who  has  read  history.  This  very  Pontiff,  Leo  X.,  had 
enacted,  that  "thenceforth  none  should  be  raised  to  the  priesthood  but  mec 
of  ripe  years,  of  exemplar}'^  conduct,  and  who  had  gone  through  a  long  course 
of  atudy."     See  Audin,  vol.  i,  p.  79,  London  edition. 


96  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

ciple,  Karlstadt,  in  which  this  man  allowed  wives  to  priesta 
and  monks — "Good  heaven!  will  our  Wittenburg  friends 
allow  wives  even  to  monks !  Ah !  at  least  they  will  not 
make  me  take  a  wife."*  And  again  he  says :  "•  The  friars 
have  of  their  own  accord  chosen  a  life  of  celibacy ;  they  are 
therefore  not  at  liberty  to  withdraw  from  the  obligations  they 
have  laid  themselves  under."t  Three  years  later,  in  1524,  he 
said :  "  God  may  change  my  purpose,  if  such  be  his  pleasure ; 
but  at  present  I  have  no  thought  of  taking  a  wife."J 

And  yet,  but  a  few  short  weeks  elapsed  before  he  espoused 
Catharine  Bora !  That  he  had  some  misgivings  on  the  occa- 
sion, would  appear  from  these  words  of  his  letter  to  an  inti- 
mate friend,  Wenceslaus  Link — "  Away  with  your  scruples : 
let  the  Lord  be  glorified.  I  have  my  little  Catharine,  I 
belong  to  Bora,  and  am  dead,  to  the  world  "§ — and  to  con- 
science. To  Kueppe,  another  boon  companion,  he  wrote : 
"  You  know  well  what  has  happened  to  me.  I  am  caught  in 
the  snares  of  a  woman.  God  must  have  been  angry  with  me 
and  with  the  world."  1|  Luther  at  first  felt  the  degradation  to 
which  he  had  stooped,  in  violating  his  sacred  vows.  In  a 
letter  to  his  intimate  friend  Spalatin,  immediately  after  his 
marriage,  he  says :  "  That  he  had  made  himself  so  vile  and 
contemptible  by  these  nuptials,  that  he  hopes  all  the  angels 
will  laugh,  and  all  the  demons  weep  !"T[  Still  this  feeling 
soon  gave  way  to  a  conviction,  which  he  expressed  in  a  con- 
fidential letter  to  another  friend,  "That  God  himself  had 
inspired  him  with  the  thought  of  marrying  that  nun,  Catha- 
rine de  Bora !  !"**  Could  inconsistency  and  infatuation  go 
further  than  this  ? 

*  At  mihi  non  obtrudent  uxorem.  Lib.  Epist.  ii,  p.  40.  D'Aubigne  iii, 
26.     Audin,  vol.  i,  p.  337.  f  Ibid.,  p.  34  ;  D'Aubigne,  ib.,  p.  26,  27. 

X  Epist.  ii,  p.  570,  30th  Nov.,  1524. 

\  Epist.  Tom.  ii,  p.  245.    Wittenb.  edit.    Seckendorf,  1.  i,  s.  63,  clxx.xi'. 

II  Ibid.    Tom.  ii,  p.  903.     Edit.  Altenb. 

^  Epistola  Spaliitino.  "  Sic  me  vilem  et  contemptum  his  nuptiis  feci,  ut 
angclos  ridere,  et  daemones  flere  sperem."  **  Epist.  Wenceslao  Liiik 


HIS   MARRIAGE.  97 

The  whole  world  was  astounded,  or  at  least  greatly  shocked 
at  this  conduct  of  the  Saxon  reformer.  The  Catholics  viewed 
it  as  open  sacrilege:  many  Protestants  were  saddened  and 
scandalized.  Among  these  was  Melancthon,  who  deplored 
this  conduct  of  his  master  in  a  letter  to  Camerarius ;  but  with 
singular  inconsistency  adds :  "  Wo,  however,  to  him  who 
would  reject  the  doctrine,  on  account  of  the  sins  of  the 
teacher !"  The  accomplished,  but  wavering  Erasmus,  viewed 
it  but  as  another  proof  of  his  caustic  remark,  "  That  the  tra- 
gedy of  the  Reformation  ever  terminated  in  the  comedy  of 
marriage,"  In  a  letter  written  on  the  occasion,  he  says: 
"  This  is  a  singular  occurrence ;  Luther  has  thrown  off  the 
philosopher's  cloak,  and  has  just  married  a  young  woman  of 
twenty-six — handsome,  well-made,  and  of  a  good  family,  but 
who  has  no  dowry,  and  who  for  some  time  had  ceased  to  be 
a  vestal.  The  nuptials  were  most  auspicious ;  for  a  few  days 
after  the  hymeneal  songs  were  sung,  the  bride  was  delivered ! 
Luther  revels,  while  a  hundred  thousand  peasants  descend  to 
the  tomb  !"*  The  scandalous  circumstance  here  developed 
may  perhaps  explain  Luther's  haste  in  the  matter. 

All  Germany  was  aroused  by  the  tidings  of  Luther's  mar- 
riage.    His  opponents,  as  well  as  those  who  were  indifferent, 

*  Epist.  Danieli  Manchis  Ulmensi.  Oct.  6,  1525.  This  letter  of  Erasmus 
has  given  rise  to  an  animated  controversy  between  the  friends  and  opponents 
of  Luther.  Those  who  may  wish  to  see  both  sides,  are  referred  to  Audin, 
p.  362,  seqq.  There  seems  to  be  little  doubt,  that  the  caustic  censure  of 
Erasmus  had  a  basis  in  truth.  See  also  Bayle's  Dictionary,  article  Luther. 
The  alleged  retraction  by  Erasmus  is  believed  by  many  to  have  been  a  for- 
gery. If  Froben,  who  collected  and  published  the  Epistles  of  Erasmus, 
omitted  the  original  passage  in  his  letter  to  Daniel  Ulm  criminating  Luther, 
he  would  scarcely  have  scrupled  to  interpolate  this  passage  containing  the 
alleged  retraction.  Besides,  Luther's  immorality  was  well  known,  and  not 
concealed  even  by  himself  His  conversation  was  habitually  such  as  to  indi- 
cate a  corrupt  heart.  He  had,  moreover,  a  son  Andrew,  as  he  testifies  in  his 
Table  Talk,  though  his  name  is  not  given  in  the  list  of  his  children  fui- 
nished  elsewhere,  which  is  very  suspicious.  Finally,  he  speaks  of  an  ille- 
gitimate child  of  his  wife  Catharine.  See  Audin,  Ibid. 
VOL.   I. — 9 


98  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

laughed  at  liis  expense  through  all  the  notes  of  tne  gamut. 
Sonnets,  epigrams,  satires,  epithalamia,  and  caricatures, 
poured  in  on  his  devoted  head,  like  a  hail  storm,  from  every 
quarter.  Among  these,  the  best  perhaps  were  those  of  Doc- 
tors Emser  and  "Wimpina.  Tlie  former  extemporized  a 
nuptial  song,  or  epithalamium,  in  Latin  verse,  and  set  it  to 
music :  "  Farewell !  cowl,  prior,  guardian,  abbot :  adieu  to  all 
vows :  adieu  to  matins  and  prayers,  fear  and  shame :  adieu  to 
conscience  !"*  The  latter,  in  a  wood-cut  caricature,  exhibited, 
in  withering  and  ludicrous  contrast,  the  marriage  of  Luther 
and  the  divine  injunction :  "  Vow  ye,  and  pay  to  the  Lord 
your  God" — Yovete,  et  reddite  Domino  Deo  tuo.f 

Luther  seems  to  have  retired  for  a  time  from  the  pitiless 
peltings  of  the  storm — "dead  to  the  world,  with  his  little 
Catharine" — but  he  again  emerged  from  solitude,  more  reck- 
less and  violent  than  ever.  As  Erasmus  remarked,  "mar- 
riage had  not  tamed  him !"  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  "  his 
little  Catharine"  gave  him  no  little  trouble  and  annoyance. 
She  sometimes  played  the  part  of  the  scold  and  the  vixen. 
He  used  to  call  her — after  the  honey-moon,  of  course — "my 
master  Ketha." J — Poor  man ! 

Before  he  left  the  Catholic  Church,  he  was  temperate  and 
abstemious:  during  the  last  twenty-one  years  of  his  life — 
from  his  marriage  in  1525  to  his  death  in  1546 — he  was 
much  given  to  the  luxuries  of  the  table,  and  drank  beer  copi- 
ously, if  not  to  excess.     Maimbourg  and  others  tell  us,  that 

*  Cuculla,  vale,  capa ! 
Vale,  prior,  custos,  abba ! 
Cum  obedientia, 
Cum  jubilo. 
Ite  vota,  preces,  horae, 
Vale  timor  cum  pudore : 
Vale  conscientia ! 

CocMoRUS  in  Act.  Lutheri,  fol.  118. 
f  Psalm  Ixxv:  12  ;  Prot.  vers.  Ixxri:  12.     The  only  answer  Luther  made 
to  Wimpina,  was  this :  "  Let  the  sow  grunt ! "       \  "Dominus  meus  Ketha." 


HIS   DEATH BEFORE   AND    AFTER.  99 

DC  lost  the  use  of  reason  at  many  of  the  sumptuous  banquets, 
in  which  he  was  wont  to  revel  with  his  intimate  friends  ;  and 
Seckendorf,  his  warmest  admirer,  admits  that  "  he  used  food 
and  drink  joyfully,  and  indulged  in  jokes,"*  even  on  the  eve 
of  his  death.  In  fact,  so  little  was  he  in  the  habit  of  re- 
straining his  passions,  or  of  concealing  his  vices,  that  they 
all  stood  out  in  bold  relief, — strong  even  in  death ! 

His  death  was  in  every  respect  worthy  of  the  life  he  had 
habitually  led  since  he  had  turned  reformer.  His  last  words 
contained  a  refusal  to  retract  his  errors,  and  a  declaration 
that  he  wished  to  die  as  he  had  lived !  We  will  give  a  few 
incidents  connected  with  his  last  moments.  "I  am  ready 
to  die,"  he  said,  "  whenever  it  shall  please  God  my  Saviour ; 
but  I  would  wish  to  live  till  Pentecost,  that  I  might  stigma- 
tize before  the  whole  world  this  Roman  beast,  whom  they 
call  the  Pope,  and  with  him  his  kingdom."  His  pains  be- 
coming very  acute,  he  said  one  day  to  his  nurse  :  "  I  wish 
there  was  a  Turk  here  to  kill  me."  Hear  how  he  prays,  while 
suffering:  "My  sins — death,  the  devil — give  me  no  rest! 
What  other  consolation  have  I  but  thy  grace,  O  God  !  Ah  ! 
let  it  not  abandon  the  most  miserable  of  men,  the  greatest  of 
sinners!"  Witness  again  the  spirit  of  the  following  charac 
teristic  prayer,  in  which  the  supplication  for  mercy  is  blended 
with  hatred  of  his  enemies:  "O  my  God!  how  I  would  wish 
that  Erasmus  and  the  Sacramentarians  did  for  a  moment 
experience  the  pains  that  I  suffer :  then  I  would  become  a 
prophet  and  foretell  their  conversion."! 

After  the  sumptuous  feast  alluded  to  above,  he  gave  vent 
to  his  humor  in  the  following  strain,  the  subject  of  which  is 
the  devil — his  usual  hobby:  "My  dear  friends,  we  can  not 
die,  till  we  have  caught  hold  of  Lucifer  by  the  tail !  I  saw 
his  back  yesterday  from  the  castle  turrets."! 

*  "  Cibo  et  potu  hilariter  usus  est ;  et  facetiis  indulsit."  Seckendorf,  Com- 
mentar.  de  Lutheranismo. 

f  For  more  facts  of  a  similar  kind,  see  Audin,  p.  482,  seqq. 
t  Rareburgius,  in  his  MS.     Seckendorf,  lib.  iii,  ^  36,  cxxxiv. 


100  REFORMATION    IN   GERMANY. 

Tlie  discourse  subsequently  turned  on  the  study  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  Luther  made  the  following  declaration,  wLich 
is  valuable  as  a  death-bed  confession.  "It  is  no  trifle  to 
understand  the  Scriptures.  Five  years'  hard  labor  will  be 
required  to  understand  Virgil's  Georgics :  twenty  years'  expe- 
rience to  be  master  of  Cicero's  Epistles:  and  a  hundred 
years'  intercourse  with  the  prophets  Elias,  Eliseus,  John  the 
Baptist,  Christ,  and  the  apostles,  to  know  the  Scriptures ! — 
Alas!  poor  human  nature!"*  And  yet  the  last  twenty-nine 
years  of  his  life  had  been  devoted  to  the  promulgation  of  the 
cardinal  principle  of  his  new  religion,  that  every  one  was 
competent  to  understand  the  Scriptures  by  his  own  private 
judgment!  Well  may  we  exclaim — "Alas!  poor  human 
•luiture !" 

Such  was,  or  rather  became,  Martin  Luther,  after  he  had 
loft  the  holy  Catholic  Church !  Compare  his  character  then 
with  what  it  was  before  that  event ;  and  then  apply  D  'Au- 
bigne's  test  given  above,  and  the  conclusion  is  irresistible: 
that  he  was  not  a  chosen  instrument  in  the  hands  of  God  for 
reforming  the  Church,  which  "  He  had  purchased  with  His 
blood."  t  Before  he  left  the  Church,  he  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
humble,  patient,  pious,  devoted,  chaste,  scrupulous;  after- 
wards, he  was,  in  every  one  of  these  particulars,  directly  the 
reverse.  Does  God  choose  such  instruments  to  do  his  work  ? 
Was  Moses,  was  Aaron,  were  the  apostles  such  characters  ? 
Luther,  like  the  apostles,  forsooth!  They  were  humble, 
chaste,  patient,  temperate,  and  modest:  he  was  proud,  im- 
moral, impatient,  and  wholly  shameless.  They  had  a  mission 
from  God,  and  proved  it  by  mirales :  he  had  not  the  one,  nor 
did  he  claim  the  other;  though  challenged  on  the  subject, 
both  by  the  Zuinglians  and  by  the  Anabaptists.J     Therefore 


*  Florimond  Remond,  b.  iii,  c.  ii,  fol.  287.     Laign,  vita  Lutheri,  fol.  4. 

f  Acts  XX  :  28. 

X  See  Audin,  p.  239.  Stiibner,  an  Anabaptist,  asked  him  to  produce  his 
miracles.  He  was  silent,  though  a  little  before,  he  had  made  the  very  same 
challenge  to  Karlstadt,  an  I  renewed  it  afterwards  to  the  Zuinglians! 


CHARACTER    OF   THE   REFORMERS.  101 

God  did  not  send  him — and  all  of  D'Aiibigne's  canting  theory 
falls  of  itself  to  the  ground.  What  must  the  lock  of  the 
Reformation  be,  if  Luther's  personal  character  be  the  key, 
which  suits  its  internal  structure  ? 

!♦■  would  be  easy  to  show,  by  unquestionable  evidence,  that 
the  other  reformers  were  not  a  whit  better  than  Luther.  We 
have  seen  already,  what  testimony  they  mutually  bore  to  the 
character  of  one  another ;  and  we  shall  probably  have  occa- 
sion to  recur  to  the  subject  in  the  sequel  of  our  essay : 

"  The  historian,  Hume,  has  truly  characterized  the  reformers  as  *  fanatics 
and  bigots;'  but  with  no  less  justice  might  he  have  added,  that  they  were 
(with  one  exception  ■perhaps')*  the  coarsest  hypocrites  :f  men,  who,  while 
professing  the  most  high-flown  sanctity  in  their  writings,  were  in  their  con- 
duct, brutal,  selfish,  and  unrestrainable ;  who,  though  pretending,  in  matters 
of  faith,  to  adopt  reason  as  their  guide,  were  in  all  things  else,  the  slaves  of 
the  most  vulgar  superstition ;  and  who,  with  the  boasted  right  of  private 
judgment  forever  on  their  lips,  passed  their  lives  in  a  course  of  mutual  re- 
crimination and  persecution ;  and  transmitted  the  same  warfare  as  an  heir- 
loom to  their  descendants.  Yet,  '  these  be  thy  Gods,'  0  Protestantism ! — 
these  the  coarse  idols  which  heresy  has  set  up  in  the  niches  of  the  saints 
and  fathers  of  old,  and  whose  names,  like  those  of  all  former  such  idols,  are 
worn  like  brands  upon  the  foreheads  of  their  worshipers."| 

Wlioever  will  read  attentively  the  veridical  history  of  the 
Reformation,  will  admit  the  truth  of  this  picture  drawn  by 
the  great  Irish  bard. 

*  Melancthon. 

f  Bucer  admits  the  justice  of  this  reproach.     Epist  ad  Calvin. 
X  "  Travels  of  an  Irish  Gentleman,"  etc.,  p.  200,  201.     Doyle,  New  York, 
1835. 

7 


PART  II. 

CAUSES  AND  MANNER  OF  THE  REFOEMATION 


CHAPTER     II. 

CHARACTER    OF    THE     RE FORMATION— THEORY    OF 
D'AUBIGNE    EXAMINED. 

The  question  stated — D'Aubigne's  opinion — Mother  and  daughter — Argu- 
mentnm  ad  hominem — Jumping  at  a  conclusion — Second  causes — Why 
Germany  was  converted — Why  Italy  and  Spain  were  not — Luther  and 
Mohammed — Reasoning  by  contraries — Why  France  continued  CathoUc. 

We  have  seen  what  was  the  character  of  the  chief  instru- 
ments who  brought  about  the  Reformation  in  Germany ;  we 
are  now  to  examine  what  was  the  character  of  the  work  itself, 
and  how  it  was  accomplished.  Were  the  reasons  which  were 
assigned,  as  the  principal  motives  for  this  alleged  reform  in 
religion,  sufficient  to  justify  it,  according  to  the  judgment  of 
impartial  men  ?  Were  the  means  employed  for  bringing  it 
about  such  as  would  lead  us  to  believe,  that  it  was  really  a 
change  for  the  better ;  and  were  they  such  as  God  would  or 
could  have  approved  and  sanctioned  ?  Finally,  weighing 
these  motives  and  these  means,  and  making  all  due  allow- 
ance for  the  condition  of  the  times,  was  there  any  thing  very 
remarkable  in  the  rapid  progress  of  the  Reformation  itself? 
We  will  endeavor  to  answer  these  questions  in  the  following 
chapters. 

D'Aubigne,  and  those  who  concur  with  him,  profess  to 
believe,  or  at  least  endeavor  to  make  others  believe,  that  the 
Reformation  was  not  only  sanctioned  by  God,  but  that  it  was 
directly  His  work.     He  says  : 

"  Christianity  and  the  Reformation  are,  indeed,  the  same  revolution,  but 
working  at  different  periods,  and  in  dissimilar  circumstances.     They  differ 
>n  sscondarj^  features — they  are  alike  in  their  first  lines,  and  leading  charac- 
(102) 


n'S    RAPID    DIFFUSION.  103 

teristics.  The  one  is  the  reappearance  of  the  other.  The  former  closes  the 
Did  order  of  things — the  latter  begins  the  new.  Between  them  is  the 
middle  aga.  One  is  the  parent  of  the  other ;  and  if  the  daughter  is  in  some 
respects  inferior,  she  has,  in  others,  characters  altogether  peculiar  to  herself."* 

In  opposition  to  this  flattering  theory,  we  will  endeavor  to 
prove  that  the  Reformation  differs  from  Christianity,  not  only 
"  in  secondary  features,"  but  also  "  in  its  first  lines  and  leading 
characteristics ;"  and  that,  if  the  former  was  the  daughter  of 
the  latter,  she  was  a  most  recreant  and  degenerate  daughter 
truly,  with  scarcely  one  lineament  in  common  with  her  parent. 
Yerily,  she  had  "characters  altogether  peculiar  to  herself," 
and  she  was  not  only  "  in  some  respects,"  but  in  almost  every 
thing,  not  only  "inferior"  to,  but  the  direct  opposite,  of  her 
alleged  parent ! 

According  to  our  author,  one  of  these  "  characters  of  the 
Reformation  peculiar  to  itself,"  was  "  the  suddenness  of  its 
action."  He  illustrates  the  rapidity  with  which  the  Reforma- 
tion was  established,  by  the  figure  employed  by  our  blessed 
Saviour  to  denote  the  suddenness  of  His  second  coming :  "As 
the  lightning  cometh  forth  from  the  west  and  shineth  to  the 
east,  so  shall  also  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man  be." 
"  Christianity,"  he  says,  "  was  one  of  those  revolutions,  which 
was  slowly  and  gradually  prepared  ;"  the  Reformation,  on  the 
contrary,  was  instantaneous  in  its  effect :  — "  A  monk  speaks, 
and  in  half  of  Europe  the  power  and  glory  [of  the  Church 
of  Rome]  crumbles  in  the  dust !  "f  This  rapidity  he  views  as 
a  certain  evidence,  that  the  Reformation  was  assuredly  the 
work  of  God.  For  "  how  could  an  entire  people — how  could 
80  many  nations,  have  so  rapidly  performed  so  difficult  a 
work  ?  How  could  such  an  act  of  critical  judgment  [on  the 
necessity  and  measure  of  the  reform]  kindle  the  enthusiasm 
indispensable  to  great,  and  especially  to  sudden  revolutions  1 
But  the  Reformation  was  a  work  of  a  very  different  kind  ; 
and  this,  its  history  will  prove.  It  was  the  pouring  forth  anew 
of  that  life  which  Christianity  had  brought  into  the  world."  J 

*  D'Aubin^e,  Preface,  p.  iv.  f  Ibid.  t  Tbid. 


^04  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

We  trust  to  make  it  appear  in  the  sequel,  that  ihe  rapiditv 
with  which  the  Reformation  was  diffused,  was  the  result  of 
the  pouring  forth  of  a  different  spirit  altogether.  Meantime 
we  would  beg  leave  to  ask  D'Aubigne  to  answer  this  plain 
argument,  specially  adapted  to  the  case  as  he  puts  it :  if  the 
suddenness  of  the  Reformation  be  a  proof  that  it  was  brought 
about  by  the  "  pouring  forth  anew  of  that  life  which  Christi 
anity  had  brought  into  the  world ;"  would  not  the  contrary 
feature  of  Christianity — its  gradual  operation* — be  a  conclu- 
sive evidence,  that  this  latter  system  was  not  the  work  of 
God?  And  if  this  argument  be  not  valid,  what  truth  is 
there  in  D'Aubigne's  entire  theory?  Would  not  his  reason- 
ing, if  reduced  to  the  strict  laws  of  logic,  rather  prove,  on 
the  contrary,  if  it  proved  any  thing,  that  the  Reformation, 
differing  avowedly  as  it  does  in  an  essential  feature  from 
Christianity,  was  not  effected  by  the  agency  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  but  was  the  mere  result  of  violent  human  passions, 
which  usually  bring  about  sudden  revolutions,  both  in  the 
religious  and  in  the  social  system? 

It  is  curious  to  trace  the  further  development  of  his  favor- 
ite theory. 

"Two  considerations  will  account  for  the  rapidity  and  extent  of  this 
revolution.  One  of  these  must  be  sought  in  God,  the  other  among  men. 
The  impulse  was  given  by  an  unseen  hand  of  power,  and  the  change  which 
took  place  was  the  work  of  God.  This  will  be  the  conclusion  arrived  at  by 
every  one  who  considers  the  subject  with  impartiality  and  attention,  and 
does  not  rest  in  a  superficial  view.  But  the  historian  has  a  further  office  to 
perform — God  acts  by  second  causes.  Man}'  circumstances,  which  have 
often  escaped  observation,  gradually  prepared  men  for  the  great  transforma- 
tion of  the  sixteenth  century,  so  that  the  human  mind  was  ripe  when  the 
hour  of  its  emancipation  arrived."f 

Now,  we  have  given  no  little  attention  to  the  subject,  and 
we  claim  at  least  as  much  impartiality  as  our  historian  of 
"  the  great  Reformation ;"  and  yet,  with  the  facts  of  history 
before   us,  we  can   arrive  at  no  such   conclusion,  but  have 

*  This  we  merely  suppose  with  D'Aubigne,  who  assumes  that  such  is 
the  fact.  t  D'Aubigne,  Preface,  p.  v. 


WHY    ITALY    WAS    NOT    CONVERTED.  105 

reached  one  precisely  contrary.  And  the  reasoi.;?  which 
have  forced  us  to  draw  this  hitter  inference  are  so  many  and 
80  cogent,  that  we  are  even  under  the  conviction,  that  no  one 
who  will  "consider  the  subject  with  impartiality  and  atten- 
tion, and  does  not  rest  in  a  superficial  view,"  can  fail  to  agree 
with  us. 

In  examining  the  secondary  causes,  by  which  God  "  gradu- 
ally prepared  men  for  the  great  transformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century,"  our  historian  assigns  a  prominent  place  to  the  cen- 
tral and  commanding  position  of  Germany. 

"  As  Judea,  the  birth-place  of  our  rehgion,  lay  in  the  centre  of  the  ancient 
world,  so  Germany  was  situate  in  the  midst  of  Christian  nations.  She 
looked  upon  the  Netherlands,  England,  France,  Switzerland,  Italy,  Hun- 
gary, Bohemia,  Poland,  Denmark,  and  the  whole  of  the  north.  It  was  fit 
that  the  principle  of  life  should  develop  itself  in  the  heart  of  Europe,  that 
its  pulses  might  circulate  through  all  the  arteries  of  the  body  the  generous 
blood  designed  to  vivify  its  members."* 

He  alleges  the  following  most  singular  reasons  why  Ger- 
many was  prepared  for  embracing  the  Reformation : 

"The  Germans  had  received  from  Kome  that  element  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion, the  faith.  Instruction,  legislation — all,  save  their  courage  and  their 
weapons,  had  come  to  them  from  the  sacerdotal  city.  Strong  ties  had  from 
that  time  attached  Germany  to  the  Papacy."f — Therefore  was  she  "ripe" 
for  a  rupture  with  Rome !  This  connexion  with  Rome  "  made  the  reaction 
more  powerful  at  the  moment  of  awakening."| 

Again :  "  The  gospel  had  never  been  offered  to  Germany 
in  its  primitive  purity ;  the  first  missionaries  who  visited  the 
country  gave  to  it  a  religion  already  vitiated  in  more  than  one 
particular.  It  was  a  law  of  the  Church,  a  spiritual  discipline, 
that  Boniface  and  his  successors  carried  to  the  Prisons,  the 
Saxons,  and  other  German  nations.  Faith  in  the  '  good  tid- 
•ngs,'  that  faith  which  rejoices  the  heart  and  makes  it  free 
indeed,  had  remained  unknown  to  them."  § — Therefore,  when 
Luther  and  his  brother  reformers  announced    these  "good 

*  D'Aubigne  Book  i,  p.  76.  f  Ibid.,  pp.  78,  79. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  79.  5  Ibid.,  p.  78. 


106  REFORMATION   IN    GERMANY. 

tidings"  in  all  their  purity  for  the  first  time — fraught  too  with 
endless  variations  and  contradictions — The  Germans  were 
prepared  for  the  "  awakening."  and  received  the  gospel  with 
enthusiasm!!  Truly,  our  fanciful  and  romantic  historian 
loves  to  reason  by  contraries,  and  to  startle  his  readers  by 
palpable  absurdities ! 

No  less  curious  is  his  reason  for  explaining  why  the  Italians 
did  not  receive  the  new  gospel : 

"And  if  the  truth  was  destined  to  come  from  the  north,  how  could  the 
Itahans,  so  enHghtened,  of  so  refined  a  taste  and  social  habits,  so  delicate  in 
their  own  eyes,  condescend  to  receive  any  thing  at  the  hands  of  the  barba- 
rous Germans?  Their  pride,  in  fact,  raised  between  the  Reformation  and 
themselves  a  barrier  higher  than  the  Alps.  But  the  very  nature  of  their 
mental  culture  was  a  still  greater  obstacle  than  the  presumption  of  their 
hearts.  Could  men,  who  admired  the  elegance  of  a  well  cadenced  sonnet 
more  than  the  majestic  simplicity  of  the  Scriptures,  be  a  propitious  soil  for 
the  seed  of  God's  word?  A  false  civilization  is,  of  all  conditions  of  a  nation, 
that,  which  Ls  most  repugnant  to  the  gospel."* 

Those  who  have  read  Roscoe's  "  Life  and  Pontificate  of  Leo 
X.,"  will  greatly  question  the  accuracy  of  this  picture  of  Italian 
civilization.  "We  shall  prove  in  the  sequel,  that,  both  before 
and  during  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  Italy  did  much  more 
than  Germany,  to  evidence  her  admiration  "  for  the  majestic 
simplicity  of  the  Scriptures."  At  present  we  will  barely 
renuirk,  that  the  gist  of  D'Aubigne's  theory  consists  in  the 
assertion,  that  Italy  was  too  enlightened,  too  refined  in  taste 
and  social  habits,  too  delicate  in  her  own  eyes,  and  conse- 
quently too  proud  and  presumptuous  to  receive  the  new  gos- 
pel ;  while  Germany,  being  on  the  contrary,  less  enlightened, 
less  refined,  and  more  corrupt  in  doctrine  and  morals,  was  a 
more  genial  soil — ;]'ust  the  one,  in  fact,  which  was  most  "  ripe" 
for  its  reception,  and  most  likely  to  foster  its  growth!  We 
most  cheerfully  award  to  him  the  entire  benefit  of  this  novel 
and  marvelous  speculation  on  the  most  suitable  means  of  dis- 
posing men's  minds  for  the  willing  reception  of  gospel  truth. 


*  D'Aubigne,  Book  i,  p.  84. 


WHY    SPAIN    WAS   NOT   CONVERTED.  j  07 

To  confirm  this  singular  theory  still  further,  he  thus  accounts 
for  the  singular  fact  that  Spain  did  not  embrace  Protestantism : 

"  Spain  possessed,  what  Italy  did  not — ^a  serious  and  noble  people,  whose 
religious  mind  has  resisted  even  the  stern  trial  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  of  the  revolution  (French),  and  maintained  itself  to  our  own  days.  In 
every  age,  this  people  has  had  among  its  clergy  men  of  piety  and  learning, 
and  it  was  sufficiently  remote  from  Rome  to  throw  off  without  difficulty  her 
yoke.  There  are  few  nations  wherein  one  might  more  reasonably  have  hoped 
for  a  revival  of  that  primitive  Christianity,  which  Spain  had  probably  received 
from  St.  Paul  himself  And  yet  Spain  did  not  then  stand  up  among  the 
nations.  She  was  destined  to  be  an  example  of  that  word  of  the  divine 
wisdom,  '  the  first  shall  be  last'  "* 

Wliat  a  pity !  We  have  little  doubt  ourselves,  that  these 
were  precisely  some  of  the  principal  reasons,  why  Spain  did 
not  stand  up  among  the  nations  who  revolted  against  Catho- 
licity in  the  sixteenth  century:  and  her  having  passed  un- 
scathed through  this  fiery  ordeal  of  reckless  innovation,  may 
also  serve  to  explain  to  us,  how  she  was  enabled  "  to  resist 
even  the  stern  trial  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  of  the 
revolution."  Her  people  were  too  "  serious  and  too  noble," 
their  mind  was  too  "  religious,"  and  their  clergy  had  too  much 
"  piety  and  learning,"  to  allow  them  to  be  carried  away  by 
the  novel  vagaries  of  Protestantism. 

Among  the  "  various  circumstances  which  conduced  to  the 
deplorable  result"  —  of  her  remaining  Catholic,  D'Aubigne 
mentions  her  "remoteness  from  Germany,"  the  '"''JiearV  of 
Europe — "an  eager  desire  after  riches"  in  the  new  world — 
the  influence  of  her  "powerful  clergy"  —  and  her  military, 
glory,  which  had  just  risen  to  its  zenith,  after  the  conquest 
of  Grenada  and  the  expulsion  of  the  Moors.  In  reference  to 
this  last  cause,  he  asks  emphatically:  "How  could  a  people 
who  had  expelled  Mohammad  from  their  noble  country,  allow 
Luther  to  make  way  in  it  ?  "f — This  question  is  at  least  charac- 
teristic !  Was  there  then,  in  the  ideas  of  the  serious  and 
noble  Spaniards,  so  little  difierence  between  Luther  and  Mo 

*  D'Aubigne,  Book  i,  p.  85.  f  Ibid.,  p.  86. 


108  REFORMATION   IN    GERMMY. 

hammed  ?    And  is  our  philosophic  historian  half  inclined  him 
self  to  think,  that  they  were  not  so  very  far  out  in  their  logic 

"  Few  countries,"  he  says,  "  seemed  likely  to  be  better 
disposed  than  France  for  the  reception  of  the  evangelical 
doctrines.  Almost  all  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of 
the  middle  ages  was  concentrated  in  her.  It  might  have 
been  said,  that  the  paths  were  everywhere  trodden  for  a 
grand  manifestation  of  the  truth."* — Perhaps  this  very  pre- 
servation of  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of  the  middle 
ages,  was  a  principal  reason  why  France  continued  Catholic. 
A  little  ftirther  on,f  he  continues  :  "  The  (French)  people,  of 
quick  feeling,  intelligent,  and  susceptible  of  generous  emotions, 
were  as  open,  or  even  more  so  than  other  nations,  to  the'*truth. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  lleformation  must  be,  among  them,  the  birth 
which  should  crown  the  travail  of  several  centuries.  But 
the  chariot  of  France,  which  seemed  for  so  many  generations 
to  be  advancing  to  the  same  goal,  suddenly  turned  at  the  mo- 
ment of  the  Reformation,  and  took  a  contrary  direction.  Such 
was  the  will  of  Him,  who  rules  nations  and  their  kings." — We 
greatly  admire  his  pious  resignation  to  the  will  of  God !  This 
sentiment  may  perhaps  console  him  for  his  disappointment; 
"  that  the  augury  of  ages  was  deceived,"  in  regard  to  France.J 
He  adds,  in  the  same  pious  strain :  "  Perhaps,  if  she  had 
received  the  gospel,  she  might  have  become  too  powerful ! " 

He  winds  up  his  affecting  Jeremiad  over  France  with  these 
and  similar  passages : 

"  France,  after  having  been  almost  reformed,  found  herself, 
in  the  result,  Roman  Catholic.  The  sword  of  her  princes, 
cast  into  the  scale,  caused  it  to  incline  in  favor  of  Rome. 
Alas!  another  sword,  that  of  the  reformers  themselves,  in 
sured  the  failure  of  the  effort  fit»r  reformation.  The  hands 
that  had  been  accustomed  to  warlike  weapons,  ceased  to  be 
lifted  up  in  prayer.  It  is  by  the  blood  of  its  confessors,  not 
by  that  of  its  adversaries,  that  the  gospel  triumphs.     Blood 

•  D'Aubigne,  Book  i,  p.  86.  f  IWd.,  p.  87.  t  Ibid. 


FAILURE   OF  REFORM  IN   FRANCE.  109 

shed  by  its  defenders,  extinguishes  and  smothers  it."* — That 
is,  the  Reformation  sought  to  establish  itself  in  France  by 
violence  and  by  force,  and  it  signally  failed  !f  Elsewhere,  as 
we  shall  see,  it  was  more  successful  in  the  employment  of  such 
carnal  weapons.  But  Protestantism  obtained  sufficient  foot- 
hold in  France  to  do  incredible  mischief  for  a  century  and  a 
half;  and  it  sowed  upon  her  beautiful  soil  the  fatal  seeds 
which,  two  centuries  and  a  half  later,  produced  the  bitter 
fruits  of  anarchy,  infidelity,  and  bloodshed,  during  the  dread- 
ful "  reign  of  terror !" 

Such  is  the  theory  of  D ' Aubigne  in  regard  to  what  we  may 
perhaps  designate  the  philosophy  of  the  Reformation ;  and  we 
now  proceed  to  its  refutation ; — which  is  no  difficult  task,  as 
in  fact  it  sufficiently  refutes  itself. 

*  D  Aubigne,   Book  i.  p.  87. 

f  In  our  second  volume,  we  shall  have  occasion  to  prove,  we  trust  by 
abundant  evidence,  that  this  is  strikingly  true,  and  that  D 'Aubigne  is  not 
far  wrong  in  his  appreciation  of  the  unsuccessful  effort  to  thrust  the  llefor 
matiou  on  France. 


110  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

CHAPTER     III. 

PRETEXTS     FOR    THE     REFORMATION. 

Usual  plea — Abuses  greatly  exaggerated — Three  questions  put  and  an- 
swered— Origin  of  abuses — Free-will  unimpaired — Councils  to  extiipate 
abuses — Church  thwarted  by  princes  and  the  world — Controversy  on  In- 
vestitures— Extent  of  the  evil — Sale  of  indulgences — St.  Peter's  Church — 
John  Tetzel — His  errors  greatly  exaggerated — Public  penance — License 
to  sin — Nature  of  indulgences — Tetzel  rebuked  and  his  conduct  disavowed 
by  Rome — Miltitz  and  Cardinal  Cajetan — Kindness  thrown  away — Luther 
in  tears — Efibrts  of  Piome — Leo  X.  and  Adrian  VI. — Their  forbearance 
censured  by  Catholic  writers — Their  tardy  severity  justified  by  D'Aubigne 
— Luther's  real  purpose — The  proper  remedy — The  real  issue — Nullifica- 
tion— "  Curing  and  cutting  a  throat " — Luther's  avowal — Admissions  of 
the  confession  of  Augsburg  and  of  Daille — Summing  up. 

The  usual  plea  fiir  the  Reformation  is,  that  it  was  necessary 
for  the  correction  of  the  flagrant  abuses  which  had  crept  into 
the  Catholic  Church.  These  are, of  course,  greatly  exaggera- 
ted and  are  painted  in  the  most  glowing  colors,  by  D'Aubigne, 
and  by  other  writers  favorable  to  the  Reformation.  He  dwells 
with  evident  complacency  on  the  vices  of  one  or  two  Popes, 
and  of  some  of  the  Catholic  bishops  and  clergy,  both  secular 
and  regular,  during  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  He 
represents  the  whole  Church  as  thoroughly  corrupt,  and  states 
that,  but  for  the  efforts  of  the  reformers,  religion  would  have 
perished  entirely  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  V^^e  have  al- 
ready seen  how  he  compared  the  reformers,  preaching  up 
their  new-fangled  doctrines  among  the  benighted  Roman 
Catholics  of  the  sixteenth  century,  to  the  apostles  preaching 
the  gospel  to  the  pagans  of  their  day !  And  how  coolly  he  as- 
sured us  that  the  "  Reformation  was  but  the  re-appearance  of 
Christianity  ! "  We  beg  to  record  our  solemn  protest  against 
the  gross  injustice  of  this  entire  view  of  the  subject. 

But  we  are  asked: — What?  do  you  deny  the  existence  of 
abuses  in  the  Catholic  Church?  Do  you  deny,  that  those 
rilO) 


ORIGIN    OF   ABUSES.  Ill 

abuses  were  great  and  wide  spread  ?  Do  you  deny,  that  it 
was  proper,  and  even  necessary  to  correct  them? — We  deny 
none  of  these  things  :  except  that  there  is  an  implied  exagger- 
ation in  the  second  question.  We  admit  the  existence  of  the 
evil  complained  of,  especially  about  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century ;  and  we  deplore  it,  as  sincerely  at  least,  as  do 
the  opponents  of  the  Catholic  Church.  A  good  cause  can 
never  suffer  from  candidly  avowing  the  truth,  and  the  whole 
truth.  Let  genuine  history  pronounce  its  verdict  as  to  the 
real  facts  of  the  case ;  and  we  at  once  bow  to  the  decision. 
But  what  was  the  origin  of  the  abuses  complained  of?  what 
was  their  extent?  and  what  was  the  adequate  and  proper 
remedy  for  them  ?  We  will  endeavor  briefly  to  answer  these 
three  questions,  which,  we  apprehend,  go  to  the  root  of  the 
matter  under  discussion. 

1.  It  was  not  the  intention  of  Christ,  nor  was  it  the  design 
of  the  .Christian  religion  wholly  to  prevent  the  possibility  of 
abuses.  He  willed,  indeed,  that  all  men  should  embrace  His 
religion,  and  reduce  its  holy  principles  to  practice ;  in  which 
case,  there  would  have  been  no  disorders  nor  abuses  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  and  the  world  would  have  been  an  earthly 
paradise,  free  from  all  stain  of  sin.  But  this  state  of  perfec- 
tion could  not  have  been  effectually  brought  about,  without 
offering  violence  to  man's  free  will,  which  God,  in  His  moral 
government  of  the  world,  has  ever  wished  to  leave  unimpaired. 
Religion  was  freely  offered  to  mankind,  with  all-  its  saving 
truths,  its  holy  maxims,  its  purifying  institutions,  and  its 
powerful  sanctions  of  rewards  and  punishments  in  an  after- 
life. Sufficient  grace  was  also  bounteously  proffered  to  all, 
to  enable  them  to  learn  and  believe  its  doctrines,  and  to 
observe  its  commandments.  But  no  one  was  com/pelled  to 
do  either.  Even  among  the  twelve  chosen  apostles,  who  were 
trained  under  the  immediate  eye  of  Christ,  there  was  one 
"  devil." 

Christ  himself  foresaw  and  distinctly  foretold  that  scandals 
would  come ;  but  He  contented  himself  with  pronouncing  a 


112  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

"  woe  on  that  man  by  whom  the  scandal  cometh."*  In  Hi? 
spiritual  kingdom,  the  Church,  there  was  to  be  cockle,  as  well 
as  the  good  wheat,  and  He  willed  "  that  both  should  grow 
until  the  harvest"!  of  the  general  judgment;  in  which  only 
the  final  separation  of  the  good  and  evil  will  take  place.  Noth- 
ing is  more  foreign  to  the  nature  of  Christ's  Church,  than  the 
proposition  that  it  was  intended  only  to  comprise  the  elect  and 
the  just.  The  struggle  between  good  and  evil — between  truth 
and  error — between  the  powers  of  heaven  and  the  "  gates  of 
hell" — is  to  go  on  until  the  consummation  of  the  world:  but 
Christ  has  pledged  His  solemn  word,  that  "  the  gates  of  hell 
shall  not  prevail  against  His  Church ;  "J  and  that  He  will  be 
with  the  body  of  His  pastors  and  teachers  "  all  days  even  to 
the  consummation  of  the  world."§ 

Abuses  are  accordingly  known  to  have  existed  in  all  ages 
of  the  Church,  even  during  her  palmiest  days.  The  writings 
of  the  earliest  fathers — of  St.  Cyprian,  of  Tertullian,  of  St. 
Ambrose,  and  St.  John  Chrysostom — paint  them  in  the  most 
glowing  colors.  The  Church  never  approved  of  them — she 
could  not  do  so  even  for  a  day ;  for  Christ  had  solemnly 
promised  to  guard  her,  His  own  beloved  and  glorious  Spouse, 
"  without  spot  or  wrinkle,"  from  falling  away  from  her  fidel- 
ity by  lapsing  into  or  sanctioning  error.  She  bore  her  con- 
stant testimony  against  them,  and  labored  without  intermission 
for  their  removal.  Her  eighteen  general  councils,  one  for  each 
century,  and  her  local  ecclesiastical  assemblies,  almost  with- 
out number — diocesan,  provincial,  and  national, — what  are 
they  all  but  evidences  of  this  her  constant  solicitude,  and  re- 
cords of  her  noble  and  repeated  struggles  for  the  extirpation 
of  error  and  vice  ?  There  is  not  an  error  that  she  has  not 
proscribed ;  not  a  vice  nor  an  abuse  upon  which  she  has  not 
set  the  seal  of  her  condemnation.  She  was  divinely  commis- 
sioned for  this  purpose :  and  well  and  fully  has  she  discharged 
the  sacred  commission. 

*  Math,  xviii :  7.  f  Ibid.,  xiii :  30. 

t  Math,  xvi :  18.  5  Ibid.,  xxviii :  20. 


INVESTITURES EXTENT    OF   THE   EVIL.  113 

Whenever  she  was  not  opposed  nor  thwarted  in  her  heav- 
enly purpose  by  the  wicked  ones  of  the  earth,  error  and  vice 
disappeared  before  her,  like  the  mist  before  the  rising  sun. 
But  she  had  at  all  times  to  contend  with  numerous,  and  some- 
times, from  the  human  point  of  view,  with  seemingly  insur- 
mountable obstacles.  This  was  particularly  the  case  during 
the  middle  ages.  The  princes  of  the  earth,  especially  in  Ger- 
many, sought,  during  that  whole  period,  to  enslave  the  Church, 
and  to  make  the  bishops  the  mere  subservient  instruments  of 
their  worldly  purposes  and  earthly  ambition.  This  they  en- 
deavored to  efiect  by  making  them  their  vassals,  and  by 
claiming  a  right  to  confer  on  them  even  the  insignia  of  their 
spiritual  office.  The  effect  of  this  last  claim  was  to  render  the 
appointment  of  bishops  and  of  the  higher  clergy,  as  well  as 
the  exercise  of  their  spiritual  jurisdiction,  but  too  often  de- 
pendent on  the  corrupt  policy  or  mischievous  whims  of  the 
secular  power.  The  Roman  Pontiffs  maintained  an  arduous 
contest,  for  centuries,  with  the  emperors  of  Germany  and 
with  other  princes,  against  this  glaring  and  wicked  usurpa- 
tion, fraught  as  it  was  with  countless  evils  to  the  Church, 
which  it  attacked  in  the  very  fountains  of  her  spiritual 
power.  The  question  of  Investitures  was  one  of  vital 
consequence,  of  liberty  or  slavery  for  the  Church.  After 
a  protracted  struggle  the  Pontiffs  succeeded ;  but  their  suc- 
cess was  neither  so  complete  nor  so  permanent  as  the  friends 
of  the  Church  could  have  wished.  Emperors,  kings,  and 
princes,  especially  those  of  the  Germanic  body,  had  still 
far  too  nmch  power  in  the  nomination  of  bishops  and  of 
the  clergy.* 

II.  The  consequences  were  most  disastrous  for  the  Church. 
Unworthy  bishops  were  often  intruded  by  the  German  empe- 
rors and  princes  into  the  principal  sees.  The  example  aod 
the  influence  of  these  were  frequently  baneful  to  the  charac- 


*  This,  we  think,  we  have  already  suflBciently  established  in  the   Intro- 
ductory cliapter  to  the  present  volume. 
VOL.    I. 10 


114  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

ter  of  the  inferior  clergy.  Owing  to  the  operation  of  these 
causes,  the  bishops  and  clergy  of  Germany,  many  of  them, 
had  greatly  degenerated,  about  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Still  there  were  many  brilliant  exceptions.  The 
evil  was  by  no  means  so  general  or  so  wide-spread  as  it  is 
usually  represented.  We  are  yet  free  to  avow  that  it  is  difficult 
to  explain  how  such  large  bodies  of  the  clergy  abandoned  the 
Church  in  many  countries  of  Europe,  in  any  other  supposition 
than  that  they  had  sadly  degenerated  from  primitive  fervor. 
At  the  bidding  of  their  prince,  or  at  the  prompting  of  their 
own  self-interest,  they,  in  an  evil  hour,  abandoned  that  Church 
which  they  had  promised  to  defend,  and  at  whose  altars  they 
had  been  solemnly  consecrated  ! 

The  abuse  and  alleged  sale  of  indulgences  afforded  the 
principal  pretext  for  the  first  movements  of  the  Reformation. 
The  Church  had  always  maintained  her  power  to  grant  indul- 
gences :  she  never  sanctioned,  in  her  official  capacity,  the 
abuses  which,  at  some  times  and  in  some  places,  grew  out  of 
the  exercise  of  this  power.  In  the  early  centuries  the  canons 
imposed  long  and  painful  public  penances  on  certain  grievous 
transgressions.  A  canon  of  the  general  Council  of  Nice,  in 
325,  had  given  to  the  bishops  a  discretionary  power  to  remit 
the  whole  or  a  part  of  those  penances,  when  the  penitent 
manifested  special  fervor.  Other  councils  made  similar  enact- 
ments. During  the  middle  ages  the  rigor  of  the  ancient  peni- 
tential system  was  greatly  softened  down  :  and  the  penances 
themselves  were  often  commuted  into  alms  or  other  pious 
works. 

About  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Leo  X.  de- 
termined to  push  forward  to  completion  a  project  conceived 
by  his  predecessor  Julius  IL,  of  erecting  in  Rome  a  Christian 
temple,  which  should  far  surpass,  in  dimensions  and  magnifi- 
(;ence,  any  thing  that  the  world  had  ever  yet  seen.  The 
origination  of  the  plan  of  St.  Peter's  church  was  an  idea 
worthy  the  mind  of  these  magnificent  Pontiffs ;  and  its  erec- 
tion, which  'hey  commenced,  is  one  among  the  noblest  monu- 


INDULGENCES.  115 

ments  to  their  fame.*  To  promote  an  object  so  splendid,  Leo 
promulgated  a  bull,  in  which  he  promised  ample  indulgences 
to  all  who  would  contribute  to  so  laudable  an  undertaking. 
And,  if  there  were  no  other  proof  of  the  utility  of  indulgences, 
the  erection  of  that  splendid  temple,  mainly  due  to  them,  is  a 
monument  which  would  go  far  towards  removing  every  cavil 
on  the  subject.  No  one  can  enter  that  church  without  being 
forcibly  impressed  with  the  majesty  of  God  and  the  gran- 
deur of  the  Christian  religion.  To  borrow  the  idea  of  a 
modern  poet,  his  soul,  on  passing  its  portals  and  casting 
a  glance  at  its  immense  and  almost  sublime  proportions 
and  marvelous  symmetry,  becomes  "  as  colossal  as  the  build- 
ing itself!" 

Albert,  archbishop  of  Mayence  and  Magdeburg,  was  ap- 
pointed by  the  Pontiff  to  carry  out  the  intentions  of  the  bull 

*  Of  Julius  II.  and  Leo  X.  much  has  been  written  which  is  favorable,  and 
much  also  that  is  unfavorable  to  their  character  as  Pontiffs,  if  not  as  men. 
By  some  they  have  been  represented  as  worldly-minded,  and  as  being  too 
much  guided  by  earthly  policy.  Few,  if  any  writers  of  respectability,  no 
matter  how  prejudiced,  have  ventured  a  word  against  their  moral  character. 
Both  were  distinguished  patrons  of  learning ;  both  were  men  of  enlarged 
minds  and  liberal  views.  Even  the  prejudiced  Menzel  says  of  Leo,  that  "he 
was  free  from  personal  vices." — (Vol.  ii,  p.  219.)  The  eulogy  pronounced 
on  him  by  Roscoe,  the  liberal  minded  English  Protestant  historian  of  his 
pontificate,  is  well  known.  Of  Julius  II.  this  same  writer  says  :  "  His  vigor- 
ous and  active  mind  corresponded  with  the  restless  spirit  of  the  times,  his 
ambition  was  not  the  passion  of  a  groveling  mind,  nor  were  the  advantages 
he  sought  of  a  temporary  or  personal  nature.  To  establish  the  authority  of 
the  Holy  See  throughout  Europe,  to  recover  the  dominions  of  the  Church,  to 
expel  all  foreign  powers  from  Italy,  and  to  restore  that  country  to  the 
dominion  of  its  native  princes,  were  the  vast  objects  of  his  comprehensive 
mind.  And  these  objects  he  lived  to  a  great  degree  to  accomplish." — (Ros- 
coe, Life,  etc.,  of  Leo  X.,  p.  291 ;  quoted  in  Dublin  Review,  for  September,  1855.) 
If  as  a  temporal  prince  he  went  to  war,  contrary  to  the  example  set  him  by 
his  predecessors,  it  was  for  high  and  noble  purposes ;  to  drive  the  foreign 
intruder  from  Italy,  and  to  establish,  along  with  Italian  independence,  the 
rights  of  his  See  and  throne.  It  is  refreshing  to  see  Protestant  writers  like 
Roscoe  and  ''  'oigt  stepping  forth  to  defend  the  Roman  Poniiifs. 


116  REFORMATIOxN    IN    GERMANY. 

in  Germany.  He  nominated  John  Tetzel,  a  Dominican  friar, 
to  be  the  chief  preacher  of  the  indulgences.  We  have  no 
mission  to  defend  the  extravagances  imputed  to  this  man.  To 
us  it  appears  that  much  injustice  has  been  done  liim,  and  that 
his  errors  have  been  greatly  exaggerated  by  his  enemies.  He 
seems  to  have  been  in  the  main  a  good  man,  with  perhaps  not 
an  over  stock  of  prudence  or  discretion.  The  magnificent 
terms  in  which  he  set  forth  the  utility  and  efficacy  of  the  in- 
dulgences should  have  been  explained,  in  common  justice, 
according  to  the  well  known  doctrine  and  practice  of  the 
Church  on  the  subject.* 

One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  abuses  of  which  he  is  accused 
were  not  authorized  by  the  Church  or  the  Pontiff.  Even 
D'Aubigne,  surely  an  unexceptionable  witness,  tells  us  as 
much.  He  admits  that,  "  in  the  Pope's  bull,  something  was 
said  of  the  repentance  of  the  heart  and  the  confession  of  the 
lips  :"  but  he  adds  that  "  Tetzel  and  his  companions  cautiously 
abstained  from  all  mention  of  these,  otherwise  their  coffers 
might  have  remained  empty  ;"f  and  that  this  omission  was  in 
consequence  of  instructions  from  Archbishop  Albert,  "  who 
forbade  them  even  to  mention  conversion  or  contrition.''^ 
And  yet,  on  the  same  page,  he  acknowledges  that  confession, 
which  necessarily  presupposes  conversion  and  contrition  of 
heart,  was  a  prerequisite  to  the  granting  of  the  indulgence ! 

*  Menzel  says,  that  he  carried  about  a  money  box,  on  which  was  written 
what  has  been  elegantly  done  into  English  as  follows  : 

'•As  the  money  in  you  pop, 
The  souls  from  Purgatory  hop." 

Ibid.  p.  221. 
This  retailing  of  vulgar  gossip  in  doggerel  verse,  and  without  any  sufficient 
authority,  is  unworthy  a  grave  historian.  The  contribution  of  alms  for  a 
religious  or  charitable  purpose  was  a  usual  condition  for  gaining  Indulgences, 
which  might  profit  not  only  the  one  who  fulfilled  all  the  conditions,  but  also, 
by  way  of  suffrage  or  prayer,  the  souls  suffering  in  purgatory.  It  is  highly 
probable  that  Tetzel  did  not  go  further  than  this,  and  that  most  of  the  clamoi 
against  him  was  raised  by  his  enemies. 

t  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  214.  f  Ibid.,  p.  215. 


TETZEL.  117 

"  Confession  being  gone  through  (and  it  was  soon  dispatched), 
the  faithful  hastened  to  the  vender."* 

We  have  strong  reason  to  object  to  this  term  vender :  the 
granting  of  the  indulgence,  even  according  to  the  avowedly 
unauthorized  practice  of  Tetzel,f  did  not  justify  the  idea  of  a 
sale  or  traffic,  properly  so  called.  The  offering  made  on  the 
occasion  was  entirely  free :  those  who  were  unable  to  con- 
tribute any  thing,  still  obtained  the  coveted  boon ;  and  those 
who  were  able,  contributed  according  to  their  ability  or  will, 
no  fixed  amount  being  determined.  All  that  even  D'Aubigne 
asserts  on  this  subject  is,  that  "  an  angry  look  was  cast  on 
those  who  dared  to  close  their  purse3."J  When  Protestant 
preachers  take  up  collections  at  the  close  of  their  sermons,  for 
the  support  of  themselves,  and  of  their  wives  and  children, 
can  it  be  said  with  propriety,  that  they  sell  their  sermons  for 
the  amounts  thus  contributed,  even  should  it  happen  that 
those  sums  more  than  equaled  the  value  received,  and  that 
they  cast  angry  looks  on  those  who  do  not  bestow?  But  the 
questors  of  indulgences  did  not  go  thus  far,  even  according  to 
the  showing  of  our  very  prejudiced  historian.  He  tell  us, 
"  that  the  hand  that  delivered  the  indulgence  could  not 
receive  the  money:  that  was  forbidden  under  the  severest 
penalties."^ 

He  even  admits,  that,  notwithstanding  the  boasted  efficacy 
of  the  indulgences,  public  penance  was  still  enjoined  by 
Te.tzel  and  his  associates,  for  offenses  which  had  given  public 
scandal.  "If,  among  those  who  pressed  into  the  confession- 
als, there  came  one  whose  crimes  had  been  public,  and  yet 
untouched  by  the  civil  laws,  such  person  was  obliged,  first  of 
all,  to  do  public  penance."|| — Did  this  look  like  patronizing 
vice?    .Was  it  not  rather  a  salutary  restraint  on  guilt,  imposed 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  215. 

f  If  such  was  really  his  practice,  which  is  doubtful, 

t  D'AubigntS  vol.  i,  p.  216.  ^  Ibid. 

II  Ibid.     True,  he  calls  this  a  "wretched  mummery,"  because  Protesianis 

can  not,  or   will   not    'uiderstand  or  appreciate   these   works  of  penance! 


118  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

as  a  condition  for  obtaining  the  indulgence?  The  vciy  nature 
of  the  indulgence  itself,  and  the  conditi(>ns  always  required 
to  obtain  it,  and  clearly  set  forth  in  this  very  bull  of  Leo  X., 
far  from  favoring  sin,  or  being  an  incentive  to  its  commission, 
necessarily  operated  as  a  powerful  curb  to  passion  and  a 
stimulant  to  repentance  and  piety:  its  blessed  effects  being 
promised  only  to  those  who  were  truly  penitent,  and  were 
desirous  at  least  of  becoming  fervent.  An  indulgence  is 
merely  a  sequel  to  the  sacrament  of  penance :  it  removes  only 
the  temporal  penalty,  which  may  remain  due,  after  the  sin 
itself  and  the  eternal  punishment  due  to  it  have  been  already 
remitted:  and,  according  to  its  very  nature,  it  can  not  take 
effect,  until  all  grievous  sin  has  been  already  pardoned 
through  sincere  repentance  and  the  sacrament  of  penance. 
It  offers  then,  essentially,  a  most  powerful  inducement  to  re- 
pentance and  amendment  of  life ;  it  gives  no  encouragement 
to  lukewarmness. 

The  acts  of  Tetzel  were  officially  disavowed  by  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Roman  court.  In  1510,  Charles  Miltitz,  the 
papal  envoy,  openly  rebuked  him  for  his  conduct  in  the  affair 
of  the  indulgences ;  and  even  charged  him  with  having  been 
the  occasion  of  most  of  the  troubles  which  during  the  pre- 
vious two  years  had  afflicted  Germany.*  He.  however,  con- 
demned the  friar  unheard,  relying  chiefly  upon  the  exagger- 
ated representations  of  his  enemies.  He  would  not  even 
allow  the  Dominican  to  defend  himself  against  the  grievous 
charges  brought  against  him  by  Lutlier.f  Among  these  was 
the  accusation,  that  he  had  uttered  horrid  blasphemies  against 
the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  In  a  letter  t)  Miltitz,  Tetzel  indig- 
nantly repelled  this  charge:  but  the  spirit  of  the  monk  was 
broken  ;  and  he  died  soon  after,  most  pr:)bably  of  chagrin. 
Most  writers  of  impartiality  blame  the  cj'uluct  of  the  papal 

These  are  not  in  accordance  with  their  refined  taste  and  exquisite  sense  of 
the  amenities  scattered  along  the  way  of  salvation  ! 

*  D'Aubingne,  vol.  ii,  p.  IG. 

I  See  Audin,   "Life  of  Luther,"  p.  80,  90. 


LUTHER  S    INSINCERITY.  119 

envoy,  who  immoderately  flattered  Luther  on  the  oi  i  hand, 
and  sacrificed  Tetzel  on  the  other.*  His  motive,  however, 
was  a  good  one :  to  concihate  Luther  by  removing  all  reason- 
able causes  of  complaint,  and  thus  to  heal  the  schism  with 
which  the  refractory  monk  menaced  the  Church  of  God. 

But  Miltitz  did  not  know  his  man.  All  conciliation  was 
entirely  thrown  away  on  him.  The  learned  and  amiable  Car- 
dinal Cajetan,  a  year  before,  had  made  the  attempt  to  win 
him  by  kindness,  in  the  interview  they  had  at  Augsburg, 
Luther  was  afi'ected  even  unto  tears  by  this  goodness ;  and,  at 
the  close  of  the  conference,  he  addressed  the  cardinal  nuncio 
in  the  following  strain :  "  I  return  to  you,  my  father !  ,  ,  .  . 
I  am  moved.  I  have  no  more  fear:  ray  fear  is  changed  into 
love  and  filial  respect ;  you  might  have  employed  force,  but 
you  have  chosen  persuasion  and  charity.  Yes,  I  avow  it  now ; 
I  have  been  violent  and  hostile,  and  have  spoken  irreverently 
of  the  Pope.  I  was  provoked  to  these  excesses ;  but  I  should 
have  been  more  guarded  on  so  serious  a  question,  and,  in  an- 
swering a  fool,  I  should  have  avoided  imitating  his  folly.  I 
am  afi'ected  and  penitent,  and  ask  for  pardon,  I  will  acknowl- 
edge my  repentance  to  whoever  wishes  to  hear  it  declared. 
For  the  future,  I  promise  you,  father,  to  speak  and  act  other- 
wise than  I  have  done :  God  will  assist  me ;  I  will  speak  no 
more  of  indulgences,  provided  you  impose  silence  on  all  those 
who  have  involved  me  in  these  difficulties,"!  He  concludes 
this  letter  with  the  following  sentence :  "  I  beseech  you  then, 
with  all  humility,  to  report  this  whole  affiiir  to  our  holy  father. 
Pope  Leo  X,,  that  the  Church  may  decide  on  what  is  to  be 
believed,  and  what  is  to  be  rejected,"^  And  yet,  but  a  few 
weeks  later,  he  published  an  inflammatory  tract,  in  which  he 
complained  bitterly  of  the  severity  of  Cajetan,  spoke  harshly 
of  the  Pope,  and  appealed  to  a  general  council.^  We  have 
already  seen  how,  while  he  promised  every  thing  to  Miltitz, 

*  See  Audin,  "  Life  of  Luther,"  p.  89,  90.  f  Apud  Audin,  ibid.,  p.  81. 

X  Ibid.  {  Lutheri  Opera,  Tom,  i,  fol.  217.     Audin,  p.  85,  seqq, 


120  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

he  laughed,  in  letters  to  his  private  friends,  at  the  "crocodii*^ 
tears"  and  "Judas-like  kiss"  of  that  weak  and  duped  nuncio! 

The  reformation  of  abuses  in  the  matter  of  indulgences 
was  but  a  pretext :  the  real  motives  of  Luther  and  his  parti- 
sans were  very  different,  as  the  result  proved.  The  Pope, 
through  his  legates,  had  done  every  thing  that  could  have 
been  reasonably  asked  for  the  removal  of  the  evils  complained 
of.  If  the  court  of  Rome  was  guilty  of  any  fault;  it  was  that 
of  excessive  leniency  to  Luther,  and  of  too  great  a  spirit  of 
conciliation  towards  his  partisans.*  This  was  especially  true 
of  the  good  Adrian  VL,  who  succeeded  Leo  X.  in  the  pontifi- 
cate, early  in  the  year  1522.t  He  immediately  set  about  the 
work  of  reform  with  great  zeal,  both  at  Rome  and  in  Ger- 
many. He  took  from  the  questors  the  power  of  distributing 
indulgences.  Li  the  diet  of  Nuremberg,  in  1522,  he  ofiered, 
through  his  legate,  Cheregat,  to  reform  every  abuse. J 

How   were   his   advances    met?      They   were   repaid   by 

*  Pallavicino  censures  Leo  X.  for  his  excessive  forbearance  with  Luther, 
and  for  having  commissioned  Doctor  Eck  to  publish  the  bull  against  him  in 
Germany.  (Storia  del  Cone,  di  Trento  cap.  xxv.)  Muratori  joins  in  the 
censures:  "Papa  Leone,  che  ruminando  alti  pensieri  di  gloria  mondana,  e 
piu  che  agU  aifari  della  religione  agonizante  in  Gennania  pensando  all'  in- 
grandimento  della  chiesa  teraporale."  (Annali,  vol.  x,  p.  245.)  Audin  ably 
defends  the  Pontiff,  p.  115. 

f  Adrian  was  a  Fleming,  and  he  had  been  preceptor  of  Charles  V.,  who 
had  been  elected  emperor  of  Germany  but  a  short  time  previously.  The 
fifth  general  Council  of  Lateran,  held  under  his  predecessor  Leo,  had 
already  done  much  towards  eradicating  abuses,  of  which  its  various  canons 
are  a  satisfactory  evidence.  The  assembled  fathers  with  the  Pontiff  had  the 
sagacity  to  discover  and  the  boldness  to  strike  at  the  very  root  of  almost 
all  the  then  existing  disorders;  namely  the  usurpation  by  the  temporal 
\K)weT  of  the  sacred  rights  of  the  Church  to  appoint  her  own  bishops  and 
clergy.  In  condemning  the  principles  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  they  laid 
the  axe  at  the  root  of  the  fatal  tree,  which  had  produced  fruit  so  very 
poisonous  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  Church.  But  this  was  not  the  kind  of 
reformation  which  the  princes  of  the  earth  .sought  or  aimed  at ! 

t  '-Neuere  Geschichte  der  Deutschen,  von  Karl  Ad  Menzel,"  a  Protest- 
ant.    T.  i.     Apuil  A  din,  p.  280. 


PRETEXT   TO    GAIN   TIME.  121 

triumpuant  insult  and  indignity.  The  diet,  under  Lutheran 
influence,  drew  up  an  inflammatory  paper  containing  the 
famous  Centum  Gravamina  —  or  "hundred  grievances"  — 
fraught  with  unfounded  and  highly  exaggerated  charges 
against  Rome.  And  yet  the  good  Pontifl:'  did  not  return 
railing  for  railing.  He  still  promised  to  do  every  thing  in  his 
power  to  remove  all  causes  of  reasonable  complaint.  This 
'saintly  Pontifi",  "  who  thought  not  of  evil,  and  of  whom  the 
world  was  not  worthy,"  according  to  the  testimony  of  a  Pro- 
testant historian,*  died  of  a  broken  heart  after  the  return  of 
Cheregat.  All  the  poor  of  Rome  followed  his  hearse,  and 
bewailed  •  him :  they  said,  "  our  father  is  dead!"  While  it 
passed,  the  people  knelt  down  and  burst  into  tears.  Never 
had  funeral  pomp  called  forth  so  deep  a  feeling. f 

What,  in  fact,  could  Rome  have  done,  which  she  did  not 
do,  to  redress  every  reasonable  grievance,  and  to  carry  out 
every  necessary  measure  of  reform  ?  Did  the  reformers  ask 
for  forbearance?  Rome  was  perhaps  too  forbearing.  Did 
they  wish  for  a  spirit  of  conciliation  ?  Rome  descended  from 
her  lofty  dignity,  and  met  them  half  way ;  and  then  they 
rudely  repulsed  her  advances !  Even  D'Aubigne  praises  the 
forbearance  of  Leo  X.,  and  the  "equity  of  the  Romish 
synod,"  which  prepared  the  bull  against  Luther. J     He  adds : 

"  In  fact,  Rome  was  brought  into  the  necessity  of  having  recourse  to 
measures  of  stern  severity.  The  gauntlet  was  thrown  down,  the  combat 
must  be  to  the  death.  It  was  not  the  abuses  of  the  Pontiti^s  authority,  that 
Luther  had  attacked.  At  his  bidding,  the  Pope  was  required  to  descend 
meekly  fi'om  his  throne,  and  become  again  a  simple  pastor  or  bishop  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber! "^ 

Had  Luther  sought  only  the  truth,  why  did  he  so  often 
consent  to  preserve  silence,  if  the  same  obligation  were  im- 
posed on  his  adversaries?  Was  this  conduct  worthy  the 
a})ostle  of  reform,  and  the  boasted  champion  of  the  gospel 

*  Adolph  Menzel,  supra.  Tom.  i,  p.  3.    Apud  Audin,  p.  282. 
f  Audin,  ibid.  t  D'Aubigne,  vol.  ii,  p.  101. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  97.     This  i'  a  most  significant  avowal. 
FOL.    I. 11 


122  REFORMATION    IN    SERMANf. 

in  its  purity  ?  If  lie  sought  only  truth,  why  did  he  not  abide 
by  the  decisions  of  those  numerous  tribunals,  to  whose  author- 
ity he  himself  had  voluntarily  appealed,  as  the  most  suit- 
able and  final  arbiters  of  the  matters  in  dispute  ?  AVhy  after- 
wards abuse  them  so  intemperately,  for  having  decided 
against  him  ?  The  truth  is,  the  love  of  truth  and  the  reform 
of  abuses  were  but  shallow  pretexts ;  the  successive  appeals 
just  alluded  to,  were  but  crafty  expedients  to  gain  time: — ' 
the  real  object  was  separation  from  the  Church,  and  the  form- 
ing of  a  schismatical  party,  of  which  he  would  be  the  leader ; 
while  his  own  immediate  sovereign,  the  elector  of  Saxony, 
and  the  other  German  princes  and  nobles,  would  be  enriched 
from  the  abundant  spoils  of  the  old  Church,  which  was  to  be 
destroyed  to  make  way  for  the  new.  As  we  shall  show  a 
little  further  on,  all  the  facts  of  history  point  to  this,  as  the 
only  rational  method  of  accounting  for  the  movement  and  ex- 
plaining its  success. 

Ill,  One  of  those  tribunals  to  which  Luther  had  appealed — 
the  general  Council  of  Trent — subsequently  adopted  every 
possible  measure,  that  discreet  zeal  could  have  asked,  for  the 
reformation  of  abuses.  By  far  the  larger  portion  of  its 
decrees  are  devoted  to  the  work  of  reformation.*  On  the 
subject  of  indulgences,  the  council  employs  this  emphatic 
language:  "Wishing  to  correct  and  amend  the  abuses  which 
have  crept  into  them,  and  on  occasion  of  which,  this  signal 
name  of  indulgences  is  blasphemed  by  heretics,  the  holy 
synod  enjoins  in  general  by  the  present  decree,  that  all 
wicked  traffic  for  obtaining  them,  which  has  been  the  fruitful 
cause  of  many  abuses  among  the  Christian  people,  should  be 
wholly  abalislied."-|-      The   same  decree  recommends   great 

*  They  are  headed,  de  Reformatione,  and  make  up,  perhaps,  more  than 
three  fourths  of  the  whole  matter  of  the  council. 

t  Sessio  XXV.  Dccret.  de  Indulg.  "  Abusus  vero,  qui  in  his  irrepserunt, 
et  quorum  occasione  insigno  hoc  Indulgentiarum  nomen  ab  hsereticis  blas- 
phematur,  emendates  et  correctos  cupiens,  prgesenti  decreto  generaliter  sta- 
tuit,  pravos  quiestus  omnes  pro  his  consequendis,  unde  plurima  in  Christiano 
pupulo  abusuum  causa  fluxit,  omnino  abolendos  esse." 


HOW   TO   REFORM   THE   CHURCH.  12o 

moderation  in  the  granting  of  indulgences,  and  directs  the 
bishops  throughout  the  world  diligently  to  inquire  into  and  to 
refer  all  local  abuses  in  this  matter  to  provincial  councils, 
which  were  to  be  thenceforth  held  every  three  years,  and 
were  to  report  their  decisions  to  the  Roman  Pontiff.  Could 
any  wiser  or  more  effectual  measure  of  reform  have  been 
reasonably  demanded  ? 

Mr.  Hallam,  a  witness  whose  authority  will  not  be  sus 
pected,  bears  ample  testimony  to  the  learning  and  merit  of 
the  Tridentine  fathers.  After  having  refuted  at  some  length 
"  a  strange  notion  that  has  been  started  of  late  years  in  Eng- 
land, that  the  Council  of  Trent  made  important  innovations 
in  the  previously  established  doctrines  of  the  western  Church : 
an  hypothesis,"  he  says,  "  so  paradoxical  in  respect  to  public 
opinion,  and,  it  must  be  added,  so  prodigiously  at  variance 
with  the  known  facts  of  ecclesiastical  history,  that  we  can 
not  but  admire  the  facility  with  which  it  has  been  taken  up ;" 
he  thus  continues : 

"No  council  ever  contained  so  many  persons  of  eminent  learning  and 
ability  as  that  of  Trent ;  nor  is  there  ground  for  believing  that  any  other 
ever  investigated  the  questions  before  it  with  so  much  patience,  acuteness, 
temper,  and  desire  of  truth.  The  early  councils,  unless  they  are  greatly 
belied  (as  is  very  probably  the  case,)  would  not  bear  comparison  in  these  char- 
acteristics. Impartiality  and  freedom  from  prejudice  no  Protestant  will 
attribute  to  the  fathers  of  Trent ;  but  where  will  he  produce  these  qualities 
in  an  ecclesiastical  synod  ?  But  it  may  be  said,  that  they  had  but  one  lead- 
ing prejudice,  that  of  determining  theological  faith  according  to  the  tradition 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  as  handed  down  to  their  own  age.  This  one  point 
of  authority  conceded,  I  am  not  aware  that  they  can  be  proved  to  have 
decided  wrong,  or,  at  least,  against  all  reasonable  evidence.  Let  those  who 
have  imbibed  a  different  opinion  ask  themselves,  whether  they  have  read 
Sarpi  through  with  any  attention,  especially  as  to  those  sessions  of  the  Tri- 
dentine council  which  preceded  its  suspension  in  1547."  * 

The  history  of  the  Council  of  Trent  by  Cardinal  Fallavicino, 
which  Hallam  acknowledges  he  never  read,  would  greatly 
confirm  this  conclusion.     All  previous  councils,  both  ge]\eral 

*  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Literature,  vol.  i,  p.  277,  note. 


124  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

and  local,  had  adopted  measures  for  reform,  marked  witL 
similar  wisdom  and  zeal.  Many  of  the  decrees  of  the  general 
Council  of  Constance,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, as  well  as  those  of  the  Council  of  Basle,*  towards  the 
middle  of  the  same  century,  had  been  distinguished  by  the 
same  earnest  solicitude  for  the  correction  of  abuses.  D'Au- 
bign^  is  forced  to  admit  this.  "  Had  not  gentler  means  been 
tried  for  ages  ?  Had  they  not  seen  council  after  council  con- 
voked with  the  intention  of  reforming  the  Church  !"t  True, 
he  adds,  without  however  even  the  shadow  of  proof,  that  "all 
had  been  in  vain."J  He  also  asserts  against  all  evidence, 
that  Martin  Y.,  who  was  chosen  Pontiff  at  the  Council  of 
Constance,  A.  D.  1418,  with  the  express  stipulation,  that  he 
should  carry  out  the  measures  of  reform  commenced  by  the 
council,  subsequently  refused  to  redeem  his  pledge.§  But  did 
not  this  Pontiff  convoke  councils  for  the  purpose  successively 
at  Pavia,  Sienna,  and  Basle  ?  And  was  it  his  fault  that  his 
intentions  were  not  fully  carried  out  ?  Was  it  not  rather  the 
fault  of  those,  who,  while  always  clamoring  for  reformation, 
were  really  averse  to  its  being  brought  about  in  the  only  con- 
servative and  effectual  manner  ?  Unless  all  history  is  false, 
this  is  certainly  the  case. 

The  controversy,  in  fact,  did  not  turn  so  much  on  the  neces- 
sity of  reform,  as  on  the  means  best  calculated  to  bring  it 
about.  There  were  two  ways  of  reforming  abuses  in  the 
Church ;  the  one  from  within^  the  other  from  without ; 
the  one  by  gentle  and  legal  means,  the  other  by  lawless 
violence.  The  Catholics  were  in  favor  of  the  former,  the 
Protestants  of  the  latter  mode.  The  former  wished  to  re- 
main in  the  Church,  which  Christ  had  commanded  them  to 
hear,  and  to  labor  therein  for  the  extirpation  of  abuses ; 
the    latter    separated    from    the    Church,    and    covered    it 

*  Before  it  degenerated  into  a  schismatical  conventicle,  during  the  last 
sessions,  especially  after  the  tenth. 

+  D'Aubigno,  vol.  i,  p.  104,  \  Ibid.  \  Ibid.  p.  56. 


Luther's  avowal.  125 

with   obloquy,  against   the  solemn  injunction   af  its  divine 
Founder. 

"Were  not  the  Catholics  right  in  urging  this,  as  the  only  safe 
and  eflectual  method  of  reforming  the  Church  ?  Had  they  not 
clearly  the  sanction  of  all  previous  ages,  which,  following  the 
precedent  set  them  by  the  inspired  Apostles  themselves  in  the 
council  at  Jerusalem,  had  ever  sought  to  proscribe  error  and  to 
correct  abuses,  by  legal  enactments  in  general  or  particular 
councils  ?  And  did  not  the  Protestants,  on  the  contrary,  fol- 
low the  precedent  set  them  by  the  separatists  and  heretics  of 
every  age  of  the  Church?  What  real  diflerence  is  there,  in 
the  principle,  between  the  Lutherans  protesting  against  the 
decisions  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
the  Arians,  against  those  of  the  Council  of  Nice,  in  the  fourtli  ? 

Besides,  were  not  reason  and  logic  clearly  on  the  side  of 
the  Catholics  ?  Which  is  the  proper  way  to  cure  a  sick  pa- 
tient ;  to  remain  with  him,  and  to  administer  to  him  medicine 
or  to  separate  from  him,  and  to  denounce  him  for  his  malady « 
AVhich  is  the  preferable  way  to  repair  an  edifice ;  to  remain 
within  or  near  it,  and  to  labor  patiently  to  re-establish  it  in 
its  former  strength  and  beauty,  or  to  leave  it  and  bedaub  its 
walls  with  mud  and  slime  ?  Finally,  which  would  be  the 
better  patriot :  he  who  would  remain  faithful  to  the  republic, 
and  patiently  await  the  progress  of  legal  enactments  for  the 
redress  of  grievances,  or  he  who  would  nullify  the  union 
under  pretext  of  those  grievances  ?  Let  the  seal  of  public 
reprobation  set  upon  a  recent  attempt  of  the  kind — in  which 
the  principle  of  disorganization  was  precisely  the  same  as 
that  which  urged  the  reformers  to  nullify  the  unity  of  the 
Church — answer  this  question.  An  old  Protestant  divine  of 
the  Church  of  England,  illustrates  the  evil  of  separation  from 
the  Church,  under  pretext  of  reforming  it,  by  the  following 
quaint  comparison  :  "  You  may  cure  a  throat  when  it  is  sore^ 
but  not  when  it  is  cutT"^ 

*  South — Sermons ;  vol.  v,  p.  946.     Edit.  London,  1737,  quoted  in  tha 
Iniicable  Discussion,  by  Bishop  Trevern. 


126  KEFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

Luther  himself  avowed  the  correctness  of  these  principles 
about  two  years  after  he  had  cominenced  his  pretended  Kef 
ormation. 

"That  the  Roman  Church,"  he  says,  "is  more  honored  by  God  than  all 
others,  is  not  to  be  doubted.  St.  Peter,  St.  Paul,  forty-six  popes,  some  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  martyrs,  have  laid  down  their  lives  in  its  communion, 
having  overcome  hell  and  the  world ;  so  that  the  eyes  of  God  rest  on  the 
Roman  Church  with  special  favor.  Though  now-a-days  every  thing  is  in  a 
wretched  state,  it  is  no  ground  for  separating  from  it.  On  the  contrary,  the 
worse  things  are  going,  the  more  should  we  hold  close  to  it ;  for  it  is  not  by 
separation  from  it  that  we  can  make  it  better.  AVe  must  not  separate  from 
God  on  account  of  any  work  of  the  devil,  nor  cease  to  have  fellowship  with 
the  children  of  God,  who  are  still  abiding  in  the  pale  of  Rome,  on  account 
of  the  multitude  of  the  ungodly.  There  is  no  sin,  no  amount  of  evil,  which 
should  be  permitted  to  dissolve  the  bond  of  charity,  or  break  the  unity  of 
the  body.  For  love  can  do  all  things,  and  nothing  is  difldcult  to  those  who 
are  united."* 

Sentiments  almost  worthy  of  a  Gregory  YIL,  or  of  a  Ber- 
nard! Had  he  persevered  in  them — had  he  not,  with  his 
accustomed  duplicity  or  fickleness,  substituted,  almost  innne- 
diately  afterwards,  a  principle  of  hatred  for  that  principle  of 
love  "■  which  can  do  all  things,"  the  world  might  never  have 
been  cursed  with  the  countless  evils  of  schism  and  heresy. 

The  sentiments  of  Luther  just  given  were  re-echoed  even 
in  the  confession  of  Augsburg,  the  oflicial  expositor  of  Lu- 
theran doctrines. f     In    the  conclusion   of   its   expositi(.)n    of 

*  Lutheri  Opera  Lat.  torn,  xvii,  p.  224.     Apud  D  'Aubigne,  ii,  18,  19. 

•j-  In  the  conference  at  Augsburg,  a  large  portion  of  the  Lutherans,  undei 
the  leadership  of  Melancthon,  sought  for  a  return  to  unity  through  a  recon- 
ciliation with  the  Holy  See.  Their  efforts  were,  however,  sternly  opposed 
and  rendered  wholly  abortive  by  Luther,  who  would  hear  of  no  reunion 
with  Rome.  When  Melancthon  urged  the  measure,  by  alleging  the  endless 
contradictions  into  which  the  champions  of  the  new  doctrines  would  other- 
wise fall,  and  by  even  venturing  timidly  to  point  out  the  doctrinal  varia- 
tions and  inconsistencies  of  Luther  himself,  his  imperious  master  answered 
in  the  following  characteristic  strain  : 

"  My  adversaries  quote  my  contradictions  to  make  a  parade  of  their  learn- 
ing: blockheads  that  they  are  !  IIow  can  they  judge  of  the  contradictions 
Df  our  doctrines,  who  do  not  understand  the  texts  which  clash  with  each 


LUTHERAN   TESTIMONY.  127 

faith,  it  is  freely  admitted,  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
had  retained  every  article  of  doctrine  essential  to  salvation, 
and  that  the  abuses  vrhich  had  crept  in  were  unauthorized, 
and  afibrded  no  sufficient  cause  for  separation.  '^  Such  is  the 
abridgment  of  our  faith,  in  which  nothing  will  be  found  con- 
trary to  Scripture,  or  to  the  Catholic  Church,  or  even  to  the 
Roman  Church,  as  far  as  we  can  know  it  from  its  writei's. 
The  dispute  turns  upon  some  few  abuses,  which  have  been 
introduced  into  the  churches  without  any  certain  authority  / 
and  should  there  be  found  some  difference,  that  should  be 
borne  with,  since  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  rites  of  the 
Church  should  be  everywhere  the  same."*  Even  the  Calvin- 
ist  minister  of  Charenton,  Daille,  much  as  he  hated  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  makes  a  similar  avowal.  After  having  euume- 
rated  those  articles  of  his  belief,  which  he  is  pleased  to  call 
fundamental^  he  says :  "  Rome  does  not  call  in  question  the 
articles  which  we  believe;  it  even  professes  to  believe  them. 
Who  can  deny,  even  in  our  day,  that  Rome  admits  the  neces- 
sary articles  T\ — Why  then  separate  from  her  ? 

Hitherto  we  have  treated  of  the  origin  and  extent  of  the 
evils  which  afforded  the  reformers  a  pretext  for  the  Reforma- 
tion ;  and  we  have  also  endeavored  to  point  out  the  only  ef- 
fectual and  proper  means  for  correcting  abuses,  and  for  pre- 
serving the  Church  in  that  purity  which  the  promises  of 
Christ  have  guarantied  to  her,  and  to  show  what  was  the  only 

other  ?  How  can  our  doctrine  appear  to  them  otherwise  than  embarrassed 
with  contradictions,  when  it  demands  and  condemns  works,  rejects  and 
authorizes  the  necessity  of  rites,  honors  and  censures  the  magistracy,  affirms 
and  denies  sin  ?  But  why  carry  water  to  the  sea  ?  Cum  simul  exigat  et 
damnet  opera,  simul  tollat  et  restituat  ritus,  simul  magistratum  colat  et  ar- 
guat,  simul  peccata  asserat  et  neget  ?  Sed  quid  aquas  in  mare  ?"  Apud 
Audin,  in  loco.     Epist.  Melancthoni,  20  Jul.  1520. 

How,  indeed,  could  any  one  be  expected  to  reconcile  these  palpable  con- 
tradictions of  the  arch-reformer ! 

*  Art.  xxi.  Anno  Dom.  1530.  Confessio  Augustana.  See  also  Audin, 
vol.  ii,  p.  337,  London  edition,  Turnbull's  translation. 

f  "  Institut  Chretiennes,"  1.  iv,  ch.  ii,  and  "  La  Loi  fondee,  part.  iii. 


128  BEFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

true  method  of  solving  the  great  problem  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  We  will  now  proceed  to  examine  the  means  really 
adopted  by  the  reformers  for  that  alleged  purpose,  as  well  tc 
exhibit  the  true  motives  which  prompted  and  guided  their 
action ;  and  through  these  we  will  endeavor  to  account  for 
the  rapidity  with  which  the  Reformation  was  diffused  over  a 
large  ]>ortion  of  Europe. 


CHAPTER     IV 


THE    TRCE    CAUSES    OF    THE    REFORMATION,   AND    THE 
MEANS    BY    WHICH  IT   WAS    EFFECTED. 

Saying  of  Frederick  the  Great — What  we  mean  to  prove — Testimony  of 
Hallam — Doctrines  of  Luther — Justification  without  works — Its  dreadful 
consequences  avowed — The  "  slave-will " — Man,  a  beast  with  two  riders — 
Dissuasive  from  celibacy — An  easy  way  to  heaven — D'Aubigne's  discreet 
silence — Testimony  of  the  Diet  of  Worms  on  Luther's  doctrines — An  old 
lad}'  emancipated — Protection  of  princes — Schlegel's  testimony — The 
refonners  flatter  princes  and  pander  to  their  vices — Remarkable  avowals 
of  Menzel — The  Reformation  and  state  policy — The  princes  become 
bishops — A  reformed  dispensation — Character  of  reformed  princes — Their 
cupidity — Fed  by  Luther — Protestant  restitution — Open  violence  and 
sacrilegious  spoliation — The  modus  operandi  of  the  Reformation — Schlegel 
again — Abuse  of  the  press — Vituperation  and  calumny — Policy  of  Lu- 
ther's marriage — Apostate  monks — Recapitulation — A  distinction — The 
Reformation  "a  reappearance  of  Christianity." 

We  believe  it  was  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia,  who  was 
the  author  of  the  well-known  saying:  "That  pride  and  ava- 
rice had  caused  the  Reformation  in  Germany,  lawless  love  in 
England,  and  the  love  of  novelty  in  France."  Perhaps  the 
greatest  severity  of  this  remark,  is  its  strict  historic  truth. 
It,  of  course,  was  intended  merely  to  designate  the  iirst  and 
most  prominent  among  a  variety  of  other  causes.  William 
Cobbett  has  proved — and  whatever  may  have  been  said  by  hia 
Qp])onents  of  his  character  and  reliability  as  a  witness,  no  one 


TESTIMONY    OF   HALLAM.  129 

has  yet  disputed  his  facts  or  answered  his  arguments — that 
in  England,  the  first  cause  alluded  to  above,  was  powerfully 
aided  by  cupidity,  which  fattened  on  the  rich  spoils  of  the 
Church,  and  by  the  reckless  pride  of  ascendency,  which  rev- 
eled in,  and  was  cemented  by  the  blood  of  vast  numbers  of 
innocent  victims,  whose  only  crime  was  their  conscientious 
adherence  to  the  religion  of  their  fathers. 

We  will  present  a  mass  of  evidence  to  prove,  that  in  Ger- 
many, the  Reformation,  which  was  commenced  in  the  pride 
of  revolt,  was  fed  and  kept  alive  by  avarice  and  licentious- 
ness, was  propagated  by  calumny,  by  violence,  and  by  pan- 
dering to  the  worst  passions,  and  was  consummated  and  ren- 
dered permanent  by  the  fostering  care  of  secular  princes, 
without  whose  protection  it  would  have  died  away  and  come 
to  naught.  Tliis  is  strong  language ;  but  it  is  more  than  jus- 
tified by  the  facts  of  history:  not  indeed  as  those  facts  have 
been  travestied,  miscolored,  and  perverted  by  such  partial 
writers  as  D' Aubigne ;  but,  as  they  are  clearly  set  forth  by 
contemporary  historians,  and  as  they  appear  in  the  original 
documents.  We  shall  allege  only  such  facts  as  are  undoubted 
and  clearly  established  from  these  sources. 

But  before  we  adduce  this  evidence,  let  us  see  what  a  very 
learnedand  enlightened  modern  Protestant  historian  thinks  on 
this  subject,  to  the  investigation  of  which  he  has  devoted 
much  time  and  labor.  Mr.  Hallam  gives  us  the  result  of  his 
researches  in  the  following  passages,  which  we  quote  from 
his  latest  work : 

"  Whatever  may  be  the  bias  of  our  minds  as  to  the  truth  of  Luther's  doc- 
trines, we  should  be  careful,  in  considering  the  Reformation  as  a  part  of  the 
history  of  mankind,  not  to  be  misled  by  the  superficial  and  ungrounded 
representations  which  we  sometimes  find  in  modern  writers  (D' Aubigne  for 
example).  Such  is  this,  that  Luther,  struck  by  the  absurdity  of  the  pre- 
vailing superstitions,  was  desirous  of  introducing  a  more  rational  system  of 
religion  ;  or,  that  he  contended  for  fi-eedom  of  inquiry,  and  the  boundless 
privileges  of  individual  judgment ;  or,  what  others  have  been  pleased  to 
suggest,  that  his  zeal  for  learning  and  ancient  philosophy  led  hmi  to  attack 
thft  ignorance  of  the  monks  and  the  crafty  policy  of  the  church,  which  with- 


130  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

stood  all  liberal  studies.  These  notions  are  merely  fallacious  refinements, 
as  every  man  of  plain  understanding  (except,  perhaps,  D'Aubigne)  who  ia 
acquainted  with  the  writings  of  the  early  reformers,  or  has  considered  their 
history,  must  acknowledge."* 

In  another  place,  the  same  candid  Protestant  historian  has 
this  remarkable  passage : 

"  The  adherents  to  the  Church  of  Kome  have  never  failed  to  cast  two 
reproaches  on  those  who  left  them  :  one,  that  the  reform  was  brought  about 
by  intemperate  and  caluminous  abuse,  by  outrages  of  an  excited  populace,  or  by 
the  tyranny  of  princes  ;  the  other,  that,  after  stimulating  the  most  ignorant 
to  reject  the  authority  of  their  Church,  it  instantly  withdrew  this  liberty  of 
judgment,  and  devoted  all  who  presumed  to  swerve  fi-om  the  line  drawn  by 
law  to  virulent  obloquy,  and  sometimes  to  bonds  and  death.  These 
reproaches,  it  may  be  a  shame  to  us  to  own,  can,  be  uttered  and  can  not  be 
refuted."  f 

After  making  this  painful  avowal,  he  enters  upon  a  labored 
argument  to  prove  that  the  Reformation  could  have  succeeded 
by  no  other  means  !J  The  reformers,  as  we  have  seen,  were 
not  content  with  clamoring  for  the  reform  of  abuses :  they 
laid  violent  hands  on  the  sacred  deposit  of  the  faith  itself. 
Like  Oza  of  old,  they  put  forth  their  hands  to  the  ark  of  God, 
mindless  of  Oza's  awful  fate!§  Under  the  plea  that  the 
Catholic  Church  had  fallen  into  numerous  and  fatal  doctrinal 
errors,  and  that  the  Reformation  could  not  be  thorough  with- 
out the  removal  of  these,  they  rejected  many  doctrines  which 
the  whole  world  had  hitherto  revered  as  the  revelation  of 
God ;  and  they  substituted  in  their  place  new  tenets,  which 
they  professed  to  find  more  conformable  to  the  word  of  God. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  examine  whether  these  new  doctrines 
are  true ;  all  that  our  plan  calls  for  at  present,  is  to  inquire 
what  those  doctrines  were,  and  what  was  their  practical  bear- 
ing on  the  work  of  the  Reformation  ?     Were  they  really  cal- 

*  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Literature.  Sup.  Cit.  vol.  i,  p.  165. 
sec.  60-61. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  200,  sec.  34.  As  we  shall  have  occasion  to  show  a  little 
further  on,  this  avowal  rests  on  the  facts  of  sober  history,  as  related  by 
Protestants  themselves.  t  Ibid.  }  2  Kings  (1  Samuel)  vi:  ft 


HORRID    DOCTRINES   OF   LUTHER.  131 

on'ated  to  exercise  an  influence  beneficial  to  morals  and  to 
society  ?  Were  they  adequate  means  to  reform  the  Church  ? 
As  it  would  be  tedious  to  exhibit  even  a  brief  summary  of 
all  the  contradictory  tenets  held  by  the  early  reformers,  or 
even  by  the  early  Lutherans  themselves,  we  must  confine 
ourselves  to  tl^ose  broached  and  defended  by  Luther,  the 
boasted  father  and  founder  of  the  Reformation.  And  we 
shall  state  nothing  for  which  we  will  not  exhibit  chapter  and 
verse  from  his  own  writings.* 

The  leading  tenet  of  Luther's  doctrine  was,  a  belief  in  jus- 
tification by  faith  alone  without  works.  This  is  the  key  to  his 
entire  system.  Let  us  see  the  modest  way  in  which  he  asserts 
this  doctrine,  one  that  he  always  styled  a  fundamental  article. 

"  Well,  then,  I,  Dr.  Martin  Luther,  an  unworthy  evangelist  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  do  confess  this  article,  'that  faith  alone  without  works  justifies 
in  the  sight  of  God  ; '  and  I  declare  that,  in  spite  of  the  emperor  of  the 
Romans,  the  emperor  of  the  Turks,  the  emperor  of  the  Tartars,  the  em- 
peror of  the  Persians,  the  Pope,  all  the  cardinals,  bishops,  priests,  monks, 
nuns,  kings,  princes,  nobles,  all  the  world,  and  all  the  devils,  it  shall  stand 
unshaken  forever !  That,  if  they  will  persist  in  opposing  this  truth,  they 
will  draw  upon  their  heads  the  flames  of  hell.  This  is  the  true  and  holy 
gospel,  and  the  declaration  of  me.  Doctor  Luther,  according  to  the  light 
given  to  me  by  the  Holy  Ghost."f 

This  declaration  was  made  in  1531 ;  and,  according  to 
D'Aubigne,  who  quotes  Seckendorf,  Luther's  most  ardent 
admirer,  he  received  this  new  light  of  the  Holy  Ghost  while 
visiting  "  Pilate's  stair-case  "  J  in  Rome,  a  few  years  before  he 

*  Some  of  the  modern  editions  of  Luther's  works  have  been  greatly 
expurgated  by  his  admirers.  We  shall  quote  fi-om  the  oldest  and  most 
authentic  editions,  those  of  Wittenberg,  of  Jena,  of  Frankfort,  of  Altenberg, 
of  Leipsic,  and  Geneva.  ~  That  of  Wittenberg  was  put  forth  by  the  imme- 
diate disciples  of  Luther.  We  generally  quote  through  Audin  or  D'Aubigne, 
unless  the  contrary  be  indicated,  in  loco. 

f  Glossa  in  Edict.  Imperiale.  Opera  Lat.  torn.  xx.  Apud  D'Aubigne,  i, 
172. 

I  Properly  called  the  "scala  santa,"  or  "holy  stairway;"  from  having 
been  '>nce  consecrated  by  the  Saviour's  footsteps,  while  he  was  entering  into 
the  pretorium,  to  be  judged  by  Pilate. 


132  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

turned  reformer.  This  we,  however,  apprehend  was  an  after 
thought.  Certain  it  is  that,  to  get  rid  of  the  conclusive  argu- 
ment against  this  cardinal  doctrine  drawn  from  the  Epistle  of 
St.  James,  l.e  rejected  this  Epistle  "as  one  of  straw;"  and 
that,  to  confirm  this  his  favorite  principle  still  more,  he  boldly 
corrupted  the  text  of  St.  Paul — (Romans  iii:  28)  "For  we 
account  a  man  to  be  justified  by  faith  without  the  works  of 
the  law" — by  adding  the  word  alone  SiiiQv  faith  :  and  that, 
when  challenged  on  the  subject,  he  made  this  characteristic 
reply:  "So  I  will — so  I  order.  Let  my  will  stand  for  a 
reason."* — So  much  had  he  this  doctrine  at  heart ! 

He  pushed  this  tenet  to  the  utmost  extremes,  and  boldly 
avowed  all  the  consequences  which  logically  flowed  there- 
from. With  him,  faith  was  every  thing;  works  were  no- 
thing. On  the  1st  of  August,  1521,  he  wrote  from  the  Wart- 
burg  a  letter  to  Melancthon,  from  which  the  following  is  an 
extract:  "Sin,  and  sin  boldly;  but  let  your  faith  be  greater 
than  your  sin.  It  is  enough  for  us,  through  the  riches  of  the 
glory  of  God,  to  have  known  the  Lamb  of  God  who  takes 
away  the  sin  of  the  world.  Sin  will  not  destroy  in  us  the 
reign  of  the  Lamb,  although  we  were  to  commit  fornication 
or  murder  a  thousand  times  in  one  day."f  In  his  "  Treatise 
on  Christian  Liberty,"  which  he  sent  along  with  a  most  brutal 
letter  to  Leo  X.,J  in  1520,  "as  a  pledge  of  his  filial  piety  and 
love,"  he  lays  down  the  following  as  doctrines  founded  on  the 
gospel :  "  The  incompatibility  of  faith  with  works,  which  he 

*  "Sic  volo,  sic  jubeo,  stat  pro  ratione  voluntas."  He  added :  " I  wish  I 
had  also  said,  '  without  any  of  the  works,  of  all  laws ! ' " 

f  "  SufBcit  quod  agnovimus  per  divitias  glorige  Dei  Agnum  qui  tolUt  pec- 
catum  mundi :  ab  hoc  non  avellet  nos  pcccatum  etiamsi  millies  uno  die  for- 
nicemur  aut  occidamus." — Epist.  Melanc.  1  Aug.  1521.  Apud  Audin,  p.  178. 

X  See  this  savage  letter  in  Audin,  p.  110,  111.  It  was  written  before  the 
papal  bull  had  been  issued,  shortly  after  his  conference  with  Miltitz,  in  which 
he  had  given  and  received  the  kiss  of  peace  ! !  This  truculent  epistle  was 
dated  April  6,  1520,  whereas  the  bull  of  excommunication  was  dated  on  the 
15th  of  June  following.  This  is  clearly  proved  by  Roscoe  and  Audin.  Sea 
Dublin  Review,  art.  Luther,  for  Sept.,  1855. 


HORRID   DOCTRINES    OF   LUTHER.  133 

regarded  as  so  many  sins ;  the  subjection  of  the  creature  to 
the  demon,  even  when  he  endeavors  to  escape  frcmhim;  and 
his  identification  with  sin,  even  when  he  rises  towards  his 
Creator,  when  his  hand  distributes  alms,  when  his  lips  open  tu 
pray,  or  invoke  a  blessing,  and  even  when  he  weeps  and  re- 
pents, he  sins :  '  for,'  says  he,  '  all  that  is  in  us  is  crime,  sin, 
damnation,  and  man  can  do  nothing  good.'  "*  On  the  con- 
trary, sin  is  not  imputed  to  those  who  have  ftiith  :  "  Because," 
says  he,  "although  I  have  sinned,  Christ  who  is  within  me 
has  not  sinned :  this  Christ,  in  whom  I  believe,  acts,  thinks, 
and  lives  in  me,  and  alone  accomplishes  the  law."-j- 

Another  cardinal  doctrine  of  Luther's,  much  akin  to  this, 
was  the  denial  of  free  will,  and  the  assertion  that  all  our  ac- 
tions are  the  result  of  stern  fatalism.  He  wrote  a  work  ex- 
pressly on  "the  slave  will,"J  and  carried  on  a  rude  controversy 
with  Erasmus  on  this  subject.  His  principles  in  this  respect 
are  explicitly,  openly,  and  unblushingly  avowed.  According 
to  him,  free  will  is  incompatible  with  the  divine  foreknowl- 
edge. "  Let  the  Christian  know,  then,  that  God  foresees  no- 
thing in  a  contingent  manner ;  but  that  He  foresees,  proposes, 
and  acts  from  his  eternal  and  unchangeable  will.  This  is  the 
thunder-stroke  which  breaks  and  overturns  free  will."§  God 
is  thus  plainly  the  author  of  sin,  and  Luther  shrinks  not  from 
the  avowal !  He  maintains  "  that  God  excites  us  to  sin,  and 
produces  sin  in  us:"||  and  that  "God  damns  some  who  have 
not  merited  this  lot,  and   others   before  they  were   born.  Tf 


*  Apud  Audin,  p.  111. 

\  Ibid.    See  Epistola  Lutheriana  ad  Leonem  summum  Pontificem.    Liber 
de  Libertate  Christiana.     Wittenb.  1520,  4to. 

I  "  De  Servo  Arbitrio,"   in  opposition  to  the  usual  term,  "hberum  arbit 
rium." 

5  De  Servo  Arbit.  adv.  Erasm.  Roterod.  Luth.  0pp.  Lat.  Jense,  torn,  lii,  p. 
170,  seqq. 

II  Opera,  Jenfe,  iii,  199.     Wittenb.  torn.  fol.   522,  523.     "Dass  Gott  die 
laenschen  zur  siinde  antreibe,  und  alle  laster  in  ihnem  wiircke." 

H   lliid.  Jen*  edit,  iii,  207— Witt,  vi,  534,  535— Altenb.  iii,  249,  250. 
9 


134  REFORMATION   IN    GERMANY. 

Mail's  nature,  according  to  him,  is  thoroughly  and  radically 
corrupt:  he  is  a  mere  automaton.  "Man  is  like  a  beast  of 
burden:  if  God  sits  in  the  saddle,  he  wills  and  goes  whither- 
soever God  wills ;  ...  if  Satan  ride  him,  he  wills  and  goe  ■ 
whither  Satan  directs :  nor  is  it  in  his  power  to  determine  his 
rider — the  two  riders  contend  for  obtaining  and  possessing 
him."* — This  is  truly  a  characteristic  illustration  of  a  most 
hideous  doctrine ! 

In  his  famous  speech  at  the  diet  of  Worms,  in  1521,  he 
expressed  his  delight  at  the  prospect  that  his  doctrine  would 
•produce  discord  and  dissension :  "  You  must  know  that  I  have 
well  weighed  the  dangers  that  I  incur,  the  displeasure  that  I 
cause,  and  the  hatred  which  my  doctrine  will  excite  in  this 
world.  I  delight  to  see  the  word  of  God  bring  forth  discord 
and  dissension.  This  is  the  lot  of  the  Saviour,  who  says:  'I 
am  come  not  to  bring  peace  but  the  sword ;  I  am  come  to 
separate  the  son  from  the  father.'  "f — Was  there  ever  a  more 
fiendish  joy,  or  a  more  glaring  perversion  of  God's  holy  word  ? 

He  rejected  continence  with  horror,  and  looked  on  the  law 
of  celibacy  as  an  "  awful  blindness — a  relentless  cruelty  of  the 
Pope  —  a  diabolical  precept — an  imposing  of  an  obligation 
which  is  impossible  to  human  nature." J  In  1522  he  wrote  a 
letter  to  the  knights  of  the  Teutonic  order,  in  which  he  urged 
them,  by  arguments  pandering  to  the  basest  passions  of  the 
human  heart,  to  rid  themselves  of  this  "diabolical"  yoke.  We 
almost  shrink  from  transcribing  the  following  passage  from 
this  appeal,  which  was  alas !  too  successful.     "  My  friends,  the 

*  "Sic  huraana  voluntas  in  medio  posita  est  ceu  jumentnm  :  si  msederit 
Deus,  \ailt  et  vadit  sicut  vult  Deus ;  ...  si  insederit  Satan,  vult  et  vadit 
sicut  Satan  :  nee  est  in  ejus  arbitrio  ad  utrum  sessorem  cunere,  aut  eum 
quserere,  sed  ipsi  sessores  certant  ad  ipsum  obtinendum  et  possidendum." 
Opera,  Jena3,  iii,  176,  177. 

f  Apud  Audin,  p.  163.     D'Aubigne,  ii,  235. 

t  "  Perinde  f-icere  qui  continenter  vivere  instituunt,  ac  si  quis  excremenia 
vcl  lotium  colli  ra  natural  impctum  retinere  velit."  Luther.  Contra  falsa 
Edicta  Ca3saris,  T  ii. 


ENCOURAGING   SIN.  ioO 

precept  of  multiplying  is  older  than  that  of  continence 
enjoined  by  the  councils"  (and  he  should  have  added,  sanc- 
tioned by  the  most  solemn  vows,  voluntarily  made,  the  bind- 
ing obligation  of  which  he  himself  had  recognized  but  one 
year  before*):  "it  dates  from  Adam.  It  would  be  better  to 
live  in  concubinage  than  in  chastity.  Chastity  is  an  unpardon- 
able sin;  whereas  concubinage,  with  God's  assistance,  should 
not  make  us  despair  of  salvation."-(- 

He  rejected  in  fact  every  doetrine,  and  abolished  every 
practice  of  the  Catholic  Church,  which  was  humbling  to 
human  pride,  painful  to  corrupt  nature,  or  which  imposed  a 
salutary  restraint  on  the  passions.  Confession  he  rejected,  as 
the  "  executioner  of  consciences."^  He  eschewed  monastic 
vows,  fasting  and  abstinence,  and  proscribed  good  works  and 
free  will.  In  his  new-fangled  system  of  religion,  the  minis- 
ters of  God  were  no  longer  bound  to  say  Mass,  or  to  read  the 
divine  office;  this  would  have  been  an  intolerable  burden, 
incompatible  with  Christian  liberty !  In  fact,  he  was  no  great 
advocate  for  prayer  at  all  —  especially  for  frequent  prayer : 
"For,"  he  says,  ""it  is  enough  to  pray  once  or  twice;  since 
God  has  said  '  ask  and  you  shall  receive ;'  to  continue  always 
in  prayer,  is  to  show  that  we  have  not  faith  in  God."§  He 
forgot  to  mention  that  Christ  had  also  said:  "Pray  always 
and  faint  not:"  and  St.  Paul,  "Pray  without  intermission." 

What,  in  fine,  was  left  in  his  new  system  of  Christianity  to 
fulfill  those  essential  conditions  of  discipleship,  which  our 
blessed  Lord  pointed  out,  when  he  said :  "  If  any  man  will 
come  after  me,  let  him  deny  himself  and  take  itjp  his  cross, 
and  follow  me?"||  Or  to  imitate  the  example  of  St.  Paul — 
whose  great  admirer  Luther  affected  to  be — when  he  said  of 


="  Supra,  p.  95. 

t  "  In  statu  scortationis  vel  peccati,  Dei  prassidio  implorato,  de  Salute  non 
il3speraiidum." — Ad  Milites  Ord.  Teutonici,  0pp.  Jenae,  torn,  ii,  p.  211-216. 

I  Consci  intias  carnificina. 

5  Letter  to  Bartholemew  Von  Starenburg  ;  1  Sept.,  1523. — Audin,  p.  20S 

II  Matth    xvi:  24. 


136  REFORMATION   IN    GERiUNY. 

himself:  "I  chastise  my  body,  and  bring  it  into  subjection 
lest  perhaps,  when  I  have  preached  to  others,  I  myself  should 
become  reprobate?"* 

D'Aubigne,  though  he  professes  to  give  a  very  detailed 
history  of  the  Reformation,  found  it  convenient^  however,  to 
forget,  or  at  least  to  pretermit  most  of  the  facts  related 
above ;  which,  however,  are  essential  to  the  history  !  But 
they  did  not  suit  his  purpose,  which  was  to  persuade  the 
world,  that  Luther  and  his  associates  were  new  apostles  of 
God,  and  that  the  Reformation  was  but  "the  re-appearance 
of  Christianity!"  His  whole  view,  in  fact,  of  Luther's  doc- 
trine, and  of  the  entire  Reformation,  is  a  miserable  perversion 
of  history — an  ill-contrived  romance.  His  picture  is  no  doubt 
viewed  with  delight  by  those  for  whose  special  benefit  it  was 
drawn  ;  but  it  is  false  in  almost  every  light  and  shade  !  Else 
why  did  he  omit  so  many  essential  facts  ?t 

What  was  the  necessary  tendency  of  these  new  doctrines 
of  Luther  ?  Were  they  calculated  to  effect  a  reform  in  mor- 
als and  religion  ?  Or  was  their  influence  on  society  essen- 
tially evil?  To  aid  us  in  answering  these  questions,  we  will 
adduce  the  evidence  of  a  contemporary  oificial  document  of 
the  Germanic  empire — an  extract  from  the  decree  of  the  diet 
of  Worms  in  1521 — which  decree  D'Aubigne  professes  to 
give  us  entire  :J 

"  The  Augustine  monk,  Martin  Luther,  regardless  of  our  exhortations,  has 
madly  attacked  the  holy  Church,  and  attempted  to  destroy  it,  by  writings 
full  of  blasphemy.  He  has  shamefully  vilified  the  unalterable  law  of  holy 
marriage ;  he  has  labored  to  excite  the  laity  to  imbrue  their  hands  in  the 
blood  of  their  priests  ;5  and,  defying  all  authority,  has  incessantly  excited 
the  people  to  revolt,  schism,  war,  murder,  theft,  incendiarism,  and  the  utter 
destruction  of  the  Christian  faith.  ...  In  a  word,  and  passing  over  many 

=♦  1  Corinth,  ix :  27. 

t  In  this  respect  he  is  not  alone,  but  as  one  of  a  class.  In  fiict,  he  is 
occasionally  more  candid  than  some  other  wntei-s  of  his  school. 

\  Vol.  ii,  p.  261  seqq. 

5  The  Diet  here  cites  Lutlier's  works ;  and  D '  Aubigne  furnishes  the 
reference  to  the  present  works  of  the  reformer. — Luther  0pp.  Lat.  xvii,  598. 


DIET    OF   WORMS.  137 

jther  evil  intentions,  this  being,  who  is  no  man,  but  Satan  amiself,  under 
the  semblance  of  a  man  in  a  monk's  hood,  has  collected  in  one  offensive 
mass  all  the  worst  heresies  of  former  ages,  adding  his  own  to  the  number." 

Making  all  proper  allowance  for  the  circumstance  that  this 
document  emanated  from  a  body  the  majority  of  which  was 
opposed  to  Luther,  it  still  presents  a  satisfactory  proof  of  the 
evil  tendency  of  his  doctrines,  "Would  the  great  Charles  V., 
would  the  first  princes  of  the  empire,  in  an  official  document, 
have  stated  facts  at  random,  and  without  sufiicient  warrant  ? 
They  were  surely  competent  witnesses  of  events  passing 
under  their  very  eyes ;  they  could  scarcely  be  deceived,  and 
they  would  scarcely  have  hazarded  false  and  groundless  state- 
ments which  could  have  been  so  readily  refuted.  Moreover, 
it  must  not  be  lost  sight  of,  that  Luther  had  powerful  friends 
at  Worms,  who  showed  every  disposition  to  see  justice  done 
to  him,  and  to  prevent  his  being  overcome  by  oppression. 
Besides  the  powerful  Frederick  of  Saxony,  four  hundred 
nobles  swore  to  stand  by  him,  and  two  thousand  people  gath- 
ered around  him  for  his  defense,  and  escorted  him  to  his 
lodgings.*  He  was  certainly  in  little  danger  at  Worms,  and 
there  was  little  wonder  that  his  courage  was  aroused  where 
he  had  clearly  so  little  to  fear. 

But,  if  the  doctrines  of  Luther  were  certainly  not  adapted 
to  the  reformation  of  the  Church,  they  were  at  least  easy 
and  flattering  to  human  nature;  and,  under  this  point  of 
view,  they  were  powerful  means  of  rapidly  difiusing  the 
pretended  Reformation  which  was  predicated  on  them.  Lu- 
ther could  hope,  through  their  instrumentality,  to  gain  over 
to  his  party  the  wicked  of  every  class  in  society.  To  the 
corrupt  among  the  priests  and  monks,  he  held  out  the  induce- 
ments of  getting  rid  of  the  painful  duties  of  their  state,  of 
bidding  adieu  to  vigils,  to  matins  and  to  prayers,  and  of 
crowning  their  apostasy  with  fclie  blooming  garlands  of  hymen ! 
To  the  unmortified, — and  these  were  a  very  large  class — he 


*  Menzel,  sup.  cit.  ii,  230-1. 
VOL     I.—  12 


138  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

promised  exemption  from  confession,  from  fasts  and  from  long 
prayers.  To  the  proud  and  presumptuous, — and  their  uum 
ber  was  legion — he  offered  the  flattering  principle  of  private 
judgment  in  matters  of  religion ;  assuring  them,  that  every 
one,  no  matter  how  stupid  or  ignorant,  had  an  equal  right, 
with  the  learned  and  the  talented,  to  expound  the  Scriptures 
for  himself. 

How  consoling  this  assm'ance  to  the  old  lady,  who,  sitting 
in  the  chimney  corner,  had  been  hitherto  content  to  con  her 
prayers  in  private,  to  abide  by  the  decisions  of  the  Church, 
which  Christ  had  solemnly  commanded  her  to  hear,  under 
penalty  of  being  reckoned  "with  heathens  and  publicans," 
and  to  leave  the  thorny  paths  of  theological  controversy  to 
the  more  skillful  and  learned  !  She  awoke  to  a  new  life,  her' 
eyes  sparkling  again  with  the  joys  of  youth,  and  she  no 
doubt  burst  forth  into  a  canticle  of  praise  to  the  Lord,  for  her 
emancipation  from  the  degrading  servitude  of  popery !  And, 
what  bright  careers  of  glory  were  opened  to  the  ambjtion  of 
young  theological  students  in  the  universities,  who,  through 
the  new  doctrines,  could  hope  to  shine  in  the  pulpit,  and  to 
settle  themselves  advantageously  in  the  world,  with  their 
newly  acquired  wives  and  families :  and  all  this  without  any 
very  reznarkable  sacrifice,  or  any  great  previous  lab(jr  in  pre- 
paring themselves  for  the  ministry !  Verily,  as  Melancthon 
had  said  to  his  dying  mother :  "  The  way  of  the  reformers 
was  more  convenient" — and  what  mattered  it,  "if  that  of  the 
Catholics  was  more  safe  !"  This  was  a  consideration  of  minor 
importance ;  or  of  weight  only  at  the  hour  of  death  !  And 
what  thought  they  of  death  ? 

But  the  chief  resource  of  Luther,  for  establishing  and  con- 
solidating his  new  religion,  lay  in  the  fostering  protection  of 
princes.  He  understood  this,  and  he  accordingly  determined 
to  gain  them  over  to  his  party,  T)y  the  most  immoderate  flat- 
tery, and  by  pandering  to  their  worst  passions.  The  great 
and  moderate  Frederick  Von  Schlegel  assures  us  of  this,  and 
his   testmiony,  in  itself  valuable,  is  fully  confirmed  by  the 


PROTECTION   OF    PRINCES.  139 

facts  and  coiTobv>rated  by  that  of  all  trustworthy  historians, 
whether  Catholic  or  Protestant : 

"  Luther  was  by  no  means  an  advocate  for  democracy,  like  Zuinglius  and 
Calvin,*  but  he  asserted  the  absolute  power  of  princes,  though  he  made  his 
advocacy  subservient  to  his  own  religious  views  and  projects.  It  was  by 
such  conduct  and  the  influence  which  he  thereby  acquired,  as  well  as  by  the 
sanction  of  the  civil  power,  that  the  Reformation  was  promoted  and  consoli- 
dated. Without  this.  Protestantism  would  have  sunk  into  the  lawless 
anarchy  which  marked  the  proceedings  of  the  Hussites,  and  to  which  the 
war  of  the  peasants  rapidly  tended ;  and  it  would  have  been  inevitably  sup- 
pressed, like  all  other  popular  commotions."! 

The  whole  history  of  the  Reformation  proves  the  justice 
of  these  remarks.  Luther  thoroughly  understood  his  true 
policy  in  regard  to  princes,  and  he  never  failed  to  carry  it 
out.  Even  as  late  as  1530,  when  Charles  V.  was  about  to 
enter  Augsburg  to  attend  the  diet  assembled  there,  he  cher- 
ished hopes  of  gaining  over  this  gi-eat  emperor  to  his  party. 
In  his  letters  and  other  writings  about  this  time,  he  painted 
Charles  V.  "as  a  man  of  God,  an  envoy  of  heaven,  a  new 
Augustus,  the  admiration  and  delight  of  the  whole  world'"^ 
But  when  the  emperor  published  at  that  same  diet  his  famous 
conciliatory  decree,  by  which  he  merely  allowed  to  the  Prot- 
estants the  free  "  enjoyment  of  their  temples  and  creeds,"  but 
enjoined  silence  on  them  until  the  meeting  of  the  general 
council,  the  whole  scene  suddenly  changed.  Charles  was  no 
longer  "a  new  Augustus:"  but  "he  and  his  counselors  were 
not  even  men,  but  'gates  of  hell' — judges  who  could  not 
judge  his  cause,  and  to  whom  he  would  not  give  up  a  hair  of 
his  head."§ 

To  understand  better  how  Luther  was  able  so  successfully 
to  avail  himself  of  the  political  circumstances  of  the  times, 
and  to  play  off  so  skillfully  the  German  emperor  and  the 

*  We  shall  see  in  the  sequel  what  kind  of  "  advocates  for  democracy " 
they  were. 

f  Philosophy  of  History ;  vol.  ii,  p.  205,  6  :  edit.  Appleton  &  Co.,  Ne^ 
York,  1841. 

t  See  the  authorities  quoted  by  Audin,  p.  440.  J  Ibid. 


140  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

German  princes  against  the  Pope,  we  must  glance  at  the  con 
dition  of  Germany  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
and  especially  at  its  political  relations  with  Italy  and  with  the 
Roman  Pontiffs.  Without  this  view,  it  might  be  more  or  less 
diflScult  to  explain  the  rapid  diffusion  of  the  Reformation  in 
Germany  ;  with  it,  the  explanation  becomes  exceedingly  easy, 
and  our  only  wonder  is,  that  the  movement  was  not  even 
more  rapid  and  more  general. 

The  political  condition  of  Germany  at  this  time  happened 
to  be  entirely  favorable  to  Luther  and  his  partisans.  As  we 
have  already  seen  on  the  authority  of  Roscoe,  Pope  Julius  11. 
had,  to  a  great  extent,  succeeded  in  driving  the  armies  of  the 
French  and  German  invaders  from  the  Italian  soil.  Faithful 
to  the  traditions  of  the  Papacy,  he  had  thrown  the  entire 
influence  of  his  elevated  position  in  the  scale  of  Italian  inde- 
pendence. It  was  but  a  renewal,  in  another  shape,  of  the 
old  struggle  between  the  Guelphs  and  the  Ghibellines : 
the  former  of  whom  contended,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Popes,  for  the  freedom  of  Italy ;  the  latter,  under  that  of  the 
German  emperors,  for  foreign  and  especially  for  German 
domination  over  Italy. 

But,  if  Julius  succeeded  in  securing  the  gratitude  of  the 
Italians,  his  action  naturally  provoked  the  enmity  of  the 
French,  and  more  particularly  of  the  Germans ;  for  he  had 
expelled  the  armies  of  both  from  Italy.  Accordingly,  we 
find  that  Guicciardini,  an  hereditary  Ghibelline  and  a  digni- 
tary of  the  Germanic  empire,  was  among  the  most  bitter 
enemies  of  the  Pontiff,  whose  character  he  has  sought  to  ren- 
der infamous  through  his  writings.  The  king  of  France  and 
the  emperor  of  Germany,  foiled  by  the  active  vigilance  of 
Julius  in  their  ambitious  designs  on  Italy,  became  the  sworn 
enemies  of  the  Pontiff,  whose  anathemas  they  had  justly  in- 
curred on  account  of  their  attempts  to  invade  the  rights  of  the 
Holy  See.  In  1510,  Louis  XII.  of  France  proposed,  and  the 
emperor  Maximilian  of  Germany  accepted,  the  project  of 
convening  a  schismatical  council,  the  object  of  which  was  to 


POLITICAL   EXPEDIENCY,  AND    STATE   INTRIGUES.  141 

depose  the  Pope,  and  to  elect  another  who  would  be  more 
pliable  to  their  unhallowed  policy.  Such  a  council  was  actu- 
ally convened  by  the  emperor  at  Pisa  in  the  following  year ; 
but  it  seems  to  have  had  no  particular  results,  beyond  giving 
forth  an  unmistakable  indication  of  a  growing  disafi'ection 
towards  the  Holy  See,  and  particularly  towards  the  then  reign- 
ing sovereign  Pontiif. 

Maximilian,  true  to  the  traditions  of  Germany  since  the 
days  of  Barbarossa,  still  cherished  his  mad  scheme  of  con- 
quering Italy.  The  Protestant  historian  of  the  house  of 
Austria — Coxe — speaking  of  the  religious  condition  and  feel- 
ings of  Germany  towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
says: 

"The  spiritual  power  of  the  Popes  had  gradully  declined,  and  their 
authority  had  lost  most  of  its  influence.  Germany  had,  in  a  public  diet, 
declared  itself  independent  of  the  Pope,  and  even  the  minor  princes  of  Eu- 
rope disregarded  or  despised  the  thunders  of  the  Vatican.  At  the  same 
time,  the  dominions  of  the  Roman  See  were  nearly  confined  to  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Rome,  and  of  those  ample  possessions  which  had  been  granted 
or  confirmed  by  the  emperors,  the  principal  part  had  been  appropriated  by 
powerful  families."* 

After  Julius  had  retrieved  the  tottering  fortunes  of  the 
Roman  principality,  Maximilian  of  Germany  and  Louis  of 
France  united  their  councils  and  forces  for  the  conquest  of 
Italy;  and  in  1510,  as  Coxe  tells  us,  the  emperor  "revived 
the  ancient  disputes  between  the  Church  and  the  Empire,  by 
laying  before  the  diet  a  list  of  grievances  which  the  German 
nation  had  sufiered  from  the  exactions  and  pretensions  of  the 
Popes."t  These  pretended  exactions  referred  chiefly  to  the 
old  disputes  about  Church  patronage  and  the  nomination  to 
benefices,  which  had  grown  out  of  the  controversy  on  Investi- 
tures ;  in  which,  as  we  have  already  sufiiciently  shown,  the 
Popes  were  clearly  in  the  right  and  the  German  emperors  as 
clearly  in   the  wrong.     The  rapacious  princes  of  Germany 

*  History  of  the  House  of  Austria,  i,  297 ;  quoted  in  Dublin  Review,  for 
Sept.  1855.  t  Ibid. 


142  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

wished  to  rule  supreme  both  in  Church  and  State ;  and  they 
were  particularly  sensitive  on  the  subject  of  money  going  out 
of  Germany  to  the  Holy  See,  no  matter  how  ancient  had  been 
the  custcjni  which  authorized  it,  or  how  reasonable  the  motives 
m  which  it  had  originated. 

Thus,  at  the  time  of  Luther's  appearance  on  the  arena  of 
the  Reformation,  every  thing  was  already  ripe  for  the  great 
rebellion  which  he  meditated.  The  emperor,  his  supreme 
sovereign,  was  a  declared  enemy  of  the  Papacy ;  while  his 
immediate  prince,  the  elector  of  Saxony,  was,  moreover, 
strongly  inclined,  for  other  special  reasons,  to  favor  the  new 
gospel,  and  to  promote  its  interests  to  the  utmost  extent  of 
his  power.  And  we  must  bear  in  mind,  that  the  elector  was, 
after  the  emperor,  at  that  time  the  most  powerful  prince  in 
Germany.  On  the  death  of  Maximilian,  he  had  been  selected 
to  hold  the  reins  of  government,  as  vicar  of  the  empire,  until 
the  election  of  the  imperial  successor,  Charles  V. ;  and  he 
moreover  continued  in  this  position  of  power  and  influence 
for  nearly  a  year  and  a  half  afterwards — until  the  coronation 
of  Charles  in  October,  1520.*  Thus,  at  the  very  time  that 
Luther  was  beginning  his  revolt,  the  empire  was  passing 
through  a  most  critical  crisis,  and  every  thing  was  highly 
favorable  to  the  designs  of  the  reformer,  whose  powerful 
secret  or  open  friends  and  patrons  were,  at  the  same  time, 
enemies  of  the  Pope  and  were  clothed  with  supreme  power 
in  the  state. 

As  Coxe  informs  us,  Maximilian,  "far  from  opposing  the 
first  attacks  of  Luther  against  indulgences,  was  pleased  with 
his  spirit  and  acuteness,  declared  that  he  deserved  protection, 
and  treated  his  adversaries  with  contempt  and  ridicule."f  He 
warmly  recommended  the  refractory  monk  to  the  elector  of 
Saxony,  saying  that "  there  might  come  a  time  when  he  would 
be  needed."J 

*  Maximilian  had  died  miserably  in  January,  1519. 
j  History  of  the  House  of  Austria,  i,  387,  ibid. 
1  Ranke,  History  of  Popes,  etc.,  i,  65,  ibid. 


ART   OF   HIS   THESES.  ]43 

Tliere  was  little  seeming  need  for  this  recv)mmendation ; 
for  Frederick  was  already  his  patron  and  protector,  and  he 
had  already  openly  taken  sides  in  his  favor,  by  prohibiting 
Tetzel  from  preaching  the  indulgences  within  the  boundaries 
of  Saxony.  It  was  he  who  gave  Luther  the  hint  to  begin  the 
bold  crusade  of  denunciation  against  the  papal  preacher  of 
the  indulgences ;  and  the  refractory  monk  understood  full 
well  that  he  incurred  little  risk  in  preaching  against  Tetzel 
under  so  ample  a  guaranty  of  protection.* 

The  theses  which  Luther  posted  up  on  the  doors  of  the 
church  of  All  Saints  at  Wittenberg,  on  the  first  day  of 
November,  1517,  were  drawn  up  with  consummate  art;  and 
without  boldly  attacking  the  doctrine  itself,  they  appealed 
with  much  tact  to  the  passions  of  the  German  people,  and  to 
their  old-time  prejudices  against  the  Holy  See  on  the  subject 
of  money.  Among  them,  for  example,  were  these :  "  Why 
does  not  the  Pope,  who  is  richer  than  Croesus,  build  St, 
Peter's  with  Ms  own  money^  rather  than  with  that  of  poor 
Christians?"  —  "Christians  should  be  taught  that  he  who 
gives  to  the  poor,  or  assists  the  needy,  does  better  than  he 
who  purchases  indulgences,"!  Such  propositions  as  these 
comprised  precisely  the  topics  which  would  be  the  best  calcu 
lated  to  excite  popular  interest  and  arouse  popular  feeling. 
They  were  also  the  very  points  which  were  most  likely  to 
prove  acceptable  to  the  elector,  who  had  already  refused  to 
receive  Tetzel,  who  strongly  opposed  every  scheme  which 
would  in  any  manner  cause  money  to  go  out  of  his  territory, 
especially  if  it  were  directed  towards  Rome,  and  who  panted 
himself  after  the  rich  spoils  of  the  Church — which  he,  in  fact, ' 
shortly  afterwards  sacrilegiously  grasped. 

One  who  will  be  regarded  by  Protestants  as  an  unexcep- 
tionable witness,  Wolfgang  Menzel,  fully  confirms  tl  e  view 
which  we  have  here  presented.     He  says : 

*  Ranke  tells  us  that,  "  an  alliance  had  been  formed  between  the  monk  of 
Wittenberg  and  the  sovereign  of  Saxony."  History  of  the  Reformation, 
A.  D.  1517.  f  Apud  Audin,  in  loco. 


144  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

"  The  old  emperor  Maximilian  had,  exactly  at  that  penod  (A .  D.  1518,^ 
opened  a  diet  at  Augsburg,  at  which  several  of  the  princes  and  cities  com- 
plained of  the  sale  of  indulgences  and  of  other  ecclesiastical  disorders ;  and 
the  emperor,  deeming  it  politic  to  make  use  of  Luther  as  a  means  of  hum- 
bling the  Pontiff,  and  of  compelling  him  to  retract  some  of  his  inordinate  (! 
demands,  refused  to  deliver  him  up,  although  he  had  been  cited  to  appear  at 
Rome."* 

The  same  prejudiced  writer,  in  a  single  sentence,  furnishes 
U8  with  a  key  to  all  of  Luther's  movements,  as  also  to  explain 
the  favor  with  which  they  were  regarded  by  many  of  the 
princes  of  the  German  empire.  He  says,  that.  Luther  "  cher- 
ished an  almost  hihlichl  reverence  for  the  anointed  of  the 
Lord,  hy  whose  aid  he  hoped  to  succeed  in  reforming  the 
Church." t  This,  translated  into  popular  language,  simply 
means,  that  lie  was  devoted  to  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right 
of  kings,  and  consequently  opposed  to  all  those  modern  ideas 
of  popular  freedom,  of  which  he  has  been  usually  heralded 
forth  as  the  champion.  Never  was  there  a  greater  popular 
delusion  than  that  which  holds  that  Luther  was  the  advocate 
of  popular  liberty ;  as  we  hope  to  show  by  incontestable  evi- 
dence in  the  proper  place.  For  the  present,  suflfice  it  to  say, 
that  he  relied  for  success,  not  on  the  people^  but  on  the  strong 
arm  of  the  princes ;  and  that  the  latter  warmly  seconded  his 
views,  which  were  so  evidently  to  their  own  advantage. 

Menzel,  in  fact,  tells  us  as  much,  when  he  writes: 

"  To  the  numerous  nobility  of  the  empire  in  Swabia,  Franconia,  and  the 
Rhenish  provinces,  the  opening  Reformation  presented  a  flivorable  opportu- 
nity for  improving  their  circumscribed  political  position,  seizing  the  I'ich  hinds 
belonging  to  the  Church,  and  raising  themselves  to  an  equality  with,  if  not 
deposing  the  temporal  princes."]; 

Again  ;  speaking  of  the  failure  of  the  attempt  made  by 
Melancthon  to  bring  about  a  reunion  with  the  Catholic  Church 
at  the  diet  of  Augsburg,  and  of  the  reason  of  the  failure,  he 
writes : 

*  History  of  Germany,  Bohn's  edition,  ii,  226. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  233.  t  Ibid.,  p.  234. 


TESTIMONY    OF   MENZEL.  145 

"A  last  attempt,  made  by  Melancthon,  and  supported  by  Luther,*  to 
bring  about  a  general  reformation  in  the  Church  by  means  of  the  Pope,  with 
the  view  of  securing  the  Church  from  the  temporal  princes,  failed,  owing  to 
the  extreme  demoralization  of  the  clergy,f  and  Luther  was  speedily  reduced 
to  silence  by  the  princes  intent  upon  the  secularization  of  the  Ushoprics."\ — 
That  is,  upon  seizing  by  violence  the  property  which  supported  the  bishop- 
rics and  appropriating  it  to  secular,  or  what  was  the  same  thing,  to  their 
own  uses. 

We  must  furnish  one  more  extract  from  Menzel  on  this 
subject,  which  is  more  remarkable  than  any  thing  we  have 
so  far  presented  from  his  pages;  as  it  candidly  avows  the 
carnal  and  wicked  motives  which  prompted  the  princes  of 
the  earth  to  side  with  Luther  and  to  oppose  the  Church  of 
God,  not  only  in  Germany  but  elsewhere ;  and  as  it  dissi- 
pates forever  the  usually  received  and  popular  idea,  that 
Luther  was  a  champion  of  freedom.  He  is  speaking  of  the 
period  which  immediately  followed  the  suppression  of  the 
popular  insurrections  in  Germany,  usually  called  the  war  of 
the  peasants — of  which  we  shall  treat  more  fully  in  a  subse- 
quent chapter. 

"  The  defeat  of  the  nobility  and  peasantry  had  crushed  the  revolutionary 
spirit  in  the  people  ;  and  the  Reformation,  stripped  of  its  terrors,  began  to 
be  regarded  as  advantageous  by  the  princes.  Luther  also  appeared,  not  as 
a  dangerous  innovator,  but  in  the  light  of  a  zealous  upholder  of  princely 
pmoer,  the  divine  nght  of  ivhich  lie  even  made  an  article  of  faith  ;  and  thus, 
through  Luther's  well  meant  policy,  the  Reformation,  the  cause  of  the  peo- 
ple (!),  naturally  became  that  of  the  princes,  and  consequently  instead  of 
being  the  aim,  was  converted  into  a  means  of  their  policy.  In  England 
Henry  VIII.  favored  the  Reformation  for  the  sake  of  becoming  pope  in  his 
own  dominions,  and  of  giving  unrestrained  license  to  tyranny  and  caprice. 

*  He  is  here  egregiously  mistaken.  Luther  strongly  opposed  the  recon- 
ciliation, as  we  have  already  shown.  See  his  angry  correspondence  on  the 
subject  with  Meiancthon  and  others  in  Audin.  With  his  subserviency  to 
princes,  Luther  would  not  have  dared  thwart  them  in  their  darling  project 
of  robbing  the  Church. 

f  Brought  about  precisely  by  the  corrupt  usurpation  of  church  patronage 
by  the  secular  princes,  as  we  have  shown.     See  Introduction. 

t  History  of  Germany,  Bohn's  edition,  ii,  p.  251. 
VOL.   I. — 13 


146  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

In  Sweden,  Gustavus  Wasa  embraced  the  Lutheran  faith,  as  a  wider  mark 
of  distinction  between  the  Swedes  and  Danes,  whose  king  Christiern  lie  had 
driven  out  of  Sweden.  His  example  was  followed  (A.  D.  1527)  by  the 
grand-master  Albert  of  Prussia,  who  hoped  by  this  means  to  render  that 
country  an  hereditary  possession  in  his  family.  His  cousin,  the  detestable 
Casimir  Von  Culmback,  sought  to  wipe  out  the  memory  of  his  parricide  by 
his  confession  of  the  new  faith."* 

Thus,  according  to  the  open  avowal  of  even  the  bigoted 
Menzel,  the  great  German  Reformation  dwindles  down  into  a 
mere  affair  of  groveling  avarice  and  of  worldly  ambition  on 
the  part  of  the  princes;  and  Luther,  the  arch-reformer,  the 
bold  adversary  of  the  Pope,  and  the  vaunted  champion  of 
liberty,  sinks  down  into  the  position  of  a  mere  crouching  and 
subservient  tool  of  rapacious  and  unprincipled  men,  who 
sought  only  their  own  interests,  and  who  wished  to  lord  it 
over  their  subjects  with  supreme  power  both  in  church  and 
in  state !  In  casting  off  the  yoke  of  Rome,  the  German  peo- 
ple had  another  riveted  on  their  necks,  which  was  infinitely 
more  galling ;  and  they  have  had  to  bear  it  ever  since ! 

"We  have  already  seen  how  meanly  subservient  Luther  was 
on  all  occasions  to  his  immediate  sovereign,  the  elector  of 
Saxony.  This  prince  was  the  most  powerful  protector  of  the 
Reformation,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  he  reaped  a  golden  harvest 
for  his  protection.  But  he  had  another  motive  for  defending 
Luther  and  his  partisans.  Luther  and  Melancthon  were  the 
principal  professors  in  his  newly  founded  and  warmly  cher- 
ished university  of  Wittenberg;  and  their  varied  learning 
and  shining  talents  had  attracted  to  it  vast  numbers  of  youth 
from  all  parts  of  Germany.  At  the  period  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, this  university  became  the  focus  of  the  new  doctrines, 
and  the  rendezvous  of  all  who  favored  them.  The  attractive 
novelty,  the  stirring  interest,  the  startling  boldness  of  the 
newly  broached  theories  of  religion,  together  with  the  rude  but 
overpowering  eloquence  of  Luther,  and  the  winning  graces 
and  versatile  genius  of  Melancthon,  rendered  this  new  seat 

*  History  of  Germany,  Bohn's  edition,  ii,  p.  248. 


LANDGRAVE   OF   HESSE  147 

of  learning  famous  throughout  Germany.  The  powerful  elec- 
tor could  not  but  look  with  complacency  on  the  men  who -shed 
such  lustre  on  an  institution  which  he  had  erected,  and  the 
prosperity  of  which  was  identified  with  his  own  glory.  This 
was  one  of  the  reasons  which  first  inclined  him  to  favor  Lu- 
ther. It  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  too,  that  this  same  univer- 
sity of  Wittenberg  was  erected  chiefly  from  the  proceeds  of 
those  very  indulgences,  the  inveighing  against  which  was  the 
first  movement  of  the  Reformation ! 

A  remarkable  instance  of  Luther's  mean  subserviency  to 
princes,  is  the  permission  which  he  and  his  chief  partisans 
gave  to  Philip,  landgrave  of  Hesse,  to  have  two  wives  at 
once !  This  fact  is  as  astounding  as  it  is  undoubted.  Philip 
had  been  married  for  sixteen  years  to  Christiana,  daughter 
of  George,  duke  of  Saxony ;  and  he  had  already  been  blessed 
with  several  children.  According  to  Adolph  Menzel,  a  Prot- 
estant historian,  he  was  "violent  and  passionate,  unfaithful 
and  superstitious."*  But  he  was  a  good  Lutheran,  nay,  one 
of  the  most  powerful  friends  of  the  Reformation ;  and  he  read 
his  Bible  incessantly.  He  became  enamored  of  Margaret 
Saal,  a  maid  of  honor  to  his  sister  Elizabeth.  She  proved 
inexorable,  and  the  landgrave  lost  his  appetite,  and  was  seized 
with  a  fit  of  despondency.  In  this  distress,  he  had  recourse 
to  his  Bible :  he  opened  it  at  the  fifth  chapter  of  Genesis,  and, 
finding  that  Lamech  had  two  wives  at  once,  he  resolved  to 
imitate  his  example ! 

He,  however,  thought  it  advisable  to  seek  counsel  on  a 
subject  of  so  much  importance — particularly  to  himself — from 
the  principal  reformers.  Through  Martin  Bucer,  a  learned 
trformed  theologian,  and  a  devoted  courtier  and  tool  of  himself, 
he  proposed  his  case  of  conscience  to  the  new  apostles  at  Wit- 
tenberg. He  stated  his  sad  case  very  roundly  and  very  simply, 
as  became  so  godly  and  scrupulous  a  champion  of  the  new 
gospel :  "  That  he  could  not  abstain  from  fornication,  and  that 

*  Adolf  Menzel,  Neure  Geschichte  der  Deutchen,  torn.  i. 


148  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

he  must  expect  eternal  damnation  unless  he  changed  Lis  life : 
that,  when  he  espoused  Christiana,  it  was  not  through  inclina- 
tion or  love :  that  the  officers  of  his  court  and  her  maids  of 
honor  might  be  examined  regarding  her  temper,  her  charms. 
and  her  love  of  wine :  that  he  had  read  in  the  Old  Testament 
how  many  holy  personages,  Abraham,  Jacob,  David,  and 
Solomon,  had  many  wives,  and  yet  pleased  God :  and  that, 
finally,  he  had  resolved  to  renounce  his  licentious  habits, 
which  he  could  not  do,  unless  he  could  get  Margaret  for  his 
wife.  He  therefore  asked  Luther  and  Philip  (Melancthon)  to 
grant  him  what  he  requested." 

The  case  was  plainly  and  fully  stated ;  and  the  answer  was 
no  less  direct.  It  was  divided  into  twenty-four  articles,  and 
was  signed  by  the  eight  principal  reformers  of  Wittenberg; 
Luther,  Melancthon,  Bucer,  Anthony  Corvin,  Adam,  I.  Len- 
ingen,  J.  Vinfert,  and  D.  Melanther.  The  twenty-first  article 
runs  as  follows : 

"  If  your  highness  is  resolved  to  many  a  second  wife,  we  judge  that  it 
should  be  done  privately,  as  we  have  said  when  speaking  of  the  dispensation 
you  have  asked  for.  There  should  be  no  one  present,  but  the  bride  and  a 
few  witnesses  who  are  aware  of  the  circumstance,  and  who  would  be  bound 
to  secrecy,  as  if  under  the  seal  of  confession.  Thus  all  opposition  and  great 
scandal  will  be  avoided ;  for  it  is  not  unusual  for  princes  to  have  concubines, 
and  although  the  people  take  scandal  at  it,  the  more  enlightened  will  suspect 
the  truth.  We  ought  not  to  be  very  anxious  about  what  the  world  will  say, 
provided  the  conscience  be  at  rest.  Thus  we  approve  of  it.  Your  highness 
has  then,  in  this  writing,  our  approbation  in  all  the  exigencies  that  may 
occur,  as  also  the  reflections  we  have  made  on  them." 

The  marriage  took  place  on  the  3d  of  March,  1540,  in  the 
presence  of  Melancthon,  Bucer,  and  other  theologians.  The 
marriage  contract  was  drawn  up  by  a  Lutheran  doctor,  and 
duly  signed  by  a  notary  public.  Li  this  instrument  Philip 
declares,  "  that  he  does  not  take  Margaret  lightly,  or  through 
contempt  of  the  civil  law ;  but  solely  for  other  considerations, 
and  because,  without  a  second  wife,  he  could  not  live  godly, 
or  merit  heaven  !"*     Was  there  ever  a  more  startling  instance 

*  See  the  Instrumentum  Copulationis  Philippi  landgrave  et  Margaritae  de 


JOHN,    OF    SAXONY.  149 

ol  utter  depravity  and  of  unprincipled  Bycophaiicy !  Here, 
then,  is  a  Protestant  indulgence^  in  the  very  worst  sense 
attached  to  the  term  by  Protestant  writers !  And  yet  these 
men  claimed  to  be  sent  by  God  to  reform  the  Church !  !* 

By  such  unhallowed  means  as  these  did  the  reformers 
secure  the  protection  of  princes.  What  was  the  character 
of  such  of  the  latter  as  espoused  the  Reformation?  "Were 
they  men  whose  lives  reflected  honor  on  the  new  religion,  and 
gave  a  pledge  of  the  purity  of  the  motives  which  had  led  to 
its  adoption  ?  Let  us  see.  We  have  already  glanced  at  the 
character  of  some  of  these  men,  in  company  with  Wolfgang 
Menzel.  We  will  now  speak  of  others.  In  the  first  place,  there 
was  John,  elector  of  Saxony,  who,  according  to  Menzel,f  was 
one  of  the  most  gluttonous  princes  of  his  age,  fond  of  wine  and 
of  good  cheer,  and  whose  stomach,  overcharged  with  excessive 
feeding,  was  supported  by  an  iron  circle.  "  He  had  enriched 
his  sideboard — the  best  furnished  in  all  Germany — with  ves- 
sels of  all  sorts  taken  from  the  refectories  of  the  monasteries, 
or  the  sacristies  of  the  churches."J     He  accordingly  embraced 

Saal,  given  in  full  by  Bossuet,  Variations,  vol.  i.  See  also  Ad.  Menzel,  a 
Protestant,  torn,  ii,  p.  179,  192 ;  and  Audin,  p.  479. 

*  Those  who  wish  to  see  all  the  documents  connected  with  this  disgrace- 
ful proceeding,  are  referred  to  Bossuet's  Variations,  book  vi,  and  to  Bayle's 
Dictionary,  art.  Luther.  They  were  kept  hidden  for  a  long  time,  until 
Charles  Lewis,  the  elector  palatine,  published  them  to  the  world.  There  is 
no  doubt  whatever  as  to  their  genuineness.  Hallam  fully  admits  this,  in  his 
Constitutionsfl  History  of  England.  Bayle  twits  the  reformers  on  their  mean 
subserviency  to  the  landgrave ;  who,  he  shrewdly  suspects,  had  thrown  out 
"certain  menaces"  in  case  of  their  refusal  to  grant  the  asked  for  dispensation, 
and  had  made  them  certain  munificent  promises  in  case  of  their  compliance. 
The  latter  he  fully  redeemed ;  for  after  the  death  of  Frederick,  the  electoi 
of  Saxony,  in  1525,  he  became  the  great  Ajax  of  the  Reformation  party  in 
Germany.     D'Aubigne  admits  this. 

We  consider  the  documents  connected  with  this  disgraceful  affair  of  suffi- 
cient importance  in  a  history  of  the  Reformation,  to  authorize  their  being 
republished  in  full,  which  we  do  accordingly  in  note  C.  at  the  end  of  the 
present  volume. 

+  Ad.  Menzel,  Neuere  Geschichte,  torn,  i,  fol.  338.  t  Audin,  p.  424. 

10 


150  REFORMATION    IN   GERMANY. 

with  eagerness  a  religion  which  had  abolished  fasting,  and 
which  permitted  him  to  indulge  his  favorite  appetite  without 
restraint.  Then  came  thopioiis  and  scrupulous  Philip,  land- 
grave of  Ilesse,  whose  troubled  conscience  was  soothed  by  the 
panacea  to  which  we  have  just  alluded.  This  second  great 
pillar  of  the  Reformation  had  inscribed  on  the  clothes  of  the 
domestics  who  served  him  at  table,  the  initials  V.  D.  M. 
I.  J£..,  signifying  Verbum  Domini  manet  in  a^ternum — "the 
word  of  the  Lord  remaineth  forever!"  Lastly  came  Wolf- 
gang, prince  of  Anhalt,  whose  stupid  ignorance  was  prover- 
bial: and  finally  "Ernest  and  Francis  Lunenberg,  who  did 
not  trouble  their  vassals  to  pillage  the  churches,  but  with 
their  own  hands  despoiled  the  tabernacles  of  their  sacred 
s^essels."*  Such  were  the  princes  to  whose  patronage  the 
Reformation  was  indebted  for  its  first  success  and  subsequent 
permanency ! 

To  secure  their  cooperation  and  protection,  which  were 
essential  to  the  triumph  of  his  cause,  Luther  left  no  means 
untried.  He  recklessly  appealed  to  the  worst  passions  which 
sway  the  human  bosom.  He  held  out  to  them,  as  baits,  the 
rich  booty  of  the  Catholic  churches  and  monasteries.  He 
said  to  them,  in  a  publication  entitled  Argyrophilax  /f  "  You 
will  find  out,  within  a  few  months,  how  many  hundred  thou- 
sand gold  pieces  the  monks  and  that  class  of  men  possess 
within  a  small  portion  of  your  territory.''^  He  acknowl- 
edged, in  one  of  his  sermons,  "  that  the  church  ostensories 
made  many  converts  to  the  new  gospel."§  And  M.  Audin 
is  entirely  correct  in  his  caustic  remark:  "That  the  con- 
vent  spoils    resembled    the    martyrs'    blood,    mentioned    by 

*  Audin,  p.  425.  f  "  Guardian  of  the  Treasury." 

I  "'  Experieniini  intra  paucos  menses,  quot  centum  aureorum  millia  unius 

exif^viiB  ditionis  vestrte  monachi  et  id  genus  homiiuim  possideant." — Cf. 

CochhBus,  p.  149. 

{  "  Vicle  sind  noch  g'ut  evangelisch,  weil  es  noch  Catholischo  monstranzen 

gil>t."     Ijuther,  Pniod.  xii,  apud  .lak.  Marx.,  p.  174,  and  Ad.  Meiizel,  torn,  i, 

pp.  371  -9.     Apud  Audin. 


THE    SPOILS    OF   THE   CHURCH.  15] 

rertiiillian,  and  brought  forth  daily  new  disciples  to  the 
Reformation."* 

It  was  cupidity,  as  we  have  already  shown  from  W.  Menzel, 
.hat  induced  Albert  of  Brandenburg  to  apostatize  from  the 
Catholic  Church,  "  that  he  might  plunder,  with  a  safe  con- 
science, the  country  of  Prussia,  which  belonged  to  the  Teu- 
tonic order" — of  which  order  he  was  superior  general — "  and 
which  he  erected  into  a  hereditary  principality."!  Francis 
Von  Sickengen  was  another  of  these  spoilers,  who,  at  the 
head  of  twelve  thousand  men,  "invaded  the  archbishopric  of 
Treves,  tracking  his  path  by  the  blood  he  shed,  the  churches 
he  pillaged,  and  the  licentious  excesses  of  his  soldiery  ."J  He 
was  but  one  of  those  powerful  church  robbers  who,  according 
to  the  testimony  of  an  ancient  historian,  then  converted  Ger- 
many, once  so  powerful  and  noble,  into  a  den  of  sacrilegious 
thieves.§  The  candid  Melancthon  "avowed  that  in  the  tri- 
umph of  the  Reformation  the  princes  looked  not  to  the  purity 
of  doctrine,  or  the  propagation  of  light,  to  the  triumph  of  a 
creed,  or  the  improvement  of  morals,  but  only  regarded  the 
proline  and  miserable  interests  of  this  world."|| 

The  rich  spoils  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  of  the  monas- 
teries not  only  induced  many  princes  of  the  Germanic  body 
to  embrace  the  Reformation,  but  also  caused  them  to  perse- 
vere in  the  cause  they  had  thus  espoused.  In  the  famous  diet 
of  Augsburg,  in  1530,  the  conciliatory  course  of  Melancthon, 
who  there  represented  the  reformed  party,  bade  fair  to  heal 
the  rupture,  by  reconciling  the  Protestants  to  the  Catholic 
Church.  But  the  Catholic  theologians  insisted  on  two  things  : 
that  the  married  priests  should  abandon  their  wives,  and  that 
the  Protestant  princes  should  restore  the  goods  of  the  Church 

*  Audin,  p.  345.  f  Rotteck,  p.  93.  Apud  Audin.  Ibid.  J  Ibid. 

5  "  Potentissima  Germania  et  nobilissima,  sed  ea  tota  nunc  unum  latro- 
cinium  est,  et  ille  intei-  nobiles  gloriosior  qui  rapacior." — Campanus  ad 
Freher-Script.     German.,  torn,  ii,  p.  294,  295. 

II  "  Sie  beciimmerten  sich  gar  nicht  um  die  lehre,  es  sie  ihiien  blosz  uiu . 
die  freiheit,  und  die  herrschaft  zu  thun." — Apud  Audin,  p.  343. 


152  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

Upon  which  they  had  seized.  The  former  condition  woiild 
probably  have  been  complied  with ;  but,  as  Erasmus  remarks. 
"  the  Lutheran  princes  would  not  hear  any  thing  about  resti- 
tution."* The  same  insurmountable  difficulty  interposed 
when,  five  years  later,  Rome  made  her  last  effort  towards 
bringing  back  the  Protestant  party  to  the  bosom  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church.  The  benevolent  labors  of  Cardinal  Verger,  legate 
of  Paul  III.,  in  1535,  might  not  have  proved  wholly  abortive, 
but  for  the  indomitable  insolence  of  Luther,t  and  the  refusal 
of  the  princes  of  his  party  to  disgorge  their  ill-gotten  plunder. 
After  all  this,  we  can  scarcely  restrain  a  smile,  on 
hearing  the  lamentations  of  Luther  over  the  rapacity  of 
the  princes  of  his  party,  whom  he  himself  had  excited 
to  the  unholy  work  of  spoliation,  "  To  the  d — 1,"  he  cried 
out  in  a  rage,  "  with  senators,  manor  lords,  princes,  and 
mighty  nobles,  who  do  not  leave  for  the  preachers,  the  priests, 
the  servants  of  the  gospel,  wherewith  to  support  theiriv  ives  and 
children  !  "J  They  were,  it  seems,  more  rapacious  than  even 
he  could  have  desired.  "  They  gave,  with  admirable  gener- 
osity, the  sacred  vessels  of  the  secularized  monastery  to  the 
parish  priest,  provided,  however,  he  had  adopted  Lutheran- 
ism.  The  rest  went  to  their  mistresses,  their  courtiers,  their 
dogs,  and  their  horses.  Some,  who  were  as  greedy  as  the 
landgrave  of  Hesse,  kept  even  the  habits  and  sacerdotal  vest- 
ments, the  tapestries,  the  chased  silver  vases,  and  the  vessels 
of  the  sanctuary ."§  They  would  not  abide  by  Luther's  seem- 
ingly reasonable  rules  for  the  partition  of  the  confiscated 
property  :||  and  hence  the  enkindled  wrath  of  the  reformer ! 

He,  indeed,  occasionally  condemned  this  rapacity  in  a  voice 
)f  thunder:  he  sometimes  even  clothed  himself  in  the  garb 

*  "  Res  propemodum  ad  concordiam  deducta  est,  nisi  quod  Lutherani 
principes  nihil  audire  voluerunt  de  restituendo." — Erasm.  Ep.,  p.  998.  This 
Tonfirms  the  statement  given  above  on  the  authority  of  Wolfgang  Menzel. 

f  For  an  account  of  the  outrageous  conduct  of  Luther  to  the  legate,  and 
of  the  whole  negotiation,  see  Audin,  p.  474,  seqq. 

t  Table  Talk,  citec"  by  Jak.  Marx,  p.  175.         \  Audin,  p.  346.         ||  Ibid 


OPEN    VIOLENCH    AND    SPOLIATION.  153 

of  a  messenger  of  peace,  and  bewailed  the  lawless  violence 
aud  other  sad  disorders  which  he  had  himself  occasioned,  and 
even  caused,  by  his  frequent  appeals  to  the  lowest  and  most 
groveling  passions.  But  he  could  not  arrest  the  course  of  the 
turbid  torrent  of  passion,  which  he  himself  had  in  the  first 
instance  caused  to  flow.  As  well  might  he  have  labored  to 
turn  back  the  waters  of  the  Rhine !  Had  he  not,  in  one  of 
his  inflammatory  appeals  to  the  princes  of  the  empire,  used 
the  following  language  ? — "  There  is  Rome,  Romagna,  and  the 
duchy  of  Urbino:  there  is  Bologna,  and  the  states  of  the 
Church ;  take  them :  they  belong  to  you :  take,  in  God's 
name,  what  is  your  own?"*  Had  he  not  threatened  them 
with  the  wrath  of  heaven,  in  case  they  did  not  seize  on  the 
property  of  the  monasteries  ?t  Had  he  not,  on  almost  every 
page  of  his  works,  made  "  a  brutal  appeal  against  the  priests, 
a  maddening  shout  against  the  convents  ;  in  a  word,  had  he 
not  preached  up  the  sanctification  of  robbery,  the  canoniza- 
tion of  rapine  ?  "J 

Erasmus  bears  abundant  evidence  to  the  violence  which 
almost  everywhere  marked  the  progress  of  the  Reformation 
in  Germany.  We  will  give  an  extract  from  one  of  his  writ- 
ings, premising  the  remark  that  he  was  an  eye-witness  of  what 
he  relates,  and  not  at  least  a  violent  enemy  of  the  reformers : 

"  I  like  to  hear  Luther  say,  that  he  does  not  wish  to  take  their  revenues 
from  the  priests  and  monks,  who  have  not  any  other  means  of  support.  This 
is  the  case  probably  at  Strasburg.  But  is  it  so  elsewhere  ?  Truly  it  is 
laughable  to  say  :  '  we  will  give  food  to  those  who  apostatize  ;  let  others 
starve  if  they  please.  Still  more  laughable  to  hear  them  protest  that  they 
do  not  wish  to  harm  any  one.  What!  is  it  no  injury  to  drive  away  canons 
from  their  churches,  monks  from  their  monasteries,  and  to  plunder  bishops 
and  abbots? — But  'we  do  not  kill!' — Why  not?  Because  your  victims 
take  the  prudent  precaution  of  running  away. — 'We  let  our  enemies  live 
peaceably  among  us.' — Who  are  your  enemies  ?  Are  all  Catholics  ?  Do  our 
bishops  and  priests  regard  themselves  as  secure  in  the  midst  of  you  ?   If  you 

*  0pp.  edit.  Jense,  torn,  viii,  fol.  209-248.     A.  D.  1545.     Apud  Audin. 
t  "  Grottloss  seyen  dienigen  die  diese  giiter  nicht  an  sich  zogen,  und  sie 
bessei  verwendeten,  als  die  moncho.  \  Audin,  p.  349. 


154  REFORMATION   IN    GERMANY. 

are  so  mild  and  tolerant,  wherefore  these  emigi-ations,  and  these  UiUltipIied 
complaints  addressed  to  the  throne  ?  .  .  .  But  then,  why  destroy  the  churches 
which  they  built  ?  "* 

It  is  curious  to  mark  the  mode  of  operating  adopted  by  the 
pious  reformers,  while  doing  their  godly  work  of  violence  and 
spoliation.     We  will  furnish  a  few  instances,  out  of  many. 

"  At  Bremen,  during  Lent,  the  citizens  got  up  a  masquerade, 
in  which  the  Popes,  the  cardinals,  and  nuns  were  represented. 
On  the  place  of  public  execution  they  raised  a  pile,  on  which  all 
these  personifications  of  Catholicity  were  thrown,  and  burnt 
amidst  shouts  of  joy.  The  remainder  of  the  day  was  spent  ii 
celebrating,  by  large  libations,  the  downfall  of  popery.' "f 

"  At  Zwickau,  on  Shrove  Tuesday,  hare-nets  were  laid  or 
the  market-place  ;  and  monks  and  nuns,  hunted  by  the  stu 
dents,  fell  into  them,  and  were  caught.  At  a  short  distance 
was  the  statue  of  St.  Francis,  tarred  and  feathered  !"  Tobias 
Schmidt,  the  cotemporary  historian  of  this  outrage,  here  ex- 
claims :  "  Thus  fell,  at  Zwickau,  '  popery,'  and  thus  rose  there 
the  pure  light  of  the  gospel !  "J  He  assures  us,  in  the  same 
place,  that  "  a  band  of  citizens  attacked  the  convent,  whose 
gates  they  broke,  and,  when  they  had  pillaged  the  chests  and 
the  treasures,  threw  the  books  about  and  broke  the  windows : "( 
the  town  authorities,  meantime,  standing  looking  on,  with 
their  arms  crossed,  in  perfect  composure,  without  even  affect- 
ing indignation !  Similar  scenes  were  enacted  elsewhere. 
"  At  Elemberg,  the  pastor's  house  was  given  up  for  several 
hours  to  pillage ;  and  one  of  the  students,  who  was  a  con- 
spicuous actor  in  this  scene,  which  excited  the  laughter  of  the 
mob,  clothed  himself  in  priests'  vestments,  and  made  his  entry 
on  an  ass  into  the  church."|| 

*  "  In  Pseudo-Evangelicos."     Epist.  47,  lib.  xxxi.     London,  Flesher. 

t  Arnold,  1.  c.  th.  2,  bd.  16,  kap.  6,  s.  60.     Apud  Audin,  p.  347. 

I  "  Also  ist  das  Pabsthura  abgeschaift  und  hingegen  die  evangelische  reine 
lehre  fortgeplanzt  worden."     Tob.  Schmidt,  p.  386.     Ibid. 

}  Ibid.,  p.  374.     Apud  Adin,  p.  348.  ||  See  "Das  resultat  meinei 

wanderungen,"  etc.     Von  Julius  Honinghaus,  p.  339  ;  and  Audin,  ibid. 


A    LUTHERAN   VISITATION.  155 

We  must  also  briefly  state  the  tactics  of  Luther's  second 
great  patron,  John,  elector  of  Saxony,  while  gallantly  attack- 
ing a  monastery  of  poor  monks,  or  a  convent  of  defenceless 
women.  The  noble  elector,  who  had  succeeded  Frederick, 
did  not  seek  to  stain  his  victory  with  blood ;  he  sought  rather 
the  spoils  of  war !  M.  Audin  compares  him  very  appropri- 
ately to  Verres,  the  rapacious  Roman  proconsul  of  Sicily, 
whom  Cicero  lashed  with  his  withering  invective. 

"  The  proconsul  of  Sicily  was  not  more  ingenious  than  Duke  John  of 
Saxony  in  plundering  a  monastery.  Some  days  before  opening  the  cam- 
paign, he  was  accustomed  to  send  and  demand  the  register  of  the  house, 
and  then  he  set  out  with  a  brisk  detachment  of  soldiers.  They  surrounded 
the  monastery  ;  the  abbot  was  summoned,  and  the  prince,  holding  the  reg- 
istry in  his  hand,  caused  every  thing  contained  in  it  to  be  delivered."* 

Wolfgang  Menzel  writes  as  follows  of  the  "visitation" 
made  by  John  of  Saxony: 

"  The  elector  John,  Luther's  most  zealous  partisan,  immediately  on  his 
accession  to  the  government  of  Saxony,  on  the  death  of  Frederick  the 
Wise,  empowered  Luther  to  undertake  a  church  visitation  throughout  his 
dominions,  and  to  arrange  ecclesiastical  affairs  according  to  the  spirit  of  the 
doctrine  he  taught.  His  example  was  followed  by  the  rest  of  the  Lutheran 
princes ;  and  this  measure  necessarily  led  to  a  separation  from,  instead  of  a 
thorough  Reformation  of  the  Church.  The  first  step  was  the  abolition  of 
monasteries,  and  the  confiscation  of  their  wealth  by  the  state,  by  which  a 
portion  was  set  apart  for  the  extension  of  academies  and  schools.  The 
monks  and  nuns  were  absolved  fi'om  their  vows,  compelled  to  marry  and 
follow  a  profession,  etc."t 

This  illustrious  example  was  duly  followed  up  by  the  civil 
authorities  at  Rosteck,  Torgau,  and  other  places.  An  old 
chronicle  of  Torgau,  printed  in  1524,  minutely  describes  the 
revolting  particulars  of  a  nocturnal  excursion  made  to  the 
Franciscan  convent  of  the  city,  by  Leonard  Koep])e  and  some 
other  young  students,  who  made  an  open  boast  of  their  cruelty 


*  Arnold,  loc.  cit.  th>  2.      Bd.  16,  kap.  6,  568,  cited   by  Honinghaus, 
supra. 

■f  History  Germany,  sup.  cit.  ii,  248. 


156  REFORMATION   LN   GERMANY. 

and  profligacy  on  the  occasion.*  At  Magdeburg  the  magis- 
trates resolved  to  act  more  humanely.  They  put  a  stop 
to  the  work  of  plunder,  and  allowed  the  monks  to  remain 
quietly  in  their  cells  during  the  rest  of  their  lives;  "Pro- 
vided, however,  they  laid  aside  the  religious  habit,  and  em- 
braced the  Reformation  :"f  and  many  of  them,  alas !  preferred 
apostasy  to  starvation ! 

Such  as  would  not  apostatize  were,  in  most  places,  driven 
from  their  convents,  "  were  reduced  to  beg  their  bread,  and 
were  the  victims  of  heartless  calumny.  They  seemed  aban 
doned  by  all.  Art  was  as  ungrateful  as  mankind ;  it  forgot 
that  it  owed  its  progress  to  their  labors.  The  people  laughed 
when  they  saw  them  pass  half  naked,  and  had  no  word  of 
pity,  no  sigh  of  compassion,  for  so  many  unfortunate  crea- 
tures. Whither  could  they  go  ?  The  roads  were  not  safe ; 
in  those  times  there  were  knights  who  scoured  the  high-ways 
and  hunted  after  monks,  whom  they  took  pleasure" — in 
making  eunuchs — "  for  the  greater  glory  of  God  !"  J 

With  all  these  facts  before  our  eyes,  can  we  wonder  at  the 
testimony  borne  by  the  diet  of  Worms,  quoted  above,  as  to 
the  character  and  tendency  of  the  Lutheran  doctrines  ?  Even 
Protestants  have  acknowledged,  that  the  Reformation  was 
indebted  mainly  to  this  violence  for  its  successful  establish- 
ment in  Germany  and  the  countries  of  the  north.  We  have 
already  seen  the  testimony  of  Melancthon.  Jurieu,  the  fa- 
mous Calvinist  minister,  acknowledges  "  that  Geneva,  Switz- 
erland, the  republics  and  the  free  cities,  the  electors,  and  the 
German  princes,  England,  Scotland,  Sweden,  and  Denmark, 
got  rid  of  '  popery,'  and  established  the  Reformation,  by  the 
aid  of  the  civil  power."§  A  sweeping  admission,  truly,  as 
candid  as  it  is  clearly  founded  on  the  facts  of  history ! 

The  great  Frederick  Yon  Schlegel  has  well  observed,  that 

•  Arnold,  ut  siipra.  f  Marcheineke,  th.  2,  s.  41.     Audin,  ibid 

t  Ulrich  llutteii  Iwasts  of  this.     Epist.  ad  Ijutheruin,  part  ii,  p.  128.    Of. 

4udin,  p.  200.         {  Cf  Jak.  Marx.     "Die    Ursacheu   der   Schnellen  ver 


TESTIMONY    OF   SCHLEGLL.  157 

•'  Protestantism  was  the  work  of  man ;  and  that  it  appears  in 
no  other  light,  even  in  the  history  which  its  own  disciples 
have  drawn  of  its  origin.  The  partisans  of  the  Reformation 
proclaimed,  indeed,  at  the  ontset,  that,  if  it  were  more  than 
a  human  work,  it  would  endure,  and  that  its  duration  would 
serve  as  a  proof  of  its  divine  origin.  But  surely  no  one  will 
consider  this  an  adequate  proof,  when  he  reflects  that  the 
great  Mohammedan  heresy,  which,  more  than  any  other,  de- 
stroys and  obliterates  the  divine  image  stamped  on  the  human 
soul,  has  stood  its  ground  for  full  twelve  hundred  years; 
though  this  religion  [imposture],  if  it  proceed  from  no  worse 
source,  is  at  best  a  human  work."* 

He  says  also :  "  That  the  Reformation  was  established  in 
Denmark  chiefly,  though  not  exclusively,  as  in  Sweden,  by 
the  sovereign  power :  in  Iceland  its  establishment  was  almc>st 
the  work  of  violence."t  True,  he  indicates  the  opinion  that 
Protestantism  was  introduced  into  other  German  countries 
"  by  the  torrent  of  popular  opinion  :"J  but  we  have  already 
seen  what  kind  of  a  torrent  this  was ;  what  ruins  it  left  in  its 
course ;  how  its  turbid  waters  were  swollen  by  the  storm  of 
the  rude  eloquence  of  Luther  and  his  partisans,  and  how  its 
maddening  current  was  lashed  into  fury  by  the  lawless  pas- 
sions of  the  princes  who  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  fattened  on  its  spoils. 

We  must  again  quote  Wolfgang  Menzel  in  regard  to  the 
practical  operation  of  the  new  church,  as  organized  in  Ger- 
many, and  the  influence  of  the  princes  therein : 

"  The  whole  system  of  the  church  was  simplified.  The  sequestrated 
bishoprics  were  provisionally  administered,  and  the  affairs  of  the  Lutheran 
church  controlled  by  commissioners  selected  from  among  the  refo  -mers,  and 
by  the  councils  of  the  princes,  Luther  incessantly  promulgating  the  doctrine  of 
t/ie  right  of  temporal  sovereigns  to  decide  all  ecclesiastical  questions.    His  inten- 


breitung  der  Reformation,"  p.  164 ;  apud  Audin,  p.  343.  The  testimony  of 
Jurieu  is  found  quoted,  with  several  others  of  the  same  kind,  in  Alzog'a 
Church  History. 

*  "Philosophy  of  History,"  ii,  218.  f  Ibid.,  p.  225.  J  Ibid.,  224. 


158  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

tion  was,  the  creation  of  a  counterpoise  to  ecclesiastical  authority,  ami  he 
was  probably  far  from  imagining  that  religion  might  eventually  Ije  deprived 
of  her  dignicy  and  liberty  by  temporal  despotism.  Episcopal  authority  passed 
entirely  into  the  hands  of  the  princes."* 

Our  sunmuiry  of  tlie  means  employed  to  promote  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Keformation  would  be  incomplete,  without  advert- 
ing to  one  other  cause  which  contributed,  perhaps  as  much 
as  any  one  of  those  already  named,  to  produce  this  effect. 
We  allude  to  the  flagrant  abuse  of  the  press,  which,  during 
that  period,  poured  forth  a  torrent  of  ridicule,  invective, 
abuse,  misrepresentation,  and  calumny  against  the  Catholics, 
flooding  all  Germany  with  pestiferous  publications.  The  vio- 
lence of  the  pulpit  powerfully  seconded  that  of  the  press. 
Luther  himself  thundered  incessantly  from  the  pulpit  of  All 
Saints  at  Wittenberg,  as  well  as  from  those  of  the  other  prin- 
cipal cities  of  Saxony.  He  lashed,  with  his  burning  invec- 
tives, Popes,  bishops,  priests,  and  monks :  wherever  his  words 
fell  they  were  as  a  consuming  fire.  Indefatigable  in  his  exer- 
tions, he  published  book  after  book,  inflammatory  pamphlet 
after  inflammatory  pamphlet,  against  the  pretended  abomina- 
tions of  Rome.  His  books  were  eagerly  sought  after,  and 
greedily  devoured  by  the  great  and  increasing  numbers  who 
had  a  prurient  curiosity  in  such  novelties,  which  to  many 
were  attractive,  precisely  in  proportion  to  their  novelty,  and 
the  startling  boldness  with  which  they  were  proclaimed. 
That  "  On  the  Captivity  of  Babylon,"  in  which  he  painted 
the  Pope  as  Antichrist,  went  rapidly  through  ten  editions. 
Tlie  annual  book-fairs  at  Leipsic  and  Frankfort  never  before 
presented  so  animated  a  spectacle,  or  drove  so  brisk  a  busi- 
ness. 

The  works  of  the  champions  of  Catholicity — of  Eck,  Em 
Ber,  Prierias,  and  Hochstraet — found  not  so  ready  a  sale. 
They  had  not  the  overweening  charm  of  novelty;  they  dealt 
not  in  such  rude  denunciations ;  they  were  not  so  replete  with 


History  of  Germany,  ii,  p.  249. 


THE    BOOKSELLERS.  159 

ridicule  or  vulgar  conceits !  Even  the  veteran  Erasmus,  who 
had  been  not  long  before  styled  "  the  prince  of  letters,"  "  the 
star  of  Germany,"  "  the  high-priest  of  polite  literature ;"  even 
the  witty,  and  polished,  and  classical  Erasmus  could  scarcely 
find  purchasers  for  his  Ilyperaspides  and  other  works  which 
he  published,  after  he  had  at  length  consented  to  enter 
the  lists  with  Luther.  His  glory  suddenly  faded,  and  the 
book-publishers  for  the  first  time  complained  of  having  to 
keep  his  works  on  hand  unsold ! 

Many  causes  contributed  to  this  result.  In  that  period  of 
maddening  excitement,  nothing  whatever  seemed  to  suit  the 
popular  palate  which  was  not  new  and  startling.  The  calm 
and  dignified  defence  of  truth — alas !  now  grown  antiquated 
and  obsolete — could  not  cope  with  the  exciting  character  and 
versatile  graces  of  error.  It  has  been  ever  so.  Perverse  hu- 
man nature  has  at  all  times  been  inclined  to  relish  most  what 
is  most  agreeable  to  its  passions.  It  more  readily  believes 
what  is  evil  than  what  is  good,  especially  when  the  former  is 
served  up  with  the  winning  graces  of  rhetoric,  and  seasoned 
with  sarcasm,  ridicule,  and  denunciation.  Besides,  the  press 
sent  forth  the  works  of  the  reformers  neatly  and  correctly 
printed ;  whereas  those  of  the  Catholics  were  often  so  clumsily 
executed  as  to  excite  ridicule  and  disgust.  The  principal 
booksellers  had  joined  the  reform  jjarty,  and  many  of  the 
apostate  monks  had  exchanged  their  former  occupation  of 
transcribing  manuscripts,  for  that  of  type-compositors  and 
proof-readers  in  the  principal  printing  establishments.  The 
press  thus  became  almost  wholly  subservient  to  the  Protest- 
ant party ;  and  the  rebellious  monks,  treading  in  the  footsteps 
of  Luther,  became  the  most  zealous  champions  of  the  new 
opinions. 

A  Catholic  book  which  passed  through  the  hands  of  the 
Protestant  printers  was  generally  mutilated,  or  at  least  print- 
ed with  great  negligence.  Cochlseus  and  others  complain  of 
this  injustice.  He  says,  that  the  works  of  Catholics  were 
often  80  badly  printed,  that  they  did  more  service  to  the  Lu 


160  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

theran  party  than  to  their  own  cause ;  and  that  the  Frankfort 
merchants  openly  laughed  at  their  clumsy  execution.* 

Froben,  the  great  bookseller  of  Basle,  made  a  splendid  for 
tune  by  selling  the  works  of  Luther,  which  he  reproduced  in 
every  form,  and  published  at  the  cheapest  rates.  In  a  lette** 
to  the  reformer,  he  chuckles  with  delight  over  his  success : 
"  All  your  works  are  bought  up ;  I  have  not  ten  copies  on 
hand :  never  did  books  sell  so  well."f  Erasmus,  in  a  letter 
to  Henry  VIII.  of  England,  complains  that  "  he  could  find 
no  printer  who  would  dare  publish  any  thing  against  Luther. 
"Were  it  against  the  Pope,"  he  adds,  '^  there  would  be  no  dif- 
ticulty."J 

The  great  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  who,  towards  the  close  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  undertook  the  herculean  task  of  refut- 
ing the  works  of  the  reformers — a  task  which  he  executed  in 
a  most  masterly  and  triumphant  manner — assures  us,  "  that 
there  were  few  among  the  Protestant  party  who  did  not  write 
something,  and  that  their  books  not  only  spread  like  a  can- 
cer, but  that  they  were  diffused  over  the  land,  like  swarms  of 
locusts."§  Books  of  every  size,  from  the  ponderous  folio  to  the 
humbler  pamphlet,  were  scattered  through  Germany  on  the 
wings  of  the  press. 

And  what  were  the  weapons  which  these  productions  wield- 
ed with  so  great  and  deadly  effect  ?  Were  they  those  of  sober 
truth  and  of  sound  argument?  Or  were  they  those  of  low 
abuse,  scurrilous  misrepresentation,  and  open  calumny  ?  If 
there  is  any  truth  in  history,  the  latter  were  put  in  requi- 

*  "Ea  tamen  negiectira,  ita  festinanter  et  vitiose  imprimebant,  ut  niajorem 
gratiara  eo  obsequio  referrent  Lutheranis  quam  Catholicis.  Si  quis  eorura 
justiorem  Catholicis  operam  impenderent,  hi  a  cseteris  in  publicis  meioati- 
bus  Frankorordise  ac  aUbi  vexabantur  et  ridebantur,  velut  papists  ct  sacer- 
dotum  servi." — Cochl.  p.  58,  59.    Apud  Audin. 

\  0pp.  Lutheri,  torn,  i,  p.  388,  389.  Ibid. 

I  Epist.  Erasmi,  p.  752.     For  further  particulars,  see  Audin.  p.  337,  seqq. 

5  "Rari  sunt  apud  adversarios  qui  non  ahquid  scribunt,  quorum  hbri  iion 
jam  ut  cancer  serpunt,  sed  velut  agmina  locustarum  volitant." — 0pp.  torn,  i, 
de  Oontrov.  in  Praefat. 


LOW    CARICATURE    AND    RIDICULE.  ICl 

gitiun  much  oftener  than  the  former.  Catholic  doctrines 
travestied  and  misrepresented,  Catholic  practices  ridiculed 
and  caricatured,  Catholic  bishops  and  priests  vilified  and 
openly  calumniated ;  these  were  the  means  which  the  reformers 
employed  with  so  murderous  an  effect.* 

And  though  all  the  sins  of  these  first  champions  of  the  pre- 
tended reform  should  not  in  justice  be  visited  on  their  chil- 
dren in  the  faith,  yet  truth  compels  the  avowal  that,  in  these 
respects  at  least,  the  latter  have  not  proved  recreant  disciples. 
This  is  still  the  panoply  of  Protestant  warfare.  We  wish  from 
our  hearts  it  were  otherwise !  The  poet's  remark  is  true  both 
of  the  first  reformers  and  of  their  modern  disciples,  in  the 
most  of  their  writings  against  the  Catholic  Church  : 

"  A  hideous  figure  of  their  face  they  drew, 

Nor  hues,  nor  looks,  nor  colors  true  : 

And  this  grotesque  design  exposed  to  public  view."f 

We  shall  here  offer  a  few  specifications,  to  prove  that  we 
have  not  done  injustice  to  the  character  of  the  writings  pub- 
lished by  the  early  reformers.  One  means  of  attacking  the 
character  of  the  Catholics,  was  that  of  the  Dialogue,  invented 
by  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  one  of  the  most  unscrupulous  writers 

*  To  calumny  might  be  added  forgery,  which  was  not  uncommon  in  the 
palmy  days  of  the  Reformation.  In  fact,  Whitaker,  a  Protestant  parson, 
says,  in  substance,  that  this  was  almost  peculiar  to  the  reformed  party.  We 
will  allude  to  one  notorious  instance  in  Germany.  Otho  Pack,  vice-chan- 
cellor of  Duke  George  of  Saxony,  forged  a  pretended  Catholic  plot,  which  he 
professed  to  have  learned  by  prying  into  the  secrets  of  the  duke.  His  forgery 
caused  the  elector  of  Saxony  and  the  landgrave  of  Hesse  to  take  up  arms, 
which  they  however  laid  down  when  the  falsehoods  of  this  wretch  were  de- 
tected. Still  the  forgery,  though  thus  exposed,  was  greedily  seized  up,  and 
published  all  over  Germany ;  and  there  are  j^et  several  writers  who  speak 
of  the  conspiracy  it  had  fabricated  as  the  leag-ue  of  Passau !  Titus  Gates 
had  a  predecessor,  it  seems,  in  Germany,  though  he  far  surpassed  him  in 
wickedness.  We  must  refer  our  readers  to  the  pages  of  Audin  for  an  ac- 
count of  this  curious  affair ;  vol.  ii,  p.  125,  TurnbuU's  translation,  London 
edition.  f  Dryden. 

VOL.  7      —14: 


162  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

of  tilt  reform  party.  It  consisted  in  introducing,  with  dra- 
matic effect,  the  various  distinguished  men  of  both  sides,  the 
Catholic  and  the  Protestant,  and  pretending  to  let  them  speak 
out  their  own  respective  sentiments.  These  dialogues  were 
often  acted  on  the  stage,  with  great  effect  among  the  popu- 
lace. The  Catholics  were  travestied,  and  made  to  appear  in 
the  most  ridiculous  light;  while  their  adversaries  were  always 
victorious.  Two  of  these  principal  scenic  representations 
were  designed  to  ridicule  two  of  the  chief  champions  of  Catho- 
licity in  Germany,  Doctors  Hochstraet  and  Eck.  The  lowest 
humor — with  certain  specimens  of  which  we  will  not  dare 
sully  our  pages — was  employed  against  these  distinguished 
divines.*  The  result  was,  that  they  became  objects  of  con- 
tempt throughout  Germany.  Tliis  was  one  way  to  answer 
their  arguments,  which  it  might  have  been  difficult  to  answer 
in  any  other ! 

Every  one,  who  has  glanced  at  the  history  of  those  turbu- 
lent times,  is  familiar  with  the  vulgar  legends  of  the  "  Pope- 
Ass  and  Monk-Calf,"  published  by  Melancthon  and  Luther, 
and  circulated  with  prodigious  effect  among  the  ignorant 
populace.  The  "  Pope- Ass "  was  extracted  from  the  bottom 
of  the  Tiber  in  1494 ;  and  the  "  Monk-Calf,"  was  discovered 
at  Friburg,  in  Misnia,  in  1523.-)-  Lucas  Kranach,  a  painter 
of  the  time,  sculptured  this  vulgar  conceit  on  wood  ;  and  this 
illustration  accompanied  the  description  of  the  two  non-des- 
cript  monsters.  What  surprises  us  most  is,  that  the  tem- 
perate Melancthon  should  have  lent  himself  to  this  low  rib- 
aldry, which  then  passed  current  for  wit. 

Erasmus  and  other  cotemporary  writers  openly  accused  the 
reformers  of  gross  calumny.  The  former  alleged  many  palpa 
ble  facts  to  justify  his  charge. 

*  The  curious  are  referred,  for  copious  extracts  from  these  "  dialogues," 
to  Audin,  p.  196,  seqq. 

f  "  Interpretatio  duorum  horribihum  monstrorum,"  etc.,  per  Philippuu? 
Melancthonem  et  Martinum  Lutherum  —  inter  0pp.  Luth.  torn,  ii,  p. 
302. 


THE   APOSTATE   MONKS.  •  1G3 

"  Those  people  are  profuse  of  calumnies.  They  circulated  a  report  of  a 
.laiion,  who  complained  of  not  finding  Zurich  as  moral  after  the  preachmg  of 
Zuinglius  as  before.  ...  In  the  same  spirit  of  candor  they  have  accused  an- 
other priest  of  libertinism,  whom  I,  and  all  other  persons  acquainted  with 
him,  know  to  be  pure  in  v/ord  and  action.  They  have  calumniated  the 
canon  because  he  hates  sectaries  ;  and  the  priest,  because,  after  having  mani- 
fested an  inclination  to  their  doctrines,  he  suddenly  abandoned  them."* 

"We  might  fill  a  volume  with  specimens  of  the  scurrilous 
abuse  and  wicked  calumnies  of  Luther  against  the  Popes, 
bishops,  monks,  and  the  Catholic  priesthood !  We  consult 
brevity,  and  furnish  but  one  or  two  instances  from  his  Table 
Talk,  which  abounds  with  such  specimens  of  decency.  "  The 
monks  are  lineal  descendants  of  Satan.  When  you  wish  to 
paint  the  devil,  muffle  him  up  in  a  monk's  habit."f  Else- 
where he  says,  "  that  the  devil  strangled  Emser,"J  and  other 
Catholic  clergymen. 

Luther's  marriage  was  not  merely  a  sacrilegious  violation  of 
his  solemn  vows ;  it  was  also  a  master-stroke  of  policy. 
Through  its  influence,  he  secured  the  adherence  and  the  per- 
severing aid  of  a  whole  army  of  apostate  monks,  who  eagerly 
followed  his  example.  Until  he  took  this  decisive  step,  mar- 
riage among  the  clergy  and  monks  was  viewed  with  ridicule, 
if  not  with  abhorrence  by  the  people.  After  his  marriage,  it 
became,  on  the  contrary,  a  matter  of  boast.  Priests,  monks, 
and  nuns  hastened  to  "  the  ale-pope  of  the  Black  Eagle,"  to 
obtain  this  strange  absolution  from  their  vows  plighted  to 
heaven :  and  he  received  them  with  open  arms,  and  granted 
them  an  Indulgence^  which  never  Pope  had  granted  before ! 
Sacrilegious  impurity  stalked  abroad  with  shameless  front 
throughout  Germany. 

The  married  priests  became  the  most  untiring  friends  of  the 
reform,  to  which  they  were  indebted  for  their  emancipation 

*  "  In  Pseudo-Evangelicos,"  Epist.  lib.  xxxi,  47.     London,  Flesher. 

f  "  Table  TalV  "  p.  109,  where  he  adds  :  "  What  a  roar  of  laughter  there 
must  be  in  hell  when  a  monk  goes  down  to  it ! "   Was  he  thinking  of  him 
sd''?  -See  Audin,  p.  305,  and  also  p.  393.  seqq.  [Ibid. 


164  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

from  popery,  and  for  tlifir  vjives.  "We  liave  seen  them  already 
in  the  book  shops  and  the  printing  presses.  Manv  of  their 
obtained  their  livelihood,  by  circulating  Lutheran  pamphlets 
through  the  country.*  Others  "  took  their  stand  near  the 
church-gates,  and  often,  during  the  divine  offices,  exhibited 
caricatures  of  the  Pope  and  the  bishops."!  They  carried  on 
a  relentless  war  against  the  Pope ;  and  it  is  remarked,  that  few, 
if  any  of  these  married  priests  and  monks,  ever  repented,  or. 
were  softened  in  their  opposition  against  the  Catholic  Church ! 
Luther  thus,  by  his  marriage,  raised  up  a  whole  army  of  zeal- 
ous and  efficient  partisans,  whose  co-operation  powerfully 
aided  the  progress  of  reform.^ 

Such  then  were  some  of  the  principal  means  adopted  by 
the  reformers  and  their  partisans,  for  carrying  out  the  work 
of  the  Reformation !  Were  they  such  as  God  could  have  pos- 
sibly sanctioned  ?  Could  a  cause  indebted  to  such  means  for 
its  success  be  from  heaven  ?  On  the  other  hand,  considering 
the  corrupt  state  of  society  in  Germany,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  can  we  wonder  at  the  great  success 
which  attended  a  movement  promoted  by  such  unhallowed 
means  as  these  ?  We  would  be  surpised,  indeed,  on  the  con- 
trary, if  similar  success  had  not  attended  it,  under  all  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case. 

The  previous  usurpations  of  Church  patronage  by  the  secular 
princes,  contrary  to  the  repeated  and  energetic  protests  of  the 
Popes,  had  done  its  deadly  work,  by  thrusting  unworthy  min- 
isters into  the  sanctuary ;  and  then,  with  rare  inconsistency,  the 
evils  and  abuses  which  necessarily  ensued,  were  laid  at  the 
doors  of  the  Popes  who  had  done  every  thing  in  their  power 
to  prevent  them !  We  can  not  too  often  repeat  it ;  the  ques- 
tion of  investitures  was  the  great  vital  question  of  the  period 
of  Church  history  preceding  the  Reformation. 

*  "  Infinitus  jam  erat  numenis  qui  victum  ex  Lutheranis  libris  quaeritan- 
tes,  in  speciem  bibliopolarum  longe  lateque  per  Grermaniae  provincias  vaosv- 
bantur." — Cochla3us,  p.  58.    .Apud  Audin. 

+  Ibid.  t  Of  Audin,  p.  337,  seqq. 


SUMMING    UP.  165 

The  distinctive  doctrines  of  the  Reformation,  throwing  off 
the  wholesome  restraints  of  the  old  religion,  flattering  pride 
and  pandering  to  passion;  the  protection  of  powerful  princes, 
secured  by  feeding  their  cupidity  and  catering  to  their  basest 
passions ;  the  furious  excitement  of  the  people,  fed  by  mad- 
dening appeals  from  the  pulpit  and  the  press,  and  made  to 
revel  in  works  of  spoliation  and  violence;  this  excitement, 
lashed  into  still  greater  fury  by  the  constant  employment  of 
ridicule,  low  raillery,  misrepresentation,  and  base  calumny  of 
every  person  and  of  every  thing  Catholic ;  and  the  marriage 
of  so  many  apostate  priests  and  monks,  binding  them  irre- 
vocably to  the  new  doctrines: — can  we  wonder  that  all  these 
causes  combined,  and  acting  too  upon  an  age  and  country 
avowedly  depraved,  should  have  produced  the  effect  of  rapidly 
diffusing  the  so  called  Reformation  ? 

We  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to  imply,  that  all  who  embraced 
the  Reformation  were  corrupt,  or  were  led  by  evil  motives : 
we  have  no  doubt  that  many  were  deceived  by  the  specious 
appearance  of  piety.  This  was  especially  the  case  with  the 
common  people,  who  often  followed  the  example  and  obeyed 
the  teaching  of  their  princes  and  pastors,  without  taking 
much  trouble  to  ascertain  the  right.  But  we  have  intended 
to  speak  more  particularly  of  the  leading  actors  in  the  great 
drama;  and  to  paint  the  chief  parts  these  men  played  on 
the  stage. 

Much  less  would  we  be  understood,  as  indiscriminately  and 
wantonly  censuring  Protestants  of  the  present  day.  A  broad 
line  of  distinction  should  be  di*awn  between  the  first  teachers 
and  even  the  first  disciples  of  error,  and  those  who  have 
inherited  it  from  them  through  a  long  line  of  ancestry.  The 
latter  might  be  often  free  from  great  censure,  where  the  for- 
mer would  be  wholly  inexcusable.  The  strong  and  close 
meshes  which  the  prejudices  of  early  education  have  woven 
around  them;  the  dense  and  clouded  medium,  through  which 
they  have  been  accustomed  to  view  the  sun  of  Catholic  truth ; 
the  strong  influence  of  parental  authority  and  of  family  ties ; 
11 


166  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

and  many  such  causes,  combine  to  keep  them  in  error.  Be 
sides,  history,  which  should  be  a  witness  of  truth,  has  been 
polluted  in  its  very  sources:  and  the  injustice  which  its  voice 
has  done  to  the  cause  of  truth,  has  been  accumulating  for 
centuries.  But  can  Protestants  of  the  present  day,  notwith- 
standing all  these  disadvantages,  hold  themselves  inexcusable, 
if  they  neglect  to  examine  both  sides  of  the  question,  and  this 
with  all  the  diligence  and  attention  that  so  grave  a  subject 
demands  ? 

To  enable  them  to  do  this  the  more  easily,  was  one  princi- 
pal motive  that  induced  us  to  undertake  the  review  of  the 
partial  and  unfounded  statements  of  D'Aubigne,  and  of  others 
belonging  to  the  class  of  writers  of  which  he  is  a  popular 
representative.  If  it  be  thought,  that  our  picture  of  the  causes 
and  manner  of  the  Reformation,  and  of  the  means  to  which 
it  chiefly  owed  its  success,  is  too  dark,  we  beg  leave  to  refer 
to  the  facts  and  authorities  we  have  alleged.  If  there  be  any 
truth  in  history,  our  painting  has  not  been  too  highly  colored. 
Had  we  adduced  all  the  evidence  bearing  on  the  subject,  the 
coloring  might  have  been  still  deeper.  We  had  to  examine 
and  refute  the  flippant  assertions,  that  the  reformers  were 
chosen  instruments  of  heaven  for  a  divine  work  ;  and  that  the 
"  reformation  was  but  the  reappearance  of  Christianity." 

A  "  reappearance  of  Christianity,"  indeed !  It  is,  from  the 
facts  accumulated  above,  such  a  "reappearance,"  as  darkness 
is  of  light !  Strip  the  Reformation  of  all  that  it  borrowed 
from  Catholicism,  let  it  appear  in  its  own  distinctive  charac- 
ter, in  all  its  naked  deformity  ;•  and  it  has  scarcely  one  feature 
remaining  in  common  with  early  Christianity.  Did  the  Apos- 
tles preach  doctrines  which  pandered  to  the  passions  of  man- 
kind? Dicl  they  flatter  princes,  by  oflering  to  them  the 
plunder  of  their  neighbors,  and  by  allowing  them  to  have 
two  wives  at  once,  to  quiet  their  troubled  conscience  ?  Did 
they  employ  the  weapons  of  ridicule,  sarcasm,  and  calumny 
against  their  adversaries?  Did  they  excite  their  followers  to 
deeds   of  lawless  violence^  against  the   established   order  of 


ITS    ESTABLISHiMENT   m    SWITZERLAND.  167 

things  ?  Did  they  break  their  solemn  engagements  to  heaven  ? 
The  reformers  did  all  this,  and  more,  as  we  have  shown ;  and 
yet  they  are  still  to  be  held  up  to  our  admiration,  as  the  new 
and  divinely  chosen  apostles  of  a  Christianity  restored  to  its 
original  purity ! 


CHAPTER   V. 


THE     REFORMATION    IN    S  WI  T  ZE  RL  AND— ZURICH. 

"The  spirit  that  I  have  seen 

May  be  a  devil ;  and  the  devil  hath  power 

To  assume  a  pleasing  shape." — Shaksi^eare. 

The  Reformation  in  Switzerland  more  radical  than  that  in  Germany — Yet 
like  it — Sows  dissensions — Zuingle  warlike  and  superstitious — Claims 
precedency  over  Luther — Black  or  white  ? — Precursory  disturbances — 
Aldermen  deciding  on  faith — How  the  fortress  was  entrenched — Riot  and 
conflagration — Enlightenment — Protestant  martyrs — Suppression  of  the 
Mass — Solemnity  of  the  reformed  worship — Downright  paganism — The 
Reformation  and  matrimony — Zuingle's  marriage  and  misgivings — Ro- 
mance among  nuns — How  to  get  a  husband — Perversion  of  Scripture — 
St.  Paul  on  celibacy — Recapitulation. 

Before  we  proceed  to  examine  the  manifold  influences  of 
the  Reformation,  it  may  be  well  briefly  to  glance  at  the  his- 
tory of  its  establishment  in  Switzerland.  D'Aubigne  devotes 
two  whole  books*  to  this  portion  of  his  history,  which,  as  it 
concerns  his  own  fatherland,  is  evidently  a  favorite  topic  with 
him.  Our  limits  will  not  permit  us  to  follow  him  through  all 
his  tedious  and  romantic  details :  we  must  content  ourselves 
with  reviewing  some  of  his  leading  statements. 

After  what  we  have  already  said  concerning  the  causes  and 
manner  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany,  it  will  scarcely  be 

*  Book  viii,  vol.  ii,  p.  267  to  400  :  and  book  xi,  vol.  iii,  p.  255>to  341. 


1C8  REFORMATION   IN   SWITZERLAND. 

necessary  to  dwell  at  any  great  length  on  that  of  Switzerland. 
The  one  was  but  a  reappearance  of  the  other — to  use  one  of 
our  author's  favorite  words.  The  same  great  features  marked 
both  revolutions,  with  this  only  diflerence:  that  the  Swiss 
was  more  radical  and  more  thorough,  and  therefore  more  to 
D'Aubigne's  taste.  Like  the  German,  however,  its  progress 
was  everywhere  signalized  by  dissensions,  civil  commotions, 
rapine,  violence  and  bloodshed.  And  like  the  German,  it 
was  also  indebted  for  its  permanent  establishment  to  the  in- 
terposition of  the  civil  authorities.  Without  this,  neither  re- 
volution would  have  had  either  consistency  or  permanency. 
D'Aubigne  himself  bears  unwilling  testimony  to  all  these 
facts,  though,  as  usual,  he  suppresses  many  things  of  vital 
importance.  We  will  supply  some  of  his  omissions,  and  avail 
ourselves  of  his  concessions,  as  we  proceed. 

The  Reformation  found  the  thirteen  Swiss  cantons  united, 
and  in  peace  among  themselves  and  with  all  the  world.  It 
sowed  disunion  among  them,  and  plunged  them  into  a  fierce 
and  protracted  civil  war,  which  threatened  rudely  to  pluck  up 
by  the  roots  the  venerable  tree  of  liberty  which,  centuries  be- 
fore, their  Catholic  foi'efathers  had  planted  and  watered  with 
their  blood !  The  shrines  sacred  to  the  memory  of  William 
Tell,  Melchtal,  and  Fiirst,  the  fathers  of  Swiss  independence, 
were  attempted  to  be  rudely  desecrated :  and  the  altars  at 
which  their  foi'efathers  had  worshiped  in  quietness  for  ages 
were  recklessly  overturned.  The  consequences  of  this  at- 
tempt to  subvert  the  national  faith  by  violence  were  most 
disastrous.  The  harmony  of  the  old  Swiss  republic  was  de- 
stroyed, and  the  angel  of  peace  departed  forever  from  the  hill? 
and  the  valleys  of  that  romantic  country.  That  this  picture  is 
not  too  highly  colored,  the  following  brief  summary  of  facts 
will  prove. 

The  fourcantons  of  Zurich,  Berne,  Schatfhausen,  and  Basle, 
which  fii-st  embraced  the  Reformation,  began  very  soon  there- 
after to  give  evidence  of  their  turbulent  spirit.  They  formed 
a  league  against  the  cantons  which  still  resolved  to  adhere  to 


A    FIGHTING    APOSTLE.  109 

the  Catholic  faith.  One  article  of  their  alliance  forbade  any 
of  the  confederates  to  transport  provisions  to  the  Catholic 
cantons.  Arms  were  in  consequence  taken  up  on  both  sides, 
and  a  bloody  contest  ensued.  Ulrich  Zuingle,  the  father  ol 
the  Reformation  in  Switzerland,  marched  with  the  troops  ot 
the  Protestant  party,  and  fell,  bravely  fighting  with  them 
"  the  battles  of  the  Lord,"  on  the  11th  of  Oct.,  1531 !  Did 
he,  in  this  particular  respect,  give  any  evidence  of  that  apos- 
toHc  spirit,  which  D'Aubigne  ascribes  to  him  ?  Did  ever  an 
apostle  of  the  primitive  and  genuine  stamp  die  on  the  field  of 
battle,  while  seeking  the  lives  of  his  fellow  mortals?  He 
was,  moreover,  as  superstitious,  as  he  was  fierce.  The  histo- 
rians of  his  life  tell  us,  that  a  little  before  the  battle  he  was 
stricken  with  sad  foreboding  by  the  appearance  of  a  comet, 
which  he  viewed  as  portending  direful  disasters  to  Zurich, 
and  as  announcing  his  own  coming  death. 

Our  historian  of  the  Reformation,  though  chary  of  the  char- 
acter of  Zuingle  as  an  apostle,  furnishes  us  with  a  little  inci- 
dent which  marks  the  warlike  spirit  of  the  Swiss  reformer. 
"  In  Zurich  itself,"  he  says,  "  a  few  worthless  persons,  instiga- 
ted to  mischief  by  foreign  agency,  made  an  attack  on  Zuingle 
in  the  middle  of  the  night,  throwing  stones  at  his  house, 
breaking  the  windows,  and  calling  aloud  for  the  '  red-haired 
Uli,  the  vulture  of  Glaris ' — so  that  Zuingle  started  from  his 
sleep,  and  caught  up  his  sword.  The  action  is  characteristic 
of  the  man."* 

Zuingle  was  at  Zurich,  what  Luther  was  at  Wittenberg. 
Each  claimed  the  precedency  in  the  career  of  the  Reforma- 
tion.    Mr.  Hallam  thus  notices  their  respective  claims : 

"It  has  been  disputed  between  the  advocates  of  these  leaders  to  which  the 
priority  in  the  race  of  reform  belongs.  Zuingle  himself  declares,  that  in 
1516,  before  he  had  heard  of  Luther,  he  began  to  preach  the  gospel  at  Zu- 
rich, and  to  warn  the  people  against  relying  upon  human  authority.  Bui 
that  is  rather  ambiguous,  and  hardly  enough  to  substantiate  his  claim.  .  .  . 
Like  Luther,  he  had  the  support  of  the  temporal  magistrates,  the  council  ol 

*  Vol.  iii,  p.  275. 
VOL.   I. — 15 


170  REFORMATION    IN   SWITZERLAND. 

Zurich.  Upon  the  whole,  they  proceeded  so  nearly  with  equal  steps,  and 
were  so  connected  with  each  other,  that  it  seems  difficult  to  award  either 
any  honor  of  precedence."* 

We  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  refer  at  some  length  to 
the  bitter  controversy  which  raged  between  these  two  boasted 
apostles,  the  germ  of  which  may  perhaps  be  discovered  in 
this  early  partisan  struggle  for  precedence.  They  taught  con- 
tradictory doctrines:  one  warmly  defended,  the  other  as 
warmly  denied  the  real  presence  of  Christ  in  the  holy  Euchar 
ist.  Were  they  both  guided  by  the  spirit  of  God  ?  Can  the 
Holy  Spirit  inspire  contradictory  systems  of  belief?  If  God 
was  with  Luther,  He  certainly  was  not  with  Zuingle;  if  he 
was  with  Zuingle,  He  certainly  could  not  be  with  Luther. 
God  is  the  God  of  order,  and  not  of  confusion ;  and  truth  is 
one  and  indivisible,  not  manifold  and  contradictory. 

By  the  way,  what  a  pity  it  is  that  D'Aubigne,  while  laud- 
ing the  Swiss  reformer  to  the  skies  could  not  settle  the  import- 
ant j9r6v?'(>^^.5  question  which  had  so  sadly  puzzled  Zuingle: — 
whether  the  spirit  which  appeared  to  him  in  his  sleep,  and 
suggested  the  text  of  Scripture  by  which  he  might  disprove 
the  real  presence,  was  really  black  or  white?  How  very 
gently  he  touches  on  this  passage  in  the  history  of  his  favorite ! 
He  merely  gives  vent  to  his  surprise,  by  a  note  of  admiration, 
that  this  circumstance  should  have  "  given  rise  to  the  asser- 
tion that  the  doctrine  promulgated  by  the  reformer  was  de- 
livered to  him  by  the  devil  If  Did  not  the  reformer's  own 
account  of  the  visionj — of  the  nature  of  which  he  was  cer- 
tainly the  most  competent  witness — give  rise  to  the  suspi- 
cion, which  afterwards  grew  into  an  assertion  ?  And  did  not 
his  brother  reformers  openly  make  the  embarrassing  charge  ? 

*  History  of  Literature,  sup.  cit.  vol.  i,  p.  163-4.  He  cites  Gerdes,  Histor. 
Evang.  Reform,  i,  103.  f  D'Aubigne,  in.  272-3. 

I  Ater  fuerit  an  albus,  nihil  memini,  soranium  enim  narro :  "  Whether  it 
was  black  oi  white,  I  remember  nothing,  as  I  relate  a  dream." — Wh}^  relate 
the  dream  at  all,  unless  he  attached  some  importance  to  it,  as  conveying 
Bome  indication  or  augury  of  his  mission  ?     Ibid. 


RIOTS   AND   COMMOTIONS.  171 

Zurich  was  the  first  city  of  Switzerland  which  was  favored 
with  the  new  gospel.  Our  author  treats  in  great  detail*  of 
the  circumstances  which  attended  its  first  introduction;  as 
well  as  of  the  preliminary  discussions,  commotions,  and  riots, 
which  were  its  early  harbingers.  We  will  present  a  few  speci- 
mens of  this  truculent  spirit. 

Leo  Juda,  one  of  the  precursors  of  the  new  gospel,  arrived 
in  Zurich  "about  the  end  of  1522,  to  take  the  duty  of  pastor 
of  St.  Peter's  church."  Soon  after  his  arrival,  being  at  church, 
he  rudely  interrupted  an  Augustinian  monk  who  was  preach- 
ing. " '  Reverend  father  Prior,'  exclaimed  Leo,  '  listen  to  me 
for  an  instant ;  and  you,  my  dear  fellow-citizens,  keep  your 
seats — 1  will  speak  as  becomes  a  Christian :'  and  he  proceeded 
to  show  the  unscriptural  character  of  the  teaching  he  had  just 
been  listening  to.  A  great  disturbance  ensued  in  the  church. 
Instantly  several  persons  angrily  attacked  the  '  little  priest' 
from  Einsidlen  (Zuingle).  Zuingle,  repairing  to  the  council, 
presented  himself  before  them,  and  requested  permission  to 
give  an  account  of  his  doctrine,  in  presence  of  the  bishop's 
deputies ; — and  the  council,  desiring  to  terminate  the  dissen- 
sions, convoked  a  conference  for  the  29th  of  January.  The 
news  spread  rapidly  throughout  Switzerland."! 

After  having  given  a  very  lengthy  account  of  the  confer- 
ence, which,  as  might  have  been  anticipated,  terminated  in 
nothing,  our  author  thus  manifests  his  joy  at  the  brighten- 
ing prospects  of  the  gospel.  "  Every  thing  was  moving  for- 
ward at  Zurich ;  men's  minds  were  becoming  more  enlight- 
ened— their  hearts  more  steadfast.  The  Reformation  was 
gaining  strength.  Zurich  was  a  fortress,  in  which  the  new 
doctrine  had  entrenched  itself,  and  from  within  whose  inclosure 
it  was  ready  to  pour  itself  abroad  over  the  whole  confeder- 
ation ."J 

Our  historian  proceeds  to  tell  us  how  the  "  Reformation 
gained   strength,"  and   how  "the  new  doctrine   entrenched 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  238,  seqq.       f  Ibid.,  p.  239.       I  Ibid.,  p.  254. 


172  REFORMATION    IN    SWITZERLAND. 

itself  in  the  fortress;"  to  say  nothing  of  the  "enlightenment," 
of  which  we  will  treat  hereafter.  The  "enlightened"  council 
of  Zurich  decided  in  favor  of  the  reformed  doctrines,  and 
resorted  to  force  in  order  to  suppress  the  ancient  worship. 
Only  think  of  a  town  council,  composed  of  fat  aldermen  and 
stupid  burgomasters,  pronouncing  definitively  on  articles  of 
faith !  In  reading  of  their  high-handed  proceedings,  we  are 
forcibly  reminded  of  the  wonderful  achievements,  in  a  some- 
what different  field,  of  the  far-famed  Dutch  governors  and 
burgomasters  of  New  Amsterdam,  as  fully  set  forth  by  Irving 
in  his  inimitable  History  of  New  York.  The  one  is  about  as 
grotesque  as  the  other.  They  of  Zurich  did  not,  however, 
belong  to  the  class  of  Walter,  the  Doubter :  they  were  perhaps 
too  well  satisfied  with  their  superior  wisdom  and  knowledge 
to  entertain  a  doubt! 

Let  us  trace  some  of  the  further  proceedings  of  this  enlight- 
ened board  of  councilmen  at  Zurich. 

"  Nor  did  the  council  stop  here.  The  relics,  which  had  given  occasion  to 
so  many  superstitions,  were  honorably  interred.  And  then,  on  the  further 
requisition  of  the  three  (reformed)  pastors,  an  edict  was  issued,  decreeing  that, 
inasmuch  as  God  alone  ought  to  be  honored,  the  images  should  be  removed 
from  all  the  churches  of  the  Canton,  and  their  ornaments  applied  to  the 
relief  of  the  poor.  Accordingly  twelve  counselors — one  for  each  tribe — the 
three  pastors,  and  the  city  architect,  with  some  smiths,  carpenters,  and 
masons  entered  the  several  churches  ;  and,  having  first  closed  the  doors,  took 
down  the  crosses,  obliterated  the  paintings  (the  Vandals .'),  whitewashed  the 
walls,  and  carried  away  the  images,  to  the  great  joy  of  the  faithfiil  (!)  who 
regarded  this  proceeding,  Bullinger  tells  us,  as  a  glorious  act  of  homage  to 
the  true  God." 

In  some  of  the  country  parishes,  the  ornaments  of  the 
churches  were  committed  to  the  flames,  "  to  the  greater  honor 
and  glory  of  God."  Soon  after  this  the  organs  were  sup- 
pressed, on  account  of  their  connection  with  many  "  supersti- 
tious observances,  and  a  new  form  of  baptism  was  established 
from  which  every  thing  unscriptural  was  carefully  excluded."*— 


*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  257-8. 


RELIGIOUS    FORAGING.  173 

Wliat  enlightenment,  and  marvelous  taste  for  music  and  the 
fine  arts ! 

"  The  triumph  of  the  Reformation,"  our  author  continues, 
"threw  a  joyful  radiance  over  the  last  hours  of  the  burgo- 
master Roush  and  his  colleague.  They  had  lived  long  enough  ; 
and  they  both  died  within  a  few  days  after  the  restoration  of 
a  purer  (!)  mode  of  worship,"* — And  such  a  triumph ! !  Be- 
fore we  proceed  to  show  by  what  means  this  purer  mode  of 
worship  was  established  at  Zurich,  we  will  give,  from  our 
historian,  an  instance  of  one  out  of  many  of  the  scenes  of 
riot  and  conflagration  enacted  by  the  faithful  children  of  the 
Reformation.  The  passage  details  the  proceedings  of  a  party, 
which  went  out  on  a  foraging  excursion  with  the  pious  bailiflf 
Wirth. 

"  The  rabble,  meanwhile,  finding  themselves  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
convent  of  Ittingon,  occupied  by  a  community  of  Carthusians,  who  were 
generally  believed  (by  the  foithful)  to  have  encouraged  the  bailiflf  Amberg 
in  his  tyranny,  entered  the  building  and  took  possession  of  the  refectory. 
They  immediately  gave  themselves  up  to  excess,  and  a  scene  of  riot  ensued. 
In  vain  did  Wirth  entreat  them  to  quit  the  place ;  he  was  in  danger  of  per- 
sonal ill-treatment  among  them.  His  son  Adrian  had  remained  outside  of 
the  monastery :  -John  entered  it,  but  shocked  by  what  he  beheld  within, 
came  out  iramediatel3^  The  inebriated  peasants  proceeded  to  pillage  the 
cellars  and  granaries,  to  break  the  furniture  to  pieces,  and  to  hum  the  books." f 

This  is  D'Aubigne's  statement  of  the  affair:  but  the  depu- 
ties of  the  Cantons  found  the  Wirths  guilty,  and  pronounced 
sentence  of  death  on  them.  Our  author  views  them  as  mar- 
tyrs, and  tells  us, J  in  great  detail,  how  cruelly  they  were 
"mocked,"  how  they  were  "faithful  unto  death,"  and  how 
intrepidly  the  "father  and  son"  ascended  the  scaffold  !  His 
whole  account  is  truly  affecting.  The  Reformation  is  wel- 
come to  such  martyrs  as  these! 

He  exclaims :  "  Now  at  length  blood  had  been  8j»ilt — inno- 
cent blood.  Switzerland  and  the  Reformation  were  baptized 
with  the  blood  of  the  martyrs.     The  great  enemy  of  the  gospel 


r'Aubigne,  vol.iii,p.257-8.       f  Ibid.,  p.  264-5.        J  Ibid.,  p.  266,  seqq. 


174  REFORMATION    IN   GERMANY. 

had  effected  his  purpose ;  but  in  effecting  it,  he  had  struct 
a  mortal  blow  at  his  own  power.  The  death  of  the  Wirtha 
was  an  appointed  means  of  hastening  the  triumph  of  the 
Reformation."* — "The  reformers  of  Zurich,"  he  adds,  "had 
abstained  from  abolishing  the  Mass  when  they  suppressed  the 
use  of  images ;  but  the  moment  for  doing  so  seems  now  to 
have  arrived"! 

He  then  relates  the  manner  in  which  the  Mass  was  sup- 
pressed, and  the  "purer  worship"  introduced  in  its  place. 

"  On  the  11th  of  August,  1525,  the  three  pastors  of  Zurich,  accompanied 
by  Megander,  and  Oswald,  and  Myconius,  presented  themselves  before  the 
great  council,  and  demanded  the  re-establishment  of  the  Lord's  Supper. 
Their  discourse  was  a  weighty  one,  and  was  listened  to  with  the  deepest 
attention — every  one  felt  how  important  was  the  decision  which  the  council 
was  called  upon  to  pronounce.  The  Mass — that  mysterious  rite  which  for 
three  (fifteen)  successive  centuries  had  constituted  the  animating  principle 
in  the  worship  of  the  Latin  Church  (and  in  all  churches) — was  now  to  be 
abrogated  ;  the  corporeal  presence  of  Christ  was  to  be  declared  an  illusion, 
and  of  that  illusion  the  minds  of  the  people  were  to  be  dispossessed ;  sonic 
courage  was  needed  for  such  a  resolution  as  this,  and  there  were  individuals 
in  the  council  who  shuddered  at  so  audacious  a  design."| 

The  grave  board  of  councilmen  did  not,  however,  hesitate 
long:  they  seem  to  have  made  quick  work  in  this  most  im- 
portant matter. 

"  The  great  council  was  convinced  by  his  (Zuingle's)  reasoning,  and  hesi- 
tated no  longer.  (How  could  they  resist  his  reasoning,  based  as  it  was  on 
the  teaching  of  the  spirit,  black  or  wUte  ?)  The  evangelical  doctrine  had 
sunk  deep  into  every  heart,  and  moreover,  since  the  separation  from  Rome 
had  taken  place,  there  was  a  kind  of  satisfaction  felt  in  making  that  separa- 
tion as  complete  as  possible,  and  digging  a  gulf,  (the  Heformation  was  a 
gulf)  as  it  were,  between  the  Reformation  and  her.  The  council  decreed 
that  the  Mass  should  be  abolished,  and  it  was  determined  that  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  which  was  Maunday  Thursday,  the  Lord's  Supper  should  be 
celebrated  in  conformity  with  the  apostolic  model."^ 

"  The  altars  disappeared,"  he  continues ;  "  some  plain  tableo. 
covered  with  the  sacramental  bread  and  wine,  occupied  their 

*  D'Aubigne,  iii,  p.  270.  f  loid.,  p.  271. 

t  Ibid.  \  Ibid.,  p.  272. 


SOLEMNITY    OF   THE   NEW    WORSHIP.  175 

places,  and  a  crowd  of  eager  communicants  was  gathered 
around  them.  There  was  something  exceed higly  solemn  in 
that  assemblage."* — No  doubt  it  was  much  more  solemn  than 
had  been  the  Catholic  worship!  Our  author  thus  describes 
the  solemnity. 

"  The  people  then  fell  on  their  knees  :  the  bread  was  carried  round  on 
large  wooden  dishes  or  platters,  and  every  one  broke  off  a  morsel  for  him- 
self; the  wine  was  distributed  in  wooden  drinking  cups  ;  the  resemblance 
to  the  primitive  supper  was  thought  to  be  the  closer.  (!)  The  hearts  of 
those  who  celebrated  this  ordinance  were  affected  with  alternate  emotions 
of  wonder  and  joy."f — Truly  there  was  much  to  excite  wonder,  if  not  joy  ! 

In  the  same  strain  is  the  following  passage : 

"  Such  was  the  progress  of  the  Reformation  at  Zurich.  The  simple  com- 
memoration of  our  Lord's  death  caused  a  fresh  overflow  in  the  church  of 
love  to  God,  and  love  to  the  brethren. .  . .  Zuingle  rejoiced  at  these  affecting 
manifestations  of  grace,  and  returned  thanks  to  God,  that  the  Lord's  Supper 
was  again  working  those  miracles  of  charity,  which  had  long  since  ceased  to 
be  displayed  in  connection  with  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass.  '  Our  city,'  said  he, 
'  continues  at  peace.  There  is  no  fraud,  no  dissension,  no  envy,  no  wrang- 
ling among  us.  Where  shall  we  discover  the  cause  of  this  agreement 
except  in  the  Lord's  good  pleasure,  and  the  harmlessness  and  meekness  of 
the  doctrine  we  profess?'  " — He,  however,  spoils  this  beautiful  picture  by  the 
following  cruel  sentence,  which  immediately  follows  :  "  Charity  and  unity 
were  there — but  not  uniformity."| 

Our  historian  here  refers  to  certain  strange  doctrines 
broached  by  Zuingle  in  this  same  year  1525,  in  his  famous 
•'  Commentary  on  true  and  false  religions,"  addressed  to  Fran- 
cis L,  king  of  France.  He  labors  hard  to  defend  the  reform- 
er from  the  charge  of  Pelagianism,  which  his  associates  in 
^he  Reformation  did  not  fail  to  make.  But  was  it  honest  in 
him  to  conceal  the  notorious  fact,  that,  in  this  same  Commen- 
tary, Zuingle  had  placed  Theseus,  Hercules,  Numa,  Scipio, 
Cato,  and  other  heathen  worthies,  in  heaven  among  thecicct? 
This  was  something  worse  than  Pelagianism ;  it  was  down 
right  paganism.  Could  "charity  and  unity"  reign  in  the 
midst  of  the  tiercest  wranglings,  of  the  most  bitter  civil  feuds 


D'Aubigne,  iii,  p.  273  f  Ibid.  I  Tbid.,  p.  27  i. 


176  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

and  dissensicns,  and  amidst  the  bloodshed  of  a  protracted 
civil  war?  Yet  these  were  the  scenes  amid  which  the  Swiss 
Reformation  revealed. 

"Such,"  then,  "was  the  progress  of  the  Reformation  at 
Zurich  !"  In  other  places — at  Berne  and  at  Basle — its  pro 
ceedings  were  marked  by  similar  demonstrations.  It  was 
everywhere  the  same.  Everywhere,  it  invoked  the  civil 
power,  and  everywhere  it  was  established,  as  at  Zurich,  by 
the  decisions  of  boards  of  town  councilmen,  and  was  enforced 
by  violence.  D'Aubigne  himself  alleges  facts  which  prove 
all  this ;  and  we  deem  it  unnecessary  to  repeat  them ;  espe- 
cially as  we  purpose  to  devote  another  chapter  to  the  Refor- 
mation in  Switzerland,  in  which  the  facts  establishing  this 
view  will  be  more  fully  set  forth. 

(Ecolampadius  was  the  chief  actor  on  the  Reformation  stage 
at  Basle.  He  was  a  learned  and  moderate  man,  the  early 
friend  of  Erasmus,  and,  in  some  respects,  the  counterpart  of 
Melancthon.  The  gospel  light  seems  to  have  first  beamed 
upon  him  from  the  eye  of  a  beautiful  young  lady,  whom,  in 
violation  of  his  solemn  vows  plighted  to  heaven,  he  espoused ; 
— "  probably,"  as  Erasmus  wittily  remarked,  "  to  mortify  him- 
self!" In  the  race  of  matrimony,  at  least,  he  could  claim  the 
precedency  over  many  of  his  brother  reformers.  Yet  the 
latter  did  not  long  remain  behind.  Matrimony  was,  in  almost 
all  cases,  the  denouement  of  the  drama  which  signalized  the 
zeal  for  reformation.  Zuingle  himself  espoused  a  rich  widow. 
A  widow  also  caught  Calvin,  a  little  later.  Martin  Bucer, 
another  reformer,  who  figured  chiefly  in  Switzerland,  far  out 
stripped  any  of  his  fellows  in  the  hymeneal  career.  He  be- 
came the  husband  of  no  less  than  three  ladies  in  succession : 
and  one  of  them  had  been  already  married  three  times — all 
too,  by  a  singular  run  of  good  luck,  in  the  reformation  line  !* 

*  For  a  full  and  humorous  account  of  this  whole  matter,  see  "  Travels  of 
an  Irish  gentleman,"  eh.  xlvi ;  where  the  great  Irish  poet  enters  into  the 
subject  at  length ;  giving  his  authorities  as  he  proceeds,  and  playing  off  his 
caustic  wit  on  the  hymeneal  propensities  of  the  reformers. 


THE   COMEDY    OF   MARRIAGE.  177 

It  is  really  curious  to  observe,  how  D'Aubign6  treats  this 
remarkable  subject.   Speaking  of  the  Swiss  reformers,  he  says  : 

"Several  among  them  at  this  period  (1522)  returned  to  the  'apostolic' 
usage  *(!)  Xyloclect  was  already  a  husband.  Zuingle  also  married  about 
this  time.  Among  the  women  of  Zurich,  none  was  more  respected  than 
Anna  Reinhardt,  widow  of  Meyer  von  Knonau,  mother  of  Gerold.  From 
Zuingle's  coming  among  them,  she  had  been  constant  in  her  attendance  on 
his  ministry ;  she  lived  near  him,  and  he  had  remarked  her  piety,  modesty, 
and  maternal  tenderness.  Young  Gerold,  who  had  become  almost  like  a 
son  to  him,  contributed  further  to  bring  about  an  intimacy  with  his  mother. 
The  trials  that  had  already  befallen  this  Christian  woman — whose  fate  it 
was  to  be  one  day  more  severely  tried  than  any  woman  whose  history  is  on 
record — had  formed  her  to  a  sariousness  which  gave  prominency  to  her 
Christian  virtues.  She  was  then  about  thirty-five,  and  her  whole  fortune 
consisted  of  four  hundred  florins.f  It  was  on  her  that  Zuingle  (kind,  sym- 
pathetic soul !)  fixed  his  eyes  for  a  companion  for  life."| 

Still  he  seems  to  have  entertained  serious  misgivings  at 
thus  breaking  his  solemn  vows : 

"  He  did  not  make  his  marriage  public.  This  was  beyond  doubt  a  blame- 
able  weakness  in  one  who  was  in  other  respects  so  resolute  (reckless?).  The 
light  he  and  his  friends  possessed  on  the  subject  of  celibacy  was  by  no 
means  general.     The  wea,k  might  have  been  stumbled."  ^ 

This  last  is  a  new  phrase,  introduced,  we  suppose,  to  unfold 
a  new  idea — that  the  people  retained  conscience  longer  than 
the  boasted  reformers,  who  misled  them  from  the  old  paths. 

On  this  same  subject,  D'Aubigne  treats  us  to  some  fine 
touches  of  romance,  concerning  nuns  who  embraced  the  Refor- 
mation, and  then  immediately,  as  a  seemingly  necessary 
sequel,  got  married  !     We  will  give  a  few  instances : 

"At  Kdningsfeld  upon  the  river  Aar,  near  the  castle  of  Hapsburg,  stood  a 
monastery  adorned  with  all  the  magnificence  of  the  middle  ages,  and  in 
which  reposed  the  ashes  of  many  of  that  illustrious  house  which  had  so 
often  given  an  emperor  to  Germany.     To  this  place  the  noble  families  of 

*  How  very  absurd  !  Was  St.  Paul  married  ?  Were  any  of  the  Apostles 
ever  married,  except  St.  Peter,  of  whose  wife  the  Scripture  says  nothing  after 
he  became  an  Apostle  ?     She  was  probably  dead. 

f  A  very  large  sura  at  that  time.  J  D  Aubigne,  vol,  ii,  p  383. 

\  Ibid.,  D.  384. 


178  REFORMATION    IN    SWITZERLAND. 

Switzerland  and  of  Suabia  used  to  send  their  daughters  to  take  the  vail.  .  .  . 

The  liberty  enjoyed  in  this  convent had  favored  the  introduction  not 

only  of  the  Bible  (they  had  it  already,  and  were  even  obliged  to  read  por- 
tions of  it  daily  by  their  rule),  but  the  writings  of  Luther  and  Zuingle ;  and 
soon  a  new  spring  of  life  and  joy  changed  the  aspect  of  its  interior  !"* 

A  new  spring  of  life  and  of  joj  was  certainly  thus  opened 
to  the  nuns.  They  soon  became  tired  of  retirement  and 
of  prayer:  they  sighed  for  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt  to  which 
they  had  bidden  adieu — for  the  "life  and  joy"  of  the  world. 
Margaret  Watte ville,  one  of  them,  wrote  a  letter  to  Zuingle, 
full  of  piety  and  of  affection ;  and  declared  that  she  expressed 
not  "  her  own  feelings  only,  but  those  of  all  the  convent  of 
Kbningsfeld  who  loved  the  gospel."f 

D'Aubigne  accordingly  tells  us,  that  a  "  convent  into  which 
the  light  of  the  gospel  had  penetrated  with  such  power,  could 
not  long  continue  to  adhere  to  monastic  observances.  Mar- 
garet Watteville  and  her  sisters,  persuaded  that  they  should 
better  serve  God  in  their  families  than  in  the  cloister,  solicited 
permission  to  leave  it." J  The  council  of  Berne  heard  their 
prayer :  the  convent  "  gates  were  opened ;  and  a  short  time 
afterwards,  Catharine  Bonnsteten  (one  of  the  nuns)  married 
William  Von  Diesbach."§  The  nun  Margaret  Watteville  was 
equally  fortunate :  she  "  was  about  the  same  time  united  to 
Lucius  Tscharner  of  Coira."||  Such  was  almost  invariably 
the  denouement  of  the  reformation  plot. 

Our  historian,  in  fact,  views  the  sacrilegious  marriages  of 
the  priests  and  nuns — against  their  solemn  vows  freely  plighted 
to  God  at  his  holy  altar — as  the  most  conclusive  proof  of  the 
progress  of  the  Keformation !     Mark  this  curious  passage : 

"  But  it  was  in  vain  to  attempt  to  smother  the  Keformation  at  Berne.     I 
made  progress  on  all  sides.     The  nuns  of  the  convent  D'lle  had  not  forgot- 
ten Haller's  visit.     (This  was  a  wretched  apostate,  who  had  held  improper 
ilscourse  in  the  convent,  which  drew  upon  him  a  sentence  of  perpetual  ban- 


*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  280,  281. 

f  This  letter  is  given  in  full.  Ibid.,  vol.  iii,  p.  281,  282. 

I  Ibid.  5  Ibid  II  Ibid.,  p.  285. 


ROMANTIC    NUNH.  179 

':ment  from  the  lesser  council  of  Berne;  which  sentence  was  however 
mitigated  by  the  grand  council,  which  was  content  with  merely  rebuking 
him  and  his  associate  reformers,  and  ordering  them  to  confine  themselves  in 
future  to  their  own  business  and  let  the  convents  alone.)*  Clara  May,  (one 
of  the  nuns)  and  many  of  her  friends,  pressed  in  their  consciences  (!)  what 
to  do,  wrote  to  the  learned  Henry  BuUinger.  In  answer,  he  said  :  '  St.  Paul 
enjoins  young  women  not  to  take  on  them  vows,  but  to  marry,  instead  of 
living  in  idleness  under  a  false  show  of  piety.  (1  Tim.  v:  13,  14).  Follow 
Jesus  in  humility,  charity,  patience,  purity,  and  kindness.'  Clara,  looking 
to  heaven  for  guidance,  resolved  to  act  on  the  advice,  and  renounce  a  manner 
of  life  at  variance  with  the  word  of  God — of  man's  invention — and  beset 
with  snares.  Her  grandfather  Bartholomew,  who  had  served  for  fifty  years 
in  the  field  and  council  hall,  heard  with  joy  of  the  resolution  she  had 
formed.  Clara  quitted  the  convent,"f — and  married  the  provost,  Nicholas 
Watteville.J 

What  an  evidence  of  piety,  "  looking  to  heaven  for  guid- 
ance," is  it  not — to  get  married !  And  what  a  perversion  of 
Scripture  was  not  that  by  Henry  Bullinger,  to  induce  those 
to  marry  who  had  taken  solemn  vows  of  devoting  themselves 
wholly  to  God  in  a  life  of  chastity!  As  this  is  a  pretty  good 
specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  the  reformers  "  wrested  the 
Scriptures  to  their  own  perdition,"^  we  will  give  entire  the 
quotation  of  St.  Paul  to  Timothy,  referred  to  by  the  "  learned 
Henry  Bullinger,"  including  the  two  previous  verses,  which 
he  found  it  convenient  not  to  quote — probably  because  they 
would  have  convicted  him  of  a  most  glaring  perversion  of 
God's  holy  word. 

1  Timothy,  chap,  v,  verse  11.  "  But  the  younger  widows  shun :  for  when 
they  have  grown  wanton  in  Christ,  they  will  marry;  (this  advice  the  re- 
formers took  special  care  not  to  follow). 

Verse  12.  ^^  Having  damnation,  because  they  have  made  void  their  first  fa '•th, 
(by  violating  their  vows  to  God). 

V.  13.  "And  withal,  being  idle,  they  learn  to  go  about  from  house  to 
house  (as  the  escaped  nuns  did  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation):  not  only 
idle,  but  talkers  also,  and  inquisitive,  speaking  things  which  they  ought  not. 

V.  14.  "  I  will,  therefore,  that  the  younger  (who  had  not  taken   vows} 

*  Such  at  least  is  the  statement  of  D'Aubigne — iii,  p.  279. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  284.  I  Ibid.,  p.  285.  \  2  Peter,  iii:  16. 


180  REFORMATION    IN    SWITZERLAND. 

should  marry,  bear  children,  be  mistresses  of  families,  give  no  occasion  to 
the  adversary  to  speak  evil." 

This  passage  of  St.  Paul  speaks  for  itself,  and  needs  no 
commentary.  While  the  reformers  were  quoting  St.  Paul, 
with  a  view  to  induce  the  nuns  to  escape  from  their  convents 
and  to  get  married,  why  did  they  not  also  refer  to  the  follow- 
ing texts : 

"  But  I  say  to  the  unmarried  and  to  the  widows  :  it  is  good  for  them  so  tn 
continue,  even  as  /."* 

"  Art  thou  bound  to  a  wife  ?  Seek  not  to  be  loosed.  Art  thou  loosed 
from  a  wife  ?     Seek  not  a  wife."] 

"  But  I  would  have  you  to  be  without  solicitude.  He  that  is  without  a 
wife,  is  solicitous  for  the  things  that  belong  to  the  Lord,  how  he  may  please 
God.  But  he  that  is  with  a  wife,  is  solicitous  for  the  things  of  the  world, 
how  he  may  please  his  wife  :  and  he  is  divided."| 

And  why  especially  did  they  conceal  the  following  texts, 
which  had  special  reference  to  the  nun  who,  '"having  grown 
wanton  in  Christ,  would  marry,  having  damnation,  because 
they  had  made  void  their  first  faith  ?" 

"  And  the  unmarried  woman  and  the  virgin  thinketh  on  the  things  of  the 
Lord,  that  she  may  be  holy  both  in  body  and  spirit.  But  she  that  is  mar- 
ried, thinketh  on  the  things  of  the  world,  how  she  may  please  her  husband. 
Therefore,  both  he  who  giveth  his  virgin  in  marriage  doeth  well ;  and  he 
that  giveth  her  not,  doeth  better."  ^ 

Alas  !  the  carnal  minded  reformers  understood  little  of  this 
sublime  perfection !  They  could  not  appreciate  it.  They 
were  satisfied  with  doing  well ;  nor  did  they  even  come  up  to 
this  standard,  any  further  at  least,  than  to  get  married! 
Their  case  is  suflSciently  explained  by  St.  Paul,  in  the  sanie 
epistle  from  which  the  above  texts  are  extracted.  "But  the 
sensual  man  perceiveth  not  the  things  that  are  of  the  spirit 
of  God :  for  it  is  foolishness  to  him,  and  he  can  not  under- 
stand :  because  it  is  spiritually  examined."|| 

We  will  now  proceed  to  show  more  fully,  that  the  subse- 
quent developments  of  the  Swiss  Reformation   corresponded 

•*  1  Corinth,  vii:  8.  f  Ibid.,  verse  27.         \  Ibid.,  verses  32,  33. 

{  Ibid.,  verses  34,  38  11  1  Corinth,  ii:  l-i. 


HISTORY   OF   DE   HALLER.  181 

with  its  first  beginnings  at  Zurich;  and  that,  everywhere, 
throughout  the  Swiss  confederation,  it  pandered  to  the  worst 
passions,  was  established  by  intrigue,  civil  commotions  and 
violence ;  and  that  it  openly  infringed  all  previous  ideas  of 
popular  rights  and  liberty.  We  shall  hereafter  devote  a  sep- 
arate chapter  to  the  Calvinistic  branch  of  the  Reformation, 
established  at  Geneva. 


CHAPTER     VI. 

REFORMATION    IN    S  W  I  T  Z  E  R  L  AND— BE  RNE. 

ETistory  by  Louis  De  Haller — A  standard  authority — Berne  the  centre  of 
operations — De  Haller's  point  of  view — His  character  as  an  historian — 
His  authorities — Wavering  of  Berne — Tortuous  policy — How  she  em- 
braced the  reform — The  hear  and  the  pears — Treacherous  perjury  of 
Berne — Zuinghan  council — Its  decrees — ReHgious  liberty  crushed — Kiot 
and  sacrilege — Proceedings  of  Bernese  commissioners — Downright  ty- 
ranny— The  minister  Farel — His  fiery  zeal — An  appalling  picture — A 
parallel — Priests  hunted  down — Character  of  the  ministers — Avowal  of 
Capito — The  glorious  privilege  of  private  judgment — How  consistent ! — 
Persecution  of  brother  Protestants — Drowning  the  Anabaptists — Refor- 
mation in  Geneva — Rapid  summary  of  horrors — The  Bernese  army  of 
invasion — The  sword  and  the  Bible — Forbearance  of  Catholics — Affecting 
incident  at  Soleure — The  war  of  Cappell — Points  of  resemblance — An 
armed  apostle — A  prophet  quailing  before  danger — Battle  of  Cappell — 
Death  of  Zuingle — Triumph  of  Catholic  cantons — Treaty  of  peace. 

For  most  of  the  facts  contained  in  this  chapter,  we  are  in- 
debted to  De  Haller,  whose  late  work  on  the  hist(^ry  of  the 
Swiss  Reformation  is  a  standard  authority.  So  far  as  we 
know,  his  facts  have  never  been  disputed,  nor  his  arguments 
answered.* 

*  His  work  is  entitled  :  Histoire  de  la  revolution  religieuse,  ou  de  la  re- 
forme  Protestante  dans  la  Suisse  Occidentale.     Par  Charles  Louis  Do  Hal- 
ler, ancien  membre  du  conseil  souverain,  et  du  conseil  secret  de  Berne,  chev- 
12 


182  REFORMATION   IN   SWITZERLAND. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  Zurich  was  the  first  tity  Id 
Switzerland  which  embraced  the  Reformation;  or,  as  De 
Haller  expresses  it,  she  was  "the  mother  and  the  root  of  all 
religious  and  political  Protestantism  in  Switzerland."*  She 
was  nearly  eight  years  in  advance  of  Berne  in  the  race  of 
reform ;  and  it  was  through  her  influence  mainly  that  the 
latter  at  length  consented  to  accept  the  new  gospel.  But 
once  Berne  had  embraced  it,  she  far  outstripped  her  pre- 
ceptor in  religious  zeal  or  fanaticism;  and  she  took  the  lead 
in  all  the  subsequent  religioso-political  aflairs  of  the  country. 
Her  central  position,  her  rich  and  extensive  territory,  her 
untiring  industry,  and  her  adroit  and  unscrupulous  diplomacy, 
gave  her  the  ascendency  over  the  other  Protestant  cantons,  and 
made  her  the  leader  in  every  great  enterprise.  It  was  through 
her  intrigues  that  Geneva  was  induced  to  receive  the  niw 
doctrines  ;  it  was  by  her  triumphant  physical  power  that  the 
Reformation  was  thrust  down  the  throats  of  the  good  Catho- 
lic people  of  Vaud.  Bernese  preachers,  escorted  by  Bernese 
bailiffs  and  spies,  traversed  all  the  north-western  cantons, 
scattering  dissension  wherever  they  went,  and  establishing 
the  new  gospel,  either  by  intrigue  or  by  force,  wherever  they 
could.  Cautiously  and  cunningly,  but  with  an  industry  that 
never  tired,  and  a  resolution  that  never  faltered,  Berne  pur- 
sued her  Machiavelian  policy;  until,  by  one  means  or  an- 
other, about  half  of  the  Swiss  confederation  was  torn  from 
Catholic  unity,  and  bound,  at  the  same  time,  by  strong  polit- 
ical ties  to  herself.  Thus  she  became  the  great  leader  of  the 
Protestant,  as  Lucerne  has  ever  been  that  of  the  Catholic 
cantons  of  Switzerland. 

It  is  from  this  elevated  point  of  view,  that  De  Haller  looks 

alier  de  I'ordre  royal  de  la  legion  d'honneur,  et  de  celui  de  Charles  III. 
d'Espagne,  etc.  History  of  the  religious  revolution,  or  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation,  in  Western  Switzerland.  By  Charles  Louis  De  Haller,  former 
member  of  the  supreme  and  of  the  secret  councils  of  Berne,  Knight  of  the 
royal  order  of  tlic  legion  of  honor,  and  of  that  of  Charles  ITT.  of  Spain,  etc. 
4th  edition.     Paris,  188!).     1  vol.  12mo,  pp.  436.  *   De  Haller,  p.  434 


DE   HALLER's    point    OF   VIEW.  18S 

down  upon  the  histoiy  of  the  Swiss  Reformation.  Himself  a 
Bernese,  and,  until  he  became  a  Catholic,*  a  I'ernese  coun- 
selor as  high  in  power  and  influence  as  he  was  in  wisdom 
and  talents,  he  was  eminently  qualified  to  write  a  history  of 
the  religious  revolution  in  Switzerland.  Candid  and  moder 
ate  by  nature,  of  an  enlarged  mind  and  comprehensive  genius, 
his  scrupulous  veracity  has  not  been  denied  even  by  his 
strongest  opponents;  while  he  certainly  had  every  oppor- 
tunity to  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  events  he 
relates.  He  assures  us  in  his  preface,  that  his  history  "can 
not  be  taxed  with  exaggeration,  for  it  has  been  faithfully  de- 
rived from  Historical  Fragments  of  the  city  of  Berne,  com- 
posed by  a  Bernese  ecclesiastic  (Protestant);  from  the  History 
of  the  Swiss,  by  Mallett,  a  Genevan  Protestant ;  from  that 
of  Baron  d'Alt,  a  Catholic,  it  is  true,  but  excessively  reserved 
upon  all  that  might  displease  the  Bernese;  and  above  all,  in 
fine,  from  the  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Switzerland,  by 
Ruchat,  a  zealous  Protestant  minister  and  professor  of  belles- 
lettres  at  the  academy  of  Lausanne,  to  whom  all  the  archives 
were  opened  for  the  composition  of  his  work."f 

This  last  named  writer,  whom  he  quotes  continually,  was  a 
most  violent  partisan  of  the  Swiss  Reformation ;  and  yet 
even  he  was  compelled  to  relate  a  large  portion  of  the  truth, 
mixed  up,  as  usual,  with  much  adroit  and  canting  misrepre- 
sentation. Thus,  he  asserts,  among  other  things,  "  that  the 
Catholic  religion  is  idolatrous  and  superstitious,  and  that  it 
can  not  be  sustained  but  by  ignorance,  by  interest,  by  vio- 
lence, and  by  fraud."J  De  Haller  meets  the  injurious  charge, 
not  by  asserting,  but  by  proving^  from  undeniable  evidence, 
that  the  Swiss  Reformation  was  established  precisely  by  these 
identical  means,  and  that  it  could  not,  in  fact,  have  been 
established  otherwise.     He  says : 


*  For  having  become  a  Catholic,  he  was  expelled  from  the  council,  prob- 
ably in  order  to  prove  Protestant  love  of  liberty ! 

■j  De  Jlaller,  p.  ix.  X  Quoted  by  De  Haller,  Pretace,  p.  x. 


184  REFORMATION    IN    SWITZERLAND. 

"  Protestants  of  good  faith — and  there  are  many  such  among  our  separ- 
ated brethren — will  judge  for  themselves,  from  a  simple  exposition  of  facts, 
whether  it  was  ot  rather  their  own  reUgion  which  was  introduced  by  igno- 
rance, interest,  violence,  and  fraud :  by  ignorance,  for  it  was  everywhere  th(- 
ignorant  multitude  that  decided,  without  knowledge  of  the  cause,  upon 
questions  of  faith  and  discipline,  and  this  was  carried  so  far  that  even  chil- 
fliei)  of  founuon  years  were  called  to  these  popular  assemblies;  by  interest, 
for  the  robbery  of  churches,  of  temples,  and  of  monasteries,  was  the  first 
act  of  the  Reformation  ;  by  violence,  for  it  was  with  armed  force  that  altars 
were  overturned,  images  broken,  convents  pillaged,  and  it  became  necessary 
to  employ  fire  and  sword,  confiscation  and  exile,  in  order  to  make  the  new 
religion  prevail  over  the  ancient  belief;  by  lying  and  hy  fraud,  for  Luther 
and  Zuingle  formally  recommended  both  to  their  followers  as  means  of  suc- 
cess, and  their  counsel  has  been  followed  with  fidelity  and  perseverance  even 
unto  our  own  day.     We  will  now  pass  on  to  the  facts  and  the  proof."* 

We  defy  any  one  to  read  attentively  De  Haller's  work, 
witliout  admitting  that  he  has  triumphantly  proved  all  this, 
and  even  more,  by  facts  and  evidence  derived  mainly  from 
Protestant  sources.  Our  limits  will  not,  of  course,  allow  us 
to  go  into  all  the  details  of  the  evidence ;  yet  we  hope  to  be 
able  to  furnish  enough  to  convince  any  impartial  mind  that 
De  Haller's  position  is  entirely  sound  and  tenable.  But  first 
we  mtist  glance  rapidly  at  the  manner  in  which  the  Reforma- 
tion was  first  introduced  into  Berne ;  which,  as  we  have 
already  intimated,  subsequently  exercised  so  strong  an  influ- 
ence, both  religious  and  political,  on  other  parts  of  Switzer- 
land. 

It  was  slowly  and  cautiously  that  Berne  embraced  the  new 
doctrines.  Long  did  she  resist  the  intrigues  of  the  Zurichers, 
and  the  wily  arts  of  their  new  apostle,  Ulrich  Zuingle.  This 
man  understood  well  the  character  of  the  Bernese  ;  their 
wary  distrust  of   any  thing  new,   their  deeply  seated  self- 

''  Pref.  X,  and  xi.  He  gives  us  in  a  note,  besides  some  curious  facts  about 
Zuingle,  the  following  passage  from  a  letter  of  Luther  to  Melancthon,  dated 
August  SO,  1530  :  "When  we  will  have  nothing  more  to  fear,  and  when  we 
shall  be  left  in  repose,  we  will  then  repair  all  onr  present  lies,  our  frauds,  and 

our  ads  of  virthnce." 


PEARS    TO   THE   BEAR.  185 

interest,  and  their  dogged  obstinacy  in  maintaining  whatever 
they  finally  settled  down  upon.  He  well  knew  all  this,  and 
he  acted  accordingly.  Writing  to  Berchtold  Haller,  the  first 
herald  of  the  new  gospel  at  Berne,  he  advised  moderation 
and  caution ;  "  for,"  says  he,  "  the  minds  of  the  Bernese  are 
not  yet  ripe  for  the  new  gospel."*  In  a  letter  subsequently 
addressed  to  Francis  Kolb,  he  uses  this  quaint  language, 
alluding  to  the  cantonal  type  of  Berne — the  hear : 

"  My  dear  Francis !  proceed  slowly,  and  not  too  rudely,  in  the  business  ; 
do  not  throw  to  the  hear  at  first  but  one  sour  pear  along  with  a  great  many 
sweet  ones,  afterwards  two,  then  three ;  and  if  he  beg-in  to  swallow  them, 
throw  him  always  more  and  more,  sour  and  sweet,  pellmell.  Finally,  empty 
the  sack  altogether ;  soft,  hard,  sweet,  sour,  and  crude ;  he  will  devour 
them  all,  and  will  not  suffer  any  one  to  take  them  away  fi-om  him,  nor  to 
drive  him  away."f 

Zuingle  understood  his  men,  and  his  arts  succeeded  even 
beyond  his  most  sanguine  expectations.  Berne  vacillated  for 
several  years  between  truth  and  error ;  her  policy  was  waver- 
ing and  tortuous;  but  at  length  she  threw  her  whole  influence 
into  the  scale  of  the  Reformation ;  and  once  she  had  taken  her 
position,  she  maintained  it  with  her  characteristic  obstinacy. 

Tliough  her  counsels  were  often  uncertain,  yet,  in  the  main, 
she  had  continued  faithful  to  the  old  religion  up  to  the  year 
1527.  On  the  26th  of  January,  1524,  we  find  her  delegates 
uniting  with  those  of  the  twelve  cantons  at  Lucerne  in  a 
strong  decree,  unanimously  passed,  for  the  maintenance  of 
Catholicity.^  Shortly  afterwards,  she  listened  with  respect 
to  the  voice  of  the  three  Catholic  bishops  of  Constance,  Bale, 
and  Lausanne,  who  strongly  urged  the  cantons  to  remain 
steadfast  in  their  faith,  and  who  promised  "  that  if,  in  lapse 
of  time,  some  abuses  had  glided  into  the  ecclesiastical  state, 
they  would  examine  the  matter  with  unremitting  diligence, 
and  abolish  the  abuses  with  all  their  power."§ 

In  1525-6,  the  terrible  revolt  of  the  peasants  took  place  in 


*  Quoted  by  De  Haller,  p.  18.  f  Ibid.,  p.  18,  note. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  22.  \  Ibid.,  p.  23. 

VOL.    I. 16 


180  REFORMATION   IN   SWITZERLAND. 

Germany,  and  penetrated  even  into  Switzerland.  It  had  cer 
tainly  grown  out  of  the  revolutionary  principles  broached  by 
the  reformers,  and  it  was  headed  by  Protestant  preachers,  as 
Ruchat,  himself  a  preacher,  admits  in  the  following  passage: 
"  Having  at  their  head  the  preachers  of  the  reform^  they  pil 
laged,  ravaged,  massacred,  and  burnt  every  thing  that  fell 
into  their  hands."*  Sartorius,  another  Protestant  historian 
of  Germany,  admits  the  same.f  All  social  order  was  threat 
ened  with  annihilation  by  these  wild  fanatics,  whose  numbei 
was  legion ;  and  Berne,  appalled  by  the  danger,  made  a  tem- 
porary truce  with  her  tergiversation,  recoiled  from  the  preci- 
pice, on  the  brink  of  which  she  had  been  standing,  and  fell 
back  on  her  old  vantage  ground  of  conservative  Catholicity 
On  the  21st  of  May,  1526,  her  grand  council  published  an 
edict  for  the  preservation  of  the  old  religion,  and  its  members 
bound  themselves,  hy  a  solemn  oath^  to  maintain  it  invi 
olate^X 

Yet,  in  the  following  year,  Berne  revoked  this  decree, 
violated  this  solemnly  plighted  oath,  joined  the  Reformation, 
and  lent  her  whole  influence  to  its  propagation  throughout 
Switzerland !  Her  wavering  ceased  all  of  a  sudden,  and  her 
policy,  hitherto  tortuous  and  always  unprincipled,  now  be 
came  firmly  settled.  Not  only  she  declared  for  the  Reforma- 
tion, but  she  spared  no  labor,  no  intrigue,  no  money, — nothing, 
to  make  it  triumph  everywhere.  It  was  mainly  through  her 
subsequent  efibrts  that  the  Reformation  was  fastened  on  a 
large  portion  of  the  Swiss  republic.  By  what  means  this 
was  accomplished,  we  have  already  intimated ;  and  now  we 
will  furnish  some  of  the  principal  specifications  and  evidence 
bearing  on  the  subject.  The  facts  we  are  going  to  allege 
clearly  prove  this  great  leading  feature  of  the  Swiss  Reforma- 
tion : — that  it  was  only  by  intrigue,  chicanery,  persecution, 
and  open  violence,  that  it  was  finally  established  at  the  cit) 

*  Quoted  by  De  Haller,  p.  23.  f  IT»id. 

\  Ibid.,  ch.  iv,  p.  27  seqq. 


ZUINGLIAN    COUNCIL ITS    DECREES.  187 

of  Berne  and  throughout  the  canton,  as  well  as  in  all  the  other 
cantons  where  Bernese  influence  could  make  itself  felt. 

In  1528,  a  conference,  or  rather  a  species  of  Zuinglian 
council  was  held  at  Berne,  for  tne  purpose  of  deciding  on  the 
articles  of  faith  to  be  adopted  in  the  proposed  refoi'ination. 
Zuingle  was  the  master  spirit  of  the  assembly,  at  which  very 
few  Catholics  assisted.  Ten  articles,  or  theses,  were  there 
adopted  by  the  ministers ;  but,  though  drawn  up  with  studied 
ambiguity  and  vagueness,  they  were  still  signed  only  by  a 
minority  of  the  Bernese  clergy,  the  majority  still  clinging  to 
the  old  faith.  Yet  the  Bernese  grand  council  of  state  not 
only  adopted  and  confirmed  these  articles,  but  enjoined  their 
adoption  on  all  the  people  of  the  canton.  Pastors  and  curates 
were  forbidden  to  teach  any  thing  opposed  to  them;  the 
Mass  was  abolished,  altars  were  to  be  demolished,  images 
to  be  burnt,  and  the  four  bishops  of  Switzerland  were 
declared  deprived  of  all  jurisdiction !  Moreover,  priests 
W'ere  permitted  to  marry,  and  religious  persons  of  both 
sexes  to  leave  their  convents ;  the  ministers  were  ordered  to 
preach  four  times  each  week  under  penalty  of  suspension; 
and  finally  the  council  reserved  to  itself  the  right  "  to  change 
this  new  religion  if  any  one  would  prove  to  them  any  thing 
better  by  the  Scriptures."* 

Such  was  the  tenor  of  the  famous  Bernese  decree,  by  which 
the  new  gospel  was  first  established  hy  law.  Nor  did  it  re- 
main a  dead  letter.  Violence,  sacrilege,  and  robbery  rioted 
throughout  the  canton.  The  churches  of  the  Catholics  were 
forcibly  seized  on,  the  altars  were  overturned,  the  beautiful 
decorations  of  paintings  and  statuary  were  defaced  or  broken 
to  pieces,  people  were  forbidden  any  longer  to  worship  at  the 
altars  and  shrines  of  their  fathers;  and  very  soon  the  whole 
canton  presented  the  appearance  of  a  country  through  which 
an  army  of  Vandals  and  Huns  had  but  lately  marched.  It  is 
a  certain  and  undoubted y«c^,  that  the  Reformation  y^slq  forced 

*  Quoted  by  De  Haller,  pp.  52,  53. 


]88  REFORMATION    IN   SWITZERLAND. 

upon  the  Bernese  people,  against  the  positive  will  of  the  ma- 
jority !  But  the  minority  were  active,  untiring,  revolutionary, 
and  they  had  the  civil  authorities  to  back  them ;  the  majority 
were  often  indifferent  and  negligent;  their  natural  protectors, 
the  more  zealous  among  the  clergy,  had  been  compelled  to 
fly ;  and  thus  left  alone,  a  flock  without  shepherds,  the  people 
were  at  length  wearied  out  and  harassed  into  conformity. 

To  enforce  the  new  religious  law,  commissioners  were  sent 
from  Berne  into  all  the  communes  of  the  canton,  with  instruc- 
tions to  address  the  people,  and  to  use  every  effort  to  induce 
them  to  embrace  the  new  gospel.  After  their  harangues,  the 
matter  was  to  be  immediately  put  to  the  popular  vote,  boys 
of  fourteen  years  being  entitled  to  the  privilege  of  suffrage ! 
If  the  majority  went  for  the  new  gospel,  even  if  this  majority 
consisted  but  of  one  voice,  the  minority  were  compelled  to 
abandon  the  old  religion,  and  the  Mass  was  declared  publicly 
abolished  throughout  the  commune !  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
majority,  as  was  often  the  case,  in  spite  of  every  entreaty 
and  threat,  went  for  the  old  religion,  the  Protestant  minority 
still  remained  free  to  practice  publicly  their  worship.  More- 
over, in  this  latter  case,  the  vote  of  the  commune  was  again 
taken  by  parishes,  in  order  that  those  in  which  the  majority 
were  Protestants  might  be  protected  by  the  civil  authority. 
Even  if  a  commune  voted  unanimously  in  favor  of  Catholicity, 
the  possibility  of  practicing  their  religion  was  taken  away  from 
the  Catholics  by  the  banishment  of  their  priests,  and  the 
stationing  amongst  them  of  Protestant  preachers ;  or  if  their 
Bernese  excellencies  graciously  allowed  them  to  retain  theit 
pastors,  it  was  only  for  a  time  and  until  further  orders  !* 

We  ask  whether  all  this  was  not  downright  tyranny  of  the 
worst  kind ;  and  whether  our  assertion  made  above  was  at  all 
exaggerated  ?  But  this  is  not  yet  all,  nor  even  half.  There 
were  in  Switzerland  certain  cities  and  districts  under  the  joint 
government  and  control  of  Berne,  Friburg  and  other  Catholic 


*  Quoted  by  De  lialler,  pp.  53,  54. 


TYRANNY    AND    VIOLENCE  189 

cantons.  To  these  Berne  sent  out  her  emissaries,  both  re- 
ligious and  political.  If  they  could  be  gained  over  to  the 
new  religion,  they  would  probably  throw  off  the  yoke  of  their 
Catholic  joint  sovereigns,  and  fall  solely  under  the  govern- 
ment of  Berne,  to  say  nothing  of  the  spiritual  good  which 
would  accrue  to  their  souls  from  the  new  gospel.  Hence  no 
money  nor  intrigue  was  to  be  spared  to  proselytize  them. 

The  fiery  minister,  Farel,  armed  with  Bernese  passports, 
and  accompanied  or  sustained  by  Bernese  deputies  and  bailifis, 
ran  over  these  common  cities  and  districts,  with  the  impetu- 
ous fury  of  one  possessed  by  an  evil  spirit.  He  stirred  up 
seditions  whithersoever  he  went,  either  against  the  old  religion 
or  against  himself;  and  his  progress  was  everywhere  marked 
by  conflagrations  and  ruins.  In  the  bishopric  of  Bale,  in 
several  towns  and  communes  belonging  to  the  present  can- 
ton of  Vaud,  in  Soleure,  and  elsewhere,  this  furious  fanatic 
and  political  firebrand  agitated  society  to  its  very  depths, 
and  lashed  popular  passions  into  a  fury  which  was  entirely  un- 
controllable. "Wherever  the  populace  could  be  ^von  over  to  his 
party,  or  even  overawed  into  silence,  he  caused  the  Mass  to  be 
abolished,  churches  to  be  stripped,  pillaged,  and  sacrilegiously 
desecrated,  and  altars  to  be  overturned !  And  the  Bernese 
authorities  not  only  calmly  looked  on,  but  they  even  sanc- 
tioned all  these  ferocious  deeds,  and  cast  the  shield  of  their 
protection  around  the  person  of  Farel.* 

Insurrections  and  violence  everywhere  marked  the  progress 
of  the  Reformation.  Look,  for  instance,  at  the  following 
graphic  picture  of  Switzerland  during  the  epoch  in  question, 
drawn  by  De  Haller: 

"  During  the  years  1529,  1530,  and  1531,  Switzerland  found  herself  in  a 
frightful  condition,  and  altogether  similar  to  that  of  which  we  are  now  wit- 
nesses, three  centuries  later.  Nothing  was  seen  everywhere  but  hatred, 
broils,  and  acts  of  violence ;  everywhere  reigned  discord  and  division  ;  dis- 
cord between  the  cantons,  discord  in  the  bosom  of  the  governments,  discord 
between  sovereigns  and  subjects,  in  fine,  discord  and  division  even  in  every 

*  See  De  Haller,  p.  71  seqq ,  for  detailed  proof  of  all  this. 


190  REFORMATION    IN   SWITZERLAND. 

parish  and  in  every  family.  The  defection  of  Berne,  at  which  trie  Zurichera 
had  labored  for  six  years,  had  unchained  the  audacity  of  all  the  meddlers 
and  bad  men  in  Switzerland.  On  all  sides  new  revolutions  broke  out ; — at 
Bile,  at  St.  Gall,  at  Bienne,  at  Thurgovia,  at  Frauenfeld,  at  Mellingen,  at 
Bremgarten,  even  at  Gaster  and  in  the  Toggenburg,  at  Herissau,  at  Wettin- 
gen,  and  finally  at  Schatf housen.  Everywhere  they  were  brought  about  by 
a  band  of  poltroons  or  at  least  of  ignorant  burgesses,  both  turbulent  and 
factious,  against  the  will  of  the  intimidated  magistrates,  and  of  the  more 
numerous  and  peaceable  portion  of  the  inhabitants  who  looked  upon  these 
innovations  with  horror,  but  whose  indignation  was  arrested  and  whose  zeal 
was  paralyzed,  as  happens  during  our  own  days,  by  a  pretended  necessity 
of  avoiding  the  effusion  of  blood,  and  preventing  the  horrors  of  a  civU  war. 
Thus  one  party  declared  an  implacable  war  against  their  fellow-citizens  and 
every  thing  that  is  sacred,  while  the  other  was  condemned  to  suffer  without 
resistance  all  manner  of  injuries,  all  manner  of  hostilities;  and  this  state  ol 
triumphant  iniquity  and  of  miserable  servitude  was  qualified  by  the  fine 
name  of  peace.  Everywhere,  except  at  Shaffhousen,  a  city  which  was 
always  distinguished  for  its  tranquillity  and  the  peaceful  character  of  its  in- 
habitants, seditious  armed  mobs  rushed  of  their  own  accoi'd  to  the  churches, 
broke  down  the  altars,  burnt  the  images,  destroj'cd  the  most  magnificent 
monuments  of  art,  pillaged  the  sacred  vases  as  well  as  other  objects  of  value, 
and  put  up  for  public  sale  at  auction  the  sacred  vestments :  by  such  vandal- 
ism and  by  such  sacrileges  was  the  religious  revolution  of  the  sixteenth 
century  signalized."* 

Just  imagine  that  the  United  States  were  densely  populated 
and  filled  with  cities,  and  that  the  Catholic  religion  were  that 
of  the  people ;  but  that  a  religious  revolution  had  been  efiected 
in  one  of  our  great  cities, — say  Philadelphia, — by  violence, 
sustained  by  the  civil  authorities ;  that  there  all  our  churches 
had  been  pillaged  and  desecrated,  a  part  of  them  bui'ned 
down  and  the  other  part  seized  on  for  the  Protestant  worship ; 
that  the  frenzy  spread,  until  similar  scenes  were  enacted  in 
half  the  cities  and  towns  of  our  republic ;  imagine,  in  a  word, 
the  Philadelphia  riots,  aggravated  a  hundred  fold,  extending 
through  half  the  country,  and  keeping  the  people  in  a  state 
of  anarchy  and  civil  war  for  more  than  twenty  years ;  imagine 
our  hitherto  peaceful  republic  broken  up  by  discord,  and 


*  De  Haller,  pp.  62-64. 


INTOLERANCE   AND    INCONSISTENCY.  191 

bathed  in  the  blood  of  its  citizens,  until  at  last  the  fierce  riot 
ers  sit  down  in  triumph  amidst  the  ruins  they  had  everywhere 
strewr  around  them ;  and  you  will  then  have  some  faint  con- 
ception of  the  rise,  progress,  and  triumpli  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation  in  a  large  portion  of  Switzerland !  Recent 
events,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Switzerland,  have  proved 
that  Protestantism  has  not  yet  lost  all  of  its  original  fierce- 
ness, and  that  its  turbulent  spirit  has  not  been  yet  entirely 
subdued  by  the  onward  march  of  refinement  and  civilization. 
As  might  have  been  anticipated,  the  Bernese  met  with  fre- 
quent resistance  in  their  efibrts  to  destroy  the  old  religion, 
and  to  force  the  new  one  on  the  people.  Popular  insurrec- 
tions broke  out  at  Aigle,  and  in  the  bailiwicks  of  Lentzburg, 
Frutigen,  Interlaken,  and  Haut-Siebenthal,  as  well  as  in  other 
places.  How  was  this  resistance  met  ?  It  was  crushed  by 
main  force,  probably  with  a  view  to  demonstrate  to  all  the 
world  how  sincerely  the  Bernese  were  attached  to  the  great 
fundamental  principles  of  the  Reformation, — that  each  one 
should  read  the  Bible  and  judge  for  himself!  As  De  Haller 
says : 

"  An  edict  of  persecution  was  issued,  which  directed  that  images  should 
be  everywhere  broken  and  altars  demolished,  as  well  in  the  churches  as  in 
private  houses ;  that  priests  who  yet  said  Mass  should  be  everywhere  hunted 
ioton,  seized  on  whenever  they  could  be  caught,  and  put  in  prison  :  that 
every  one  who  spoke  badly  of  the  Bernese  authorities  should  be  treated  in 
like  manner ;  for,  says  Ruchat,  the  Catholics  of  the  canton  and  vicinity 
declaimed  horribly  against  them.  In  case  of  relapse,  the  priests  were  out- 
lawed and  delivered  up  to  public  vengeance  :  in  fine,  the  same  edict  decreed 
punishment  against  all  who  should  sustain  these  refractory  priests  (that  is, 
all  who  remained  faithful  to  the  ancient  religion),  or  who  afforded  them  an 
asylum.  A  third  edict  of  the  22d  December,  forbade  any  one  to  go  into 
the  neigboring  cantons  to  hear  Mass,  under  penalty  of  deprivation  for  those 
who  held  office,  and  of  arbitrary  punishment  for  private  individuals."* 

Was  ever  tyranny  and  persecution  carried  further  than 
this  ?  And  yet  this  is  but  one  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
Swiss  Reformation.      The    same    ferocious    intolerance  wae 


*  De  Haller,  p.  57-58. 


192  REFORMATION    IN   SWI'IZERLAND. 

witnessed  wherever  the  Reformation  made  its  appearance,  in 
the  once  peaceful  and  happy  land  of  William  Tell.  Did  our 
limits  permit,  we  might  prove  this  by  facts,  as  undeniable  as 
they  are  appalling.  Those  Catholic  priests  who  were  not 
willing  to  betray  their  religion,  or  to  sell  their  conscience  for 
a  mess  of  pottage,  were  everywhere  thrown  into  prison  or 
banished  the  country.  They  were  succeeded  by  preachers, 
many  of  them  fugitives  from  France  and  Germany,  and  most 
of  them  men  of  little  learning  and  less  piety,  remarkable  only 
for  a  certain  boldness  and  rude  popular  eloquence  or  decla- 
mation. Men  of  this  stamp,  who  had  suddenly,  and  often 
without  vocation  or  ordination,  intruded  themselves  into  the 
holy  ministry,  could  not  hope  to  win  or  secure  the  confidence 
of  the  people.  Accordingly,  we  find  the  following  candid 
avowal  on  the  subject,  in  a  confidential  letter  of  the  minister 
Capito  to  Farel,  written  as  late  as  1537.     He  says: 

"  The  authority  of  the  ministers  is  entirely  abolished  ;  all  is  lost,  all  goes 
to  ruin.  The  people  say  to  us  boldly  :  you  wish  to  make  yourselves  the 
tyrants  of  the  Church,  you  wish  to  establish  a  new  papacy.  God  makeu  me 
know  what  it  is  to  be  a  pastor,  and  the  wrong  we  have  done  tlie  Church  by  the 
lyrecipiiate  and  inconsiderate  vehemence  which  has  caused  us  to  reject  the  Pope. 
For  the  people,  accustomed  to  unbounded  freedom,  and  as  it  were  nourished 
by  it,  have  spurned  the  rein  altogether ;  they  cry  out  to  us :  we  know 
enough  of  the  gospel,  what  need  have  we  of  your  help  to  find  Jesus  Christ  ? 
Go  and  preach  to  those  who  wish  to  hear  you."* 

The  intolerance  of  the  Protestant  party  was  surpassed  only 
by  its  utter  inconsistency.  The  glorious  privileges  of  private 
judgment,  of  liberty  of  conscience  and  of  the  press,  were  for- 
ever on  their  lips ;  and  yet  they  recklessly  trampled  them  all 
under  their  feet !  Each  one  was  to  interpret  the  Bible  for 
himself,  and  yet  he  who  dared  interpret  it  difi'erently  from 
their  excellencies,  the  counsellors  of  Berne,  was  punished  as 
an  enemy  of  the  government !  The  counter  principle  of  a 
union  of  church  and  state,  was  even  openly  avowed  and  con- 


*  Epistola  ad  Farel.  inter  epist.  Oalvini,  p.  5;  quoted  by  De   llaller,  p. 
99,  note. 


CHURCH   AND  STATE.  193 

stantly  acted  on.  The  council  of  ministers,  held  at  Berne  in 
1532,  subscribed  a  confession  of  faith  drawn  up  by  Capito,  in 
which  the  following  remarkable  passages  are  found: 

"  The  ministers  acknowledge  that  it  is  not  possible  for  them  to  produce  any 
fruit  in  their  church,  unless  the  civil  magistrate  lend  his  assistance  to  advance 
the  good  ivarh  .  .  .  Every  Christian  magistrate  ought  in  the  exercise  of  his 
power,  to  be  the  lieutenant  and  minister  of  God,  and  to  maintain  among  his 
subjects  the  evangelical  doctrine  and  life,  so  far  at  least  as  it  is  exercised  out- 
wai'dly  and  is  practised  in  external  things*  ....  The  magistrates  should 
then  take  great  care  to  preserve  sound  doctrine  ;  to  prevent  error  and  seduc- 
tion, to  punish  blasphemy  and  all  outward  sins  affecting  religion  and  con- 
duct, to  protect  the  truth  and  good  morals."f 

This  forcibly  reminds  us  of  the  doctrines  of  the  nursing 
fathers^  so  much  spoken  of,  even  in  our  American  Presbyte- 
rian Confession  of  Faith.  As  some  additional  evidence  of  the 
love  which  the  Swiss  reformers  bore  to  the  liberty  of  the  press 
and  to  that  of  conscience,  read  the  two  following  extracts  from 
our  author : 

"  The  Bernese,  who  had  talked  so  much  about  the  liberty  of  conscience 
and  that  of  the  press  while  it  was  a  question  of  establishing  the  reform,  then 
sent  deputies  to  Bale  to  complain  of  the  libels  which  were  there  printed 
against  the  deputies  of  Berne,  and  they  demanded  that  silence  should  be  im- 
posed on  the  preachers  unfavorable  to  the  reform.  Thus  it  is  that  the  Pro- 
testants did  not  wish  to  allow  liberty  to  any  one,  so  soon  as  they  became 
the  masters.  The  Bernese  deputation  was,  however,  dismissed  from  Bnle 
without  having  attained  its  object."]; 

"  In  virtue  of  the  freedom  of  conscience,  the  triumphant  innovators  re- 
moved all  the  Catholic  counselors,  and  forbade  any  one  to  preach  against 
what  they  called  the  reform.  At  Bale,  in  particular,  the  nobility  were  driven 
away,  and  the  Catholic  clergy,  the  chapter,  and  even  the  professors  of  the 
university,  abandoned  forever  a  city  of  which  they  were  the  ornament  and 
the  glory,  and  which  owed  to  them  its  lustre  and  its  very  existence."} 

Those  who  are  guilty  of  the  unpardonable  crime  of  adhering 
tenaciously  and  fondly  to  the  time-honored  religion  of  their 
fathers,  were  not  the  only  ones  who  felt  the  smart  of  Protest- 
ant intolerance  in  Switzerland.     Brother   Protestants  were 

*  De  Haller,  p.  97.    He  quotes  Ruchat.  f  Ibid.  p.  100. 

t  Ibid.,  pp.  58-59.  \  Ibid.,  p.  64. 

VOL,   I. — 17 


194  REFORMATION    m   SWITZERLAND. 

also  persecuted,  if  they  bad  the  misfortune  to  believe  eilbei 
more  or  less  than  their  more  enlightened  brethren,  who  hap 
pened  to  be  orthodox  for  the  time  helng.  The  Anabaptists, 
in  particular,  were  hunted  down  with  a  ferocity  which  is  al- 
most inconceivable.  The  favorite  mode  of  punishing  them, 
especially  at  Berne,  was  by  drowning!  This  manner  of 
death  was  deemed  the  most  appropriate,  because  it  was  only 
baptizing  them  in  their  own  way  !*  The  rivers  and  lakes, 
which  abound  in  Switzerland,  often  received  the  dead  bodies 
of  these  poor  deluded  men.  Sometimes,  however,  this  mode 
of  punishment  was  dispensed  with  in  favor  of  others  less  re 
volting  to  humanity.     Says  De  Haller: 

"  Their  Excellencies  of  Berne,  not  being  able  to  convince  the  Anabaptists, 
found  it  much  more  simple  to  banish  them,  or  to  throw  them  into  the  water 
and  drown  them.  These  punishments  having,  however,  rather  increased 
their  number,  the  council  of  Berne,  being  embarrassed,  resorted  to  measures 
less  severe,  and  acting  under  the  advice  of  the  ministers,  published  on  the  2d 
of  March,  1533,  an  edict  announcing  that  the  Anabaptists  should  be  left  in 
peace,  if  they  would  keep  their  belief  to  themselves,  and  maintain  silence ; 
but  that  if  they  continued  to  preach  and  to  keep  up  a  separate  sect,  they 
should  not  be  any  longer  condemned  to  death,  but  only  to  pei-petiud  impris- 
onment on  BREAD  AND  WATER !  This  was  certainly  a  singular  favor.  Catho 
lies,  who  are  accused  of  so  much  intolerance,  had  never  molested  the  Zuin- 
glians  who  had  kept  their  faith  to  themselves,  and  even  when  these  openly 
preached  their  doctrines  fi-om  the  pulpit,  they  were  not  condemned  either  to 
death  or  to  perpetual  imprisonment  on  bread  and  water.f 

As  we  have  already  said,  the  progress  of  the  Swiss  Refor- 
mation was  everywhere  marked  by  intrigues,  popular  com- 
motions, mob  violence,  and  sacrilege.  So  it  was  at  Geneva, 
into  which  the  Reformation  was  introduced  in  the  year  1535, 
chiefly  again  through  the  intrigues  of  Berne.  It  was  not 
Calvin  who  established  the  Reformation  at  Geneva ;  he  only 
reaped  the  harvest  which  had  been  sown  by  others.  The 
fiery  Farel,  shielded  with  the  panoply  of  Bernese  protection 
and  acting  in  concert  with  Bernese  envoys,  had  already  suc- 
ceeded in   there  subverting,  to  a  great  extent,  the  ancient 

•  See  De  Haller,  pp.  39,  69,  et  alibi  passim.  f  Ibid,  pp.  153-154. 


THE   SWORD    AND   THE   BIBLE.  195 

faith.  And  by  what  means?  We  have  not  roon.  for  full 
details,  for  which  we  must  refer  our  readers  to  a  very  nterest- 
ing  chapter  in  De  Haller's  history.*  Suffice  it  to  say,  that 
the  whole  city  was  thrown  into  commotion ;  that  the  Catholic 
churches  were  violently  seized  upon,  after  having  been  first 
sacrilegiously  defaced  and  desecrated  in  the  hallowed  name 
of  religion ;  that  the  Catholic  clergy  were  hunted  down  and 
forced  to  fly  the  city ;  that  nearly  half  of  the  population  was 
compelled  to  emigrate,  in  order  to  secure  to  themselves  peace 
and  freedom  of  conscience;  that  even  after  they  had  emi- 
grated, their  property  was  confiscated  and  they  were  disfran- 
chised, in  punishment  of  their  having  dared  to  leave  the  city ; 
that  the  harmless  nuns  of  St.  Clare,  after  having  been  long 
harassed  and  insulted  by  the  mob,  were  also  compelled  to 
leave  their  home  and  seek  shelter  elsewhere ;  that  the  Catho- 
lic cliurch  property  was  seized  upon  by  the  reformed  party; 
that,  after  having  filled  the  whole  city,  and  especially  the 
churches,  with  the  "abomination  of  desolation,"  Farel  and 
his  pious  associates  were  able  to  assemble  congregations  and 
to  preach,  in  only  two  out  of  the  many  Genevan  churches  of 
which  they  had  obtained  possession ;  that  even  in  these  they 
o^^'ten  preached  to  empty  benches,  so  great  was  the  horror 
which  all  these  multiplied  sacrileges  inspired  in  the  popular 
mind;  and  that,  finally,  the  Reformation  was  established  in 
Geneva  by  the  great  council,  and  afterwards  by  the  swords 
and  bayonets  of  the  Bernese  army,  which  entered  the  city 
in  1536 ! 

Such  were  the  first  fruits  of  the  Reformation  in  Geneva. 
In  the  canton  of  Vaud,  which  was  invaded  and  subdued  by 
the  Bernese  army  in  the  same  year,  the  proceedings  were,  if 
possible,  still  more  violent,  and  the  policy  still  more  truculent. 
Wheresoever  the  Bernese  army  marched,  there  the  Reforma- 
tion was  established  by  force  of  arms.  The  Bernese  bore  the 
sword  in  one  hand  and  the  Bible  in  the  other;  and  they 


*  De  Haller,  chap.  xvi. 


196  REFORMATION    IN    SWITZERLAND. 

established  the  new  gospel  in  Yaud  pretty  much  after  the 
Mohammedan  fashion  of  proselytism ! 

De  Haller  proves  all  this  by  an  array  of  evidence,  which 
can  neither  be  gainsaid  nor  resisted.*  He  proves  it  from  the 
testimony  of  Ruchat,  Mallet,  Spon,  and  other  Protestant 
historians.  He  furnishes  facts,  with  names,  dates,  and 
specifications ;/«(??'«  as  clear  as  the  noonday  sun  \  facts  which 
we  challenge  any  one  to  deny  or  contravene.  And  we  ask, 
whether  it  be  at  all  likely  that  a  Reformation  effected  by  such 
means,  was,  or  could  possibly  have  been,  the  work  of  God  ? 
Could  God  have  chosen  such  instruments  and  such  means  to 
effect  His  work?  Could  He  smile  on  commotions,  on  riots, 
on  robbery,  on  impurity,  on  broken  vows,  on  sacrilege? 
Gracious  heavens !  How  much  do  those  delude  themselves, 
who  still  cling  to  the  belief  that  the  Reformation  was  the 
work  of  God  !  Well  may  we  address  to  them,  and  to  all  wlio 
may  chance  to  read  these  pages,  the  emphatic  words  of  St. 
Augustine  prefixed  to  the  title-page  of  De  Haller's  work: 
"  Let  those  hear  who  have  not  fallen,  lest  they  fall ;  let  those 
hear  who  have  fallen,  that  they  may  rise  !  "f 

If  it  be  alleged,  that  the  Catholics  too  sometimes  resorted  to 
violence  and  appealed  to  the  sword ;  we  answer  that  they  did 
so,  almost  without  an  exception,  only  in  necessary  self-defense. 
Their  forbearance,  amidst  all  the  terrible  outrages  which  we 
have  briefly  enumerated,  was  indeed  wonderful.  If  they  some- 
times repelled  force  by  force ;  if  they  flew  to  arms  more  than 
once  in  their  own  defense,  it  was  surely  competent  for  them 
to  do  so.  Their  lives  were  threatened,  their  property  was 
mvaded,  their  altars  were  desecrated;  and  surely,  when  con- 
siderations such  as  these  urged  them  to  buckle  on  their  good 
swords,  they  were  not  only  excusable,  but  they  would  have 
been  arrant  cowards  had  they  failed  to  do  so.     And  no  one 

*  See  De  Haller,  p.  271  seqq.  and  321  seqq. 

f  Audiant  qui  n  a  ceciderunt,  ne  cadant;  audiant  qui  ceciderunt,  ut 
surgant. 


TOUCHING    ANECDOTE.  197 

has  ever  yet  dared  to  taunt  with  cowardice  the  brave  moun 
taineers  of  Lucerne,  Schwitz,  Uri,  Unterwald,  and  Zug,  who 
inherit  the  faith,  the  country,  and  the  unconquerable  spirit 
of  William  Tell.  The  recent  occurrences  in  Switzerland 
prove  tliat  this  spirit  has  not  flagged  in  the  lapse  of  centuries, 
that  Catholicity  is  not  incompatible  with  bravery;  and  that 
soldiers  who  pray,  both  before  and  after  battle,  are  under  the 
special  protection  of  the  great  God  of  battles ;  though  He,  for 
His  own  wise  and  inscrutable  purposes,  may  permit  them 
sometimes  to  be  overwhelmed  by  superior  numbers. 

But  whoever  will  read  De  Haller's  history  nmst  be  con- 
vinced, that  the  Swiss  Catholics  were  much  more  forbearing 
and  tolerant  than  the  Swiss  Protestants.  The  former,  in 
general,  allowed  the  latter  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion 
in  places  where  these  were  in  the  minority;  whereas  there 
are,  indeed,  but  few  instances  on  record,  where  the  latter 
accorded  the  same  privilege  to  the  former  under  similar  cir- 
cumstances. Did  our  limits  permit,  we  might  go  fully  into 
the  comparison,  and  prove  the  accuracy  of  our  remark  by 
undeniable  evidence.  But  we  must  be  content  with  a  mar- 
ginal reference, *and  with  the  following  touching  anecdote,  the 
scene  of  which  is  laid  in  the  city  of  Soleure. 

The  Protestant  party  had  sought  to  gain  the  ascendency  in 
this  place,  by  entirely  overthrowing  the  Catholic  religion. 
For  this  purpose  they  seized  upon  the  moment  when  nearly 
all  the  members  of  the  council  were  absent,  for  entering  into 
a  conspiracy  to  take  possession  of  "  the  arsenal  and  of  the 
Franciscan  church,  to  surprise  the  priests  in  their  beds,and  to 
massacre  all  the  Catholics  in  case  of  resistance."!  The  con- 
spiracy was,  however,  discovered  to  the  avoyei\  or  chief  mag- 
istrate, left  in  charge  of  the  city — Nicholas  de  Wengi ;  and 
he  took  every  prudent  precaution  against  the  meditated 
attack.  On  the  30th  day  of  October,  1533,  at  one  hour  after 
midnight,  the  conspirators  rushed   to  the  assault;  but  they 

*  De  Haller,  pp.  72,  150  note,  156,  272,  etc.  f  Ibid.,  p.  157. 

13 


198  REFORMATION    IN   SWITZERLAND. 

were  amazed  to  find  nearly  half  the  city  turned  o.it  ready  tu 
receive  them,  and  to  defend  themselves  to  the  last  extremity. 
After  a  sharp  encounter,  in  which  the  arsenal  was  succes* 
sively  taken  and  retaken,  without,  however,  any  effusion  of 
blood,  the  conspirators  were  finally  driven  off.  But,  though 
beaten,  these  had  not  yet  given  up  the  contest.  They  retired 
beyond  the  bridge,  and  having  intrenched  themselves,  began 
to  insult  the  Catholics.  Indignant,  the  latter  rushed  to  the 
arsenal,  brought  a  cannon  to  bear  upon  the  Protestant  in- 
trenchment,  and  fired  one  shot,  but  without  effect.  Just  as 
they  were  preparing  to  fire  another,  the  venerable  avoyer 
Wengi  rushed,  out  of  breath,  before  the  cannon's  mouth,  and 
exclaimed:  "Beloved  and  pious  fellow-citizens,  if  you  wish 
to  fire  against  the  other  side,  I  will  be  your  first  victim;  con- 
sider better  the  state  of  things."*  His  interposition  was 
effectual ;  calm  was  restored ;  and  the  insurgents  left  the  city. 

We  conclude  this  chapter,  already  long  enough,  by 
glancing  rapidly  at  the  war  of  Cappell  in  1531,  the  first  great 
religious  war  that  ever  was  waged  in  Switzerland.!  And  we 
do  this  the  more  willingly,  because  it  seems  to  us  that  there 
is  a  striking  parallelism  between  this  first  and  the  last  relig- 
ious war  to  which  we  have  already  alluded.  In  both,  the 
Catholics  acted  strictly  on  the  defensive ;  in  both.  Lucerne  was 
at  the  head  of  the  Catholic  party,  in  both,  the  genuine  chil- 
dren of  Tell  proved  themselves  worthy  of  him,  of  their  ances- 
tral glory,  of  their  country.  There  is,  however,  this  important 
diflerence  in  the  two  wars,  that  whereas  in  the  first  the  Catho- 
lics were  triumphant,  in  the  last,  after  having  performed  prodi- 
gies of  valor,  they  were   finally  overwhelmed  by  main  force. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1581,  the  Protestant  cantons, 
and  especially  Zurich,  flagrantly  violated  the  treaty  concluded 
in  1529,  by  which  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  cantons  had 


*  Ue  Haller,  p.  159. 

f  There  had  been  some  troubles  in  1529,  which  were,  however,  settled 
without  much  effusion  of  blood. 


THE   WAR    OF    CAPPELL.  199 

mutually  promised  not  to  molest  or  interfere  with  one  an- 
other on  account  of  religion.  After  having  fomented  troubles 
in  various  districts  partly  under  the'  control  of  the  Catholic 
cantons,  Zurich  at  length  openly  invaded  the  territory  of  St. 
Gall,  and  issued  a  decree  forbidding  the  five  neighboring 
Catholic  cantons  to  trade  with  her  subjects  in  corn  and  salt. 
The  object  of  this  embargo  was,  to  cut  off  from  the  Catholic 
mountaineers  the  supplies  which  they  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  deriving  by  commerce  from  those  living  in  the  plains,  and 
thereby  to  starve  them  into  acquiescence  in  the  glorious  work 
of  the  Reformation !  Zuingle  and  the  preachers  openly  clam- 
ored for  the  blood  of  the  Catholics,  in  their  public  harangues 
in  Zurich.  Here  is  an  extract  from  one  of  the  great  Swiss 
reformer's  sermons,  delivered  on  the  21st  September,  1531: 

"  Rise  up,  attack ;  the  five  cantons  are  in  your  power.  I  will  march  at 
the  head  of  your  ranks,  and  the  nearest  to  the  enemy.  Then  you  will  feel 
the  power  of  God,  for  when  I  shall  harangue  them  with  the  truth  of  the 
word  of  God,  and  shall  say  :  whom  seek  you,  0  ye  impious !  then,  seized 
with  terror  and  with  panic,  they  will  not  be  able  to  answer,  but  they  will 
fall  back,  and  will  take  to  flight,  like  the  Jews  on  the  mountain  of  Olives  at 
the  word  of  Christ.  You  will  see  that  the  artillery  which  they  will  direct 
against  us,  will  turn  against  themselves,  and  will  destroy  them.  Their 
pikes,  their  halberds,  and  their  other  arras,  shall  not  hurt  you,  but  will  hurt 
them."* 

This  discourse  was  printed  and  circulated ;  but  alas  for  the 
prophetic  faculty  of  the  reformer!  The  event  falsified  his 
prediction  in  every  particular.  And,  as  Zuingle  himself 
marked  the  preparations  the  five  cantons  were  making  for 
the  coming  struggle,  even  his  own  heart  ftiiled  him  ;  and  the 
lately  inspired  prophet  of  God  dwindled  down  into  a  miser- 
able poltroon,  overcome  by  terror,  and  pretending  .to  have 
had  strange  presentiments,  and  observed  strange  signs  in  the 
heavens !  Nevertheless,  the  Zurichers  compelled  him  to  march 
at  tneir  head  to  the  village  of  Cappell,  near  the  confines  of 
the  hostile  cantons. 


*  Quoted  by  De  Haller,  pp.  78,  79,  note. 


200  REFORMATION    IN    SWITZERLAND. 

Here  the  two  armies  encountered  ;  but  fiery  and  fanatical 
as  were  the  Zuinglians,  they  could  not  withstand  the  impetu- 
ous charge  of  the  brave  Swiss  mountaineers.  These  carried 
every  thing  before  them.  The  Zurichers  took  to  flight  in 
great  disorder,  with  the  loss  of  "nineteen  cannon,  four  stands 
of  colors,  all  their  baggage,  and  of  at  least  fifteen  hundred 
men,  among  whom  were  twenty-seven  magistrates,  and  fif 
TEEN  PKEACHEKS."*  Zuiuglc,  the  apostlc  of  Switzerland,  fell, 
sword  in  hand,  fighting  the  battles  of  the  Lord,  as  never 
apostle  had  fought  them  before  ! 

The  Zurichers,  however,  recovered  from  their  fright  in  a 
few  days,  and  on  the  21st  of  October,f  "  having  been  rein- 
forced by  their  allies  of  Saint  Gall,  of  Toggenburg,  of  Tliur 
gavia,  and  even  of  the  Grisons,  of  Berne,  of  Bale,  and  of 
Soleure,  they  again  attacked  the  Catholics  with  very  superioi 
forces  ;  but  they  were  a  second  time  defeated  at  the  mountain 
of  Zug,  and  took  to  flight  in  disorder,  abandoning  their  artil 
lery,  their  money,  and  their  baggage."J 

The  Catholic  army  now  marched  in  triumph  almost  to  the 
very  walls  of  Zurich,  after  having  a  third  time  defeated  the 
Zurichers,  and  driven  them  from  their  position.^  The  Zuing- 
lians, thus  humbled  by  defeat,  were  now  disposed  to  accede 
to  the  terms  of  peace  proposed  by  the  Catholic  cantons.  The 
treaty  bound  the  Zurichers  "  to  leave  the  five  cantons,  with 
their  allies  and  adherents,  from  the  present  to  all  future  time, 
in  peaceable  possession  of  their  anGient^  true^  and  undoubted 
Christian  faitJi.^  without  molesting  or  importuning  them  with 
disputes  or  chicanery,  and  renouncing  all  evil  intentions, 
stratagems,  and  finesse ;  and  that,  on  their  side,  the  five  can- 
tons would  leave  the  Zurichers  and  their  adherents  free  in 
their  belief;  that  in  the  common  districts,  of  which  the  can- 
tons were  co-sovereigns,  the  parishes  which  had  embraced  the 


*  Quoted  by  De  Haller,  pp.  79,  80. 

f  The  battle  of  Cappell  was  fought  on  the  11th  of  October. 

t  De  Haller,  p.  81.  \  Ibid.,  p.  83. 


TWO    PARALLEL    DEVELOPMExNTS.  20] 

aew  faith,  might  retain  it  if  it  suited  them,  that  those  which 
had  not  yet  renounced  the  ancient  faith  would  also  be  free  to 
retain  it,  and  that,  in  fine,  those  who  should  wish  to  return  to 
the  true  and  ancient  Ghi'lstlan  faith  would  have  the  right 
to  do  80."*  The  Zurichers  further  bound  themselves  to  pay 
or  rather  to  restore  to  the  five  cantons,  the  money  which  the 
latter  had  expended  in  the  difiiculties  of  1529 ;  and  to  replace, 
at  their  own  expense,  the  ornaments  destroyed  or  forcibly 
taken  from  the  difierent  churches  during  the  preceding  years. 
Thus  terminated  the  war  of  Cappell.  It  left  the  Catliolics 
in  the  ascendant,  and  contributed  more  than  any  thing  else 
to  check  the  headlong  progress  of  the  Swiss  Reformation. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

REACTION    OF    CATHOLICITY    AND    DECLINE    OP 
PROTESTANTISM. 

l.Vo  parallel  developments — The  brave  old  ship — Modern  Protestantism 
quite  powerless — A  "thorough  godly  reformation"  needed — Qualities  for 
a  reformer — The  three  days'  battle — The  puzzle — A  thing  doomed — 
Which  gained  the  victory  ? — The  French  revolution — Ranke  and  Hallam 
— The  rush  of  waters  stayed — Persecution — Protestant  spice — The  Coun- 
cil of  Trent — Revival  of  piety — The  Jesuits — Leading  causes  and  practical 
results — Decline  of  Protestantism — Apt  comparison — What  stemmed  the 
current? — Thread  of  Ariadne — Divine  Providence — Reaction. of  Catholi- 
city— Casaubon  and  Grotius — Why  they  were  not  converted — Ancient 
and  modern  Puseyism — Justus  Lipsius  and  Cassander — The  inference — 
Splendid  passage  of  Macaulay — Catholicity  and  enlightenment — The 
Church  indestructible — General  gravitation  to  Rome — The  circle  and  its 
center. 

No  fact  in  the  entire  history  of  the  Reformation  is  perhaps 
more  remarkable,  than  that  which  is  presented  by  the  speedy 
decline  of  Protestantism,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  no  lese 

*  De  Haller,  p.  85. 


202  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

rapid  reaction  of  Catholicity  on  the  other.  A  rapid  glance  at 
the  history  of  these  opposite  developments  of  the  two  systems 
of  religion  will  throw  much  additional  light  on  their  respect- 
ive characters,  and  will  serve  to  explain  to  us  still  more  fully 
what  w^e  have  been  endeavoring  thus .  far  to  elucidate ;  the 
character,  causes,  and  manner  of  the  Reformation.  It  is  in 
accordance  with  a  divine  maxim,  to  judge  the  tree  by  its 
fruits ;  and  we  propose,  in  the  present  chapter,  to  make  a 
general  application  of  this  rule ;  reserving,  however,  more 
special  details  on  the  subject  to  those  which  will  follow. 

The  Reformation  swept  over  the  world  like  a  violent  storm : 
and  it  left  as  many  ruins  in  its  course.  It  threatened  to  over- 
turn every  thing,  and  bear  down  all  things  in  its  impetuous 
course.  So  rapid  was  its  work  of  destruction,  that  its  admirers 
and  partisans  confidently  predicted  th6  speedy  downfall  of 
the  old  religion,  and  the  triumphant  establishment  of  the  new 
ones  on  its  ruins.  Even  many  of  those  w^io  remained  stead- 
fast in  the  ancient  faith,  though  firmly  relying  on  the  solemn 
promises  of  Christ,  yet  trembled  not  a  little  for  the  safety  of 
the  Church.  Jesus  seemed  to  be  asleep,  while  the  tempest 
was  so  furiously  raging  on  the  sea  of  the  world ;  and  His  dis- 
ciples, who  were  in  the  good  old  ship  of  the  Church  tossed  on 
the  waves, like  their  prototypes  of  the  gospel,  "came  to  him, 
and  awaked  him,  saying:  'Lord  save  us,  we  perish.'  And 
Jesus  said  to  them  :  '  Why  are  ye  fearful,  O  ye  of  little  faith?' 
Then  rising  up  He  commanded  the  winds  and  the  sea,  and 
there  came  a  great  calm."* 

Such  was  precisely  the  phenomenon  presented  by  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Soon  the  storm 
of  the  Reformation  had  spent  its  fury,  and  settled  down  into 
"  a  great  calm ; "  the  calm  of  indifierentism  and  infidelity  on  the 
lately  troubled  sea  of  Protestantism,  and  of  peace  and  security 
on  the  broad  ocean  of  Catholicism.  When  men's  minds  had 
had  time  to  recover  from  the  excitement  produced  by  the  first 

*  St.  Matthew,  viii :   24-26. 


REACTION    AND    DECLINE.  20^ 

movements  of  the  Keformation,  they  were  enabled  to  estimate 
more  justly  the  motives  and  causes  of  this  revolution.  Tlie 
result  was,  that  many  enlightened  Protestants  returned  to  the 
bosom  of  the  Catholic  Chih-ch ;  while  others,  gifted  with  less 
grace,  or  indued  with  less  moral  courage,  plunged  madly  into 
the  vortex  of  infidelity.  Thus  Catholicity,  far  from  being  ex- 
tinguished, was,  by  a  powerful  reaction,  speedily  reinstated 
in  its  former  position  of  impregnable  strength ;  while  its  ene- 
mies, so  lately  boasting  of  their  victory,  were  weakened  by 
division  and  soon  dwindled  away. 

Like  the  sturdy  oak  of  the  forest,  which,  instead  of  being 
thrown  down  by  the  storm,  vanquishes  its  fury,  and  even 
sends  its  roots  further  into  the  earth  in  consequence  of  the  agi- 
tation of  its  branches  ;  so  also  the  tree  of  the  Church,  planted 
by  Christ  and  watered  with  His  blood  and  that  of  his  count- 
less martyrs,  successfully  resisted  the  violence  of  the  storm  of 
Protestantism,  and  became,  in  consequence  of  it,  more  firmly 
and  solidly  fixed  in  the  soil  of  the  world — more  strongly 
"rooted  and  founded  in  charity."* 

Nothing  is  more  certain  in  all  history  than  this  wonderful 
two-fold  development.  Even  D'Aubigne,  surely  an  unexcep- 
tionable witness,  admits  its  entire  truth,  however  he  may  seek 
to  disguise  it  by  the  thin  mantle  of  sophistry.  Speaking  of  the 
decline  of  modern  Protestantism,  he  employs  this  emphatic  lan- 
guage. "But  modern  Protestantism,  like  old  Catholicism (!), 
is,  in  itself,  a  thing  from  which  nothing  can  be  hoped — a 
thing  quite  powerless.  Something  very  difierent  is  necessary  to 
restore  to  men  of  our  day  the  energy  which  saves."t — So  that, 
the  experiment  of  Protestantism,  notwithstanding  all  the  noise 
it  has  made  in  the  world,  and  all  its  loud  boasting  about  hav- 
ing destroyed  superstition  and  enlightened  mankind,  has  still 
turned  out  a  complete  failure,  even  according  to  the  explicit 
avowal  of  its  most  unscrupulous  advocate  !  It  has  been  en 
lightening  and  saving  the  world  now  for  full  three  hundred 

*  Ephesians,  iii :  17.  f  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i.    Preface,  p.  ix. 


2Ui  REFORMATION    IN   GERMANY. 

years ;  and  in  the  end  it  has  lost  itself,  and  become  "a  thing 
quite  powerless,  from  which  nothing  can  be  hoped ! " 

A  new  Reformation  is  now  necessary  to  reform  the  old  one, 
and  to  impart  to  it  "  the  energy  which  saves."  D'Aubigne, 
we  presume,  is  to  be  the  father  of  this  new  "thorough-godly" 
Reformation.  We  wish  him  joy  of  his  new  apostleship,  and 
liope  he  may  succeed  better  than  his  predecessors.  lie  has, 
we  humbly  think,  all  the  qualities  requisite  for  a  reformer, 
according  to  the  approved  type  of  the  sixteenth  century :  a 
smattering  of  learning,  a  sanctimonious  air,  in  which  he 
greatly  excels  some  of  his  predecessors,  a  skill  in  sophistry, — 
which  has,  however,  the  admirable  simplicity  of  not  being 
always  even  specious  ;  and,  to  crown  all,  an  utter  recklessness 
of  truth. 

We  will  here  give  a  passage  from  his  pages,  which  has  the 
double  merit  of  exhibiting  the  gist  of  his  theory  on  our  pres- 
ent subject,  and  of  being  a  perfect  curiosity  of  its  kind.  It  is 
an  attempt  to  answer  a  writer  of  the  Port  Royal,*  who  had 
compared  the  religious  struggle  of  the  last  three  centuries  to 
a  battle  of  three  days'  duration ;  and  who  had  accumulated 
evidence  to  prove  that  the  infidel  philosophers  of  France,  who 
brought  about  the  French  revolution,  had  but  carried  out  the 
principles  broached  by  the  reformers.  Our  author  "willingly 
adopts  the  comparison,  but  not  the  part  that  is  allotted  to 
each  of  these  days."  He  politely  declines  receiving  the  well 
deserved  compliment,  which  the  Frenchman  was  paying  him 
with  his  most  gracious  bow.    He  says: 

"  No,  each  of  those  days  had  its  marked  and  pecuhar  characteristic.  On 
the  first,  (the  sixteenth  century)  the  word  of  God  triumphed,  and  Rome  was 
defeated ;  and  philosophy,  in  the  person  of  Erasmus,  shared  in  the  defeat. 
On  the  second  (the  seventeenth  century),  we  admit  that  Rome,  her  author- 
ity, her  discipline,  and  her  doctrine,  are  again  seen  on  the  point  of  obtaining 
the  victory,  through  the  intrigues  of  a  llvr-famed  society  (the  Jesuits),  and 
the  power  of  the  scaffold,  aided  by  certain  leaders  of  eminent  character,  and 
others  of  lofty  genius.     The  third  day  (the  eighteenth  century),  human  phi- 

*  Port  Royal,  par  Sainte   Beuve,  vol.  i,  p.  20. 


THE   THREE   DAYS'    BATTLE.  205 

losophy  arises  in  all  its  pride,  and  finding  the  battle  field  occupied,  not  by 
the  gospel,  but  by  Rome,  it  quickly  storms  every  intrenchment,  and  gains 
an  easy  conquest.  The  first  day's  battle  was  for  God,  the  second  for  the 
priest,  and  the  third  for  reason — what  shall  the  fourth  be  ?  "* 

Aye,  that's  the  puzzle !  He  piously  hopes  that  it  will  he 
for  "the  triumph  of  Him  to  whom  triumph  belongs;"!  that  is, 
for  his  own  new  system  of  reformation,  which  is  to  be  but  the 
"reappearance''  of  the  old.  But  this  is  manifestly  hoping 
against  all  hope  ;  for  modern  Protestantism,  he  confesses,  is  "a 
powerless  thhigP  It  has  settled  down  into  indifference  and 
an  almost  mortal  lethargy,  in  all  those  countries  where  it  was 
first  established,  and  where  the  progress  of  enl"ghtenment  has 
laid  bare  to  the  world  its  endless  vagaries  and  ever  growing 
inconsistencies — its  hopeless  powerlessness.  Its  tendency  is 
necessarily  downward ;  it  bears  in  its  own  bosom  the  seeds 
of  death ;  it  must  share  the  fate  of  all  other  merely  human 
institutions,  and  must  afford  another  verification  of  our  blessed 
Saviour's  prophetic  declaration:  "Every  plant  which  my 
heavenly  Father  hath  not  planted,  shall  be  rooted  up."J  No 
human  eloquence  nor  effort  can  prevent  it  from  meeting  this 
doom,  the  seal  of  which  is  already,  in  fact,  branded  on  its 
forehead,  D'Aubigne  himself  being  our  witness ! 

It  is  needless  for  us  to  dwell  long  in  the  examination  of  this 
pretty  theory  about  the  "  three  days'  battle."  The  triumph 
which  he  ascribes  to  the  Reformation  on  the  first  day  was  not 
real ;  it  was  scarcely  even  apparent.  Notwithstanding  the 
premature  shouts  of  victory  raised  by  the  reformed  party,  the 
old  Church  still  retained  a  vast  ascendency  in  point  of  num- 
bers, of  extension,  and  also,  as  we  hope  to  prove  in  the  sequel, 
of  intelligence.  In  compensation  for  her  losses  on  the  battle 
field  of  Europe,  she  gained  great  accessions  to  her  numbers 
in  the  East  Indies,  in  Asia,  and  in  the  new  world,  which  her 
navigators  had  discovered  and  her  missionaries  had  converted. 
When  a  portion  of  Europe  spurned  her  voice,  she  "  turned  to 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  304.  f  Ibid.  \  St.  Matthew,  xv :  13. 


20G  REFORMATION    IN    GERiMANY. 

the  Gentiles,"  and  waved  the  banner  of  her  cross  in  triumph 
over  new  worlds.  She  certainly  then  clearly  gained  the  ad- 
vantage, even  in  the  first  day's  battle. 

In  the  second,  she  was  avowedly  in  the  ascendant.  During 
it,  she,  to  a  great  extent,  retrieved  her  losses,  even  in  Europe 
itself.  Of  course,  all  the  talk  about  "  the  intrigues  of  a  far 
famed  society  and  the  power  of  the  scaffold,"  is  mere  palaver. 
We  shall  soon  prove  it  to  be  little  better,  on  unquestionable 
Protestant  authority.  As  to  the  scaffold,  we  hope  to  show 
hereafter,*  by  a  mass  of  evidence  which  can  not  be  answered, 
that  it  was  much  more  frequently  erected  by  those  who  raised 
the  clamor  for  the  emancipation  of  thought,  than  by  those 
who  continued  to  abide  quietly  in  the  old  Church. 

In  the  third  day's  battle.  Catholicity  again  triumphed.  Tlie 
French  revolution  was,  in  fact,  but  the  "reappearance"  of 
the  "great  Reformation,"  in  another  and  more  terrific  shape. 
The  French  infidels  made  at  least  as  much  noise  about  liberty 
of  thought,  and  they  inveighed  as  fiercely  against  the  corrup- 
tions of  the  Catholic  Church,  as  had  been  done  by  the  re- 
formers two  and  a  half  centuries  before.  The  former  did 
little  more,  in  fact,  than  catch  up  the  Babel-like  sounds  of  the 
latter,  and  re-echo  them,  in  a  voice  of  thunder,  throughout 
Europe.  But  this  mere  human  thunder  was  finally  drowned 
by  the  divine  thunder  of  the  Vatican !  Rome  conquered  the 
refractory  daughter,  as  she  had  conquered  the  refractory 
mother.  If  she  alone  "occupied  the  battle  field,"  it  was 
because  the  Protestants  had  retired  from  it ;  had  ingloriously 
fled,  and  left  Christianity  to  its  fate,  during  the  continuance 
of  this  its  fiercest  struggle  with  infidelity !  Did  Protestants 
win  even  one  laurel  in  that  ensanguined  battle  field  ?  Can 
they  count  even  one  martyr  who  fell  a  victim  in  that  bloody 
effort  to  put  down  Christianity?  The  Catholic  clergy  were 
massacred  in  hundreds ;    they  poured  out  their  blood  like 

*  In  Chapter  xii,  "On  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  on  Religious 
Liiberty." 


RANKE   AND    HALLAM.  201 

watei,  for  the  defense  of  religion.  Did  the  French  infidela 
attack  Protestants  ?  If  they  did  not — and  they  certainly  did 
not  —  then  how  are  we  to  explain  this  singular  phenomenon, 
but  on  the  principle  of  a  sympathetic  feeling?  Men  seldom 
go  to  battle  agamst  their  secret  or  open  friends  and  allies!     • 

To  show  the  rapid  decline  of  Protestantism,  after  the  first 
fifty  years  of  its  violent  existence ;  and  to  unfold  the  parallel 
reaction  of  Catholicism,  we  had  intended  to  present  a  rapid 
analysis  of  what  a  famous  living  Protestant  writer  of  Ger- 
many— Leopold  Ranke — has  abundantly  proved  on  the  subject, 
in  his  late  "History  of  the  Papacy  during  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries."*  But  Henry  Hallam,  another  eminent 
Protestant  writer  of  great  research  and  authority,  has  antici- 
pated us  in  our  labor.  In  his  Introduction  to  the  History  of 
Literature,  already  quoted,  he  follows  Ranke,  and  presents 
every  thing  of  consequence,  bearing  on  our  present  subject, 
which  the  eminent  German  historian  had  more  fully  exhibited, 
as  the  result  of  much  patient  labor  and  research.  Hallam 
also  adds  to  the  recital  many  things  of  his  own.  His  work 
has  thus  greatly  abridged  our  labor,  and  we  shall  do  little 
more  than  cull  from  its  pages,  and  put  into  order,  what  may 
best  serve  to  elucidate  the  matter  in  hand.  We  presume  that 
no  impartial  man  will  question  our  authorities. 

The  decline  of  Protestantism,  and  the  reaction  of  Catholi- 
cism were  intimately  connected:  they  went  hand  in  hand. 
The  same  causes  that  explain  the  one,  will  in  a  great  measure 
account  for  the  other ;  with  perhaps  this  exception,  that  Prot- 
estantism, like  a,ll  other  merely  human  institutions,  carried 
within  its  own  bosom  an  intrinsic  principle  of  dissolution; 
whereas  Catholicity,  on  the  other  hand,  had  within  itself, 
strongly  developed,  the  principle  of  vitality  and  of  perma- 
nency. These  two  opposite  characteristics  are,  in  fact,  emi- 
nently distinctive  of  the  two  systems. 

*  "  Histoire  de  la  Papaute  pendant  les  xvi  et  xvii  siecles."  Traduite  de 
I'Allemand  par  M  J.  B.  Haiber.     4  vols.  8v'0.     A  Paris,  1838. 


208  REFORMATION    IN    GKRMANY. 

According  to  Hallam,  Protestantism  began  to  decline,  and 
Catholicity  to  gain  ground,  shortly  after  the  middle  of  the 
sixtecinth  century.  The  immediate  disciples  of  the  reformers, 
after  the  death  of  the  latter,  soon  lost  the  fierce  and  warlike 
spirit  originally  manifested  by  those  who  had  reared  the  ban- 
ner of  revolt  against  Rome.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  first  on- 
slaught speedily  died  away,  and  the  principle  of  hatred,  which 
had  originated  the  Reformation,  was  gradually  weakened.  A 
counter  principle  of  love — the  very  essence  of  Christianity 
and  of  God  himself — gradually  gained  the  ascendant  even  in 
the  bosom  of  many  among  those  who,  in  a  moment  of  fierce 
excitement,  had  been  temporarily  estranged  from  the  Catho- 
lic Church.  The  consequence  was,  that  vast  bodies  of  Prot- 
estants re-entered  its  pale. 

Both  Ranke  and  Hallam  bear  evidence  to  the  truth  of 
these  remarks.     The  latter  says  : 

"  This  prodigious  increase  of  the  Protestant  party  in  Europe  after  the 
middle  of  the  century  (xvi)  did  not  continue  more  than  a  few  years.  It 
was  checked  and  fell  back,  not  quite  so  rapidly  or  completelj'  as  it  came  on, 
but  so  as  to  leave  the  antagonist  Church  in  perfect  security."  After  a  te- 
dious apology  for  entering  on  this  subject  in  a  history  of  literature,  he  pro- 
poses "  to  dwell  a  little  on  the  leading  causes  of  this  retrograde  movement 
of  Protestantism ;  a  fiict,"  he  continues,  "  as  deserving  of  explanation  as  the 
previous  excitement  of  the  Reformation  itself,  though  from  its  more  nega- 
tive character,  it  has  not  drawn  so  much  of  the  attention  of  mankind. 
Those  who  tehold  the  outbreaking  of  great  revolutions  in  civil  society  or  in 
religion,  will  not  easily  believe  that  the  rush  of  waters  can  be  stayed  in  its 
course  ;  that  a  pause  of  inditference  may  come  on,  perhaps  very  suddenl}', 
or  a  reaction  bring  back  nearly  the  same  prejudices  and  passions  (!)  as  those 
which  men  had  renounced.  Yet  this  has  occurred  not  very  rarely  in  the 
annals  of  mankind,  and  never  on  a  larger  scale  than  in  the  history  of  the 
Reformation  !"* 

He  then  proceeds  to  assign  some  of  the  leading  causes 
which,  according  to  his  view,  "stayed  the  rush  of  waters"  of 
the  revolution,  called  by  courtesy  the  Reformation.  After 
speaking  of  the  stern  policy  of  Philip  H.  of  Spain,  and  as- 

*  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Literature,  etc.,  sup.  cit.  vol.  i,  p.  272. 


REACTION COUNCIL    OF    TRENT.  209 

signing  undue  prominence  to  the  inquisition,  "wliieh  soon 
extirpated  the  remains  of  heresy  in  Italy  and  Spain" — into 
which  countries  Protestantism  never  penetrated,  at  least  to 
any  extent,  and  therefore  could  not  be  "  extirpated" — he  next 
alludes  to  the  civil  wars  in  France  between  the  Huguenots 
and  the  Catholics,  and  then  conies  down  to  Germany.  "  But 
in  Bavaria,  Albert  V.,  with  whom,  about  1564,  this  reaction 
began ;  in  the  Austrian  dominions,  Rodolph  II. ;  in  Poland, 
Sigismund  III.;  by  shutting  up  churches,  and  by  discoun- 
tenancing in  all  respects  their  Protestant  subjects,  contrived 
to  change  a  party  once  powerful,  into  an  oppressed  sect."* 

We  hate  persecution,  no  matter  what  is  made  the  pretext 
for  its  exercise;  but  every  candid  man  must  allow  that,  in 
resorting  to  these  measures  of  severity,  the  German  Catholic 
princes  did  but  repay  their  Protestant  subjects  in  their  own 
coin.  If  they  took  from  them  their  churches,  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  those  same  churches  were  originally 
erected  by  Catholics,  to  whom  they  rightfully  belonged,  and 
that,  in  the  first  effervescence  of  the  Reformation,  they  had 
been  seized  on  violently  by  the  Protestant  party.  They  did 
but  take  back  by  law,  what  had  been  wrested  from  the  right- 
ful owners  by  lawless  violence,  and  what  would  not  have 
been  otherwise  surrendered.  If  "  they  discountenanced  their 
Protestant  subjects,"  it  was  only  after  a  long  and  bitter  ex- 
perience of  the  troubles  they  had  caused,  of  the  riots  and 
conflagrations  they  had  brought  about  in  the  abused  name 
of  religion  and  of  liberty,  and  of  the  utter  fruitlessness  of 
conciliatory  measures. 

Besides,  had  not  the  German  Protestant  princes  proceeded 
with  still  greater  harshness  •  against  their  Catholic  subjects, 
whose  only  crime  was  their  calm  and  inoffensive  adherence 
to  the  religion  of  their  fathers?  The  account  was  certainly 
moru  than  balanced,  as  we  shall  show  more  fully  hereafter.-} 

*  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Literature,  etc.,  sup.  cit.  vol.  i,  p.  '173. 
f  In  Chapter  xii. 
VOL.  I, — 18 


210  REFORMATION   IN   GERMANY. 

These  facts  constitute  at  least  extenuating  circarastanceSj 
which  a  man  of  Mr.  Hallam's  moderate  principles  and  love 
of  historic  justice  should  not  have  wholly  concealed.  But, 
we  presume,  he  deemed  it  expedient  to  add  a  little  Protestant 
spice  to  his  narrative,  in  order  to  season  for  the  palate  of  his 
English  Protestant  readers  the  otherwise  insipid  viands  of 
admissions  in  favor  of  Catholicity. 

One  leading  cause  of  the  reaction  of  Catholicity,  according 
to  him,  was  the  promulgation  and  general  adoption  of  the 
decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 

"The  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent  were  received  by  the  spiritual 
princes  of  the  empire  (German)  in  1566;  'and  from  this  moment,'  says 
the  excellent  historian  who  has  thrown  most  light  on  this  subject,  'began  a 
new  life  for  the  Catholic  Church  in  Germany.'  "* 

We  heartily  concur  in  the  truth  of  this  remark.  Divine 
Providence,  which  draws  good  out  of  evil,  wisely  brought 
about  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  watched  over  its  protracted 
and  often  interrupted  labors,  till  they  were  brought  to  a 
happy  termination.  This  was,  in  fact,  the  only  legal,  as  well 
as  the  only  adequate  remedy  to  the  evils  of  the  Church  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  Tridentine  canons  and  decrees 
for  reformation  exercised  a  powerful  influence  throughout 
Christendom.  Through  them,  faith  was  everywhere  settled 
on  an  immovable  basis,  local  abuses  disappeared,  and  piety 
revived.  The  Reformation  was  the  indirect  cause  of  all  this 
good ;  and  in  this  point  of  view,  if  in  no  other,  it  may  claim 
our  gratitude. 

The  revival  of  piety,  through  the  influence  of  the  Triden- 
tine Council,  is  thus  attested  by  Mr.  Hallam : 

"  The  reaction  could  not,  however,  have  been  effected  by  any  efforts  of 
the  princes,  against  so  preponderating  a  majority  as  the  Protestant  churches 
had  obtained,  if  the  principles  that  originally  actuated  them  had  retained 
their  animating  influence,  or  had  not  been  opposed  by  more  efHcacious 
resistance.  Every  method  was  adopted  to  revive  an  attachment  to  the 
ancient  religion,  insuperable  by  the  love  of  novelty,  or  the  power  of  argu- 


*  Ranke,  ii,  p.  46.     Hallam,  Chapter  x. 


THE   JESUITS.  211 

ment  (!).  A.  stricter  discipline  and  subordination  were  introduced  iiuong 
the  clergy  :  they  were  early  trained  in  seminaries,  apart  from  the  senti- 
ments and  habits,  the  vices  and  virtues  (!)  of  the  world.  The  monastic 
orders  resumed  their  rigid  observances."  * 

Speaking  of  the  important  influence  of  the  Jesuits  in 
bringing  about  this  Catholic  renovation,  he  says: 

"  But,  flir  above  all  the  rest,  the  Jesuits  were  the  instruments  for  regain- 
ing France  and  Germany  to  the  Church  they  served.  And  we  are  more 
closely  concerned  with  them  here,  that  they  are  in  this  age  among  the  links 
between  religious  opinion  and  literature.  We  have  seen  in  the  last  chapter 
with  what  spirit  they  took  the  lead  in  polite  letters  and  classical  style  ;  with 
what  dexterity  they  made  the  brightest  spirits  of  the  rising  generation, 
which  the  Church  had  once  dreaded  and  checked  (!)  her  most  willing  and 
effective  instruments.  The  whole  course  of  liberal  studies,  however  deeply 
grounded  in  erudition,  or  embellished  by  eloquence,  took  one  direction,  one 
perpetual  aim — the  propagation  of  the  Catholic  faith.  .  .  .  They  knew  how 
to  clear  their  reasoning  from  scholastic  pedantry  and  tedious  quotation  for 
the  simple  and  sincere  understandings  which  they  addressed ;  yet,  in  the 
proper  field  of  controversial  theology,  they  wanted  nothing  of  sophistical  (!) 
expertness  or  of  erudition.  The  weak  points  of  Protestantism  they  attacked 
with  embarrassing  ingenuity  ;  and  the  reformed  churches  did  not  cease  to 
give  them  abundant  advantages  by  inconsistency,  extravagance,  and  passion.f 
At  the  death  of  Ignatius  Loyola,  in  1556,  the  order  he  had  founded  was 
divided  into  thirteen  provinces  besides  the  Roman  ;  most  of  which  were  in 
the  Spanish  peninsula,  or  its  colonies.  Ten  colleges  belonged  to  Castile, 
eight  to  Arragon,  and  five  to  Andalusia.  Spain  was  for  some  time  the  fruit- 
ful mother  of  the  disciples,  as  she  had  been  of  the  master.  The  Jesuits 
who  came  to  Germany  were  called  '  Spanish  priests.'  They  took  possession 
of  the  universities  :  'they  conquered  us,'  says  Ranke,  'on  our  own  ground, 
in  bur  own  homes,  and  stripped  us  of  a  part  of  our  own  country.'  This, 
the  acute  historian  proceeds  to  say,  sprung  certainly  from  the  want  of  under- 
standing among  the  Protestant  theologians,  and  of  sufficient  enlargement  of 
mind  to  tolerate  unessential  differences.  The  violent  opposition  among  each 
other,  left  a  way  open  to  these  cunning  strangers,  who  taught  a  doctrine  not 
open  to  dispute."! 

He  then  proceeds  to  treat  of  tlie  practical  results  brought 

*  Ranke,  ii,  p.  46.     Hallam,  Chapter  x,  5  8. 

f  Ibid.,  ^  10,  where  he  cites  Hospinian,  Ranke,  and  Tiraboschi,  the  fli"st  a 
declared  enemy  of  the  Jesuits.  |  Ibid.,  p.  274,  ^  11. 


212  REFORMATION    IN   GERMANY. 

about  by  these  causes.  These  were  a  rapid  declension  ;)f 
Protestantism,  and  a  correspondent  increase  of  Catholicism 

"Protestantism,  so  late  as  1578,  might  be  deemed  preponderant  in  all  the 
Austrian  dominions,  except  the  T3'rol.*  In  the  Polish  diets,  the  dissidents, 
as  they  were  called,  met  their  opponents  with  vigor  and  success.  The  eccle- 
siastical principalities  were  full  of  Protestants  ;  and  even  in  the  chapters 
some  of  them  might  be  found.  But  the  contention  was  unequal,  from  the 
different  character  of  the  parties ;  religious  zeal  and  devotion  (!),  which  fifty 
years  before  had  overthrown  the  ancient  rites  in  northern  Germany,  were 
now  more  invigorating  sentiments  in  those  who  secured  them  from  ftu'ther 
innovation.  In  religious  struggles,  where  there  is  any  thing  like  an  equality 
of  forces,  the  question  soon  comes  to  be  which  party  will  make  the  gi-eatest 
sacrifice  for  its  own  faith.  And  while  the  Catholic  self-devotion  had  grown 
far  stronger,  there  was  much  more  of  secular  cupidit}',  lukewarmness,  and 
formality  in  the  Lutheran  church.  In  very  few  j^ears,  the  effects  of  this 
were  distinctly  visible.  The  Protestants  of  the  Catholic  principalities  went 
back  into  the  bosom  of  Rome.  In  the  bishopric  of  Wurtzburg  alone,  sixty- 
two  thousand  converts  are  said  to  have  been  received  in  the  year  1586."f 

"  The  reaction,"  he  continues  a  little  afterwards,  "  was  not  less  conspicu- 
ous in  other  countries.  It  is  asserted  '  that  the  Huguenots  had  already  lost 
more  than  two-thirds  of  their  number  in  1580  ;'J  comparativelj^  I  presume, 
with  twenty  years  before.     And  the  change  in  their  relative  position   is 

manifest  from  all  the  histories  of  this  period At  the  close  of  this  period 

of  fifty  years  (A.  D.  1600),  the  mischief  done  to  the  old  Church  in  its  first 
decennium  (from  1550  to  1560)  was  very  nearly  repaired  ;  the  proportions 
of  the  two  rehgions  in  Germany  coincided  with  those  which  had  existed  at 
the  pacification  of  Passau.  The  Jesuits,  however,  had  begun  to  encroach  a 
little  on  the  proper  domain  of  the  Lutheran  church ;  besides  private  conver- 
sions, which,  on  account,  of  the  rigor  of  the  laws,  not  certainlj'^  less  intolerant 
than  in  their  own  communion,  could  not  be  very  prominent,  they  had 
sometimes  hopes  of  the  Protestant  princes,  and  had  once,  in  1578,  obtained 
the  promise  of  John,  king  of  Sweden,  to  embrace  openlj"  the  Piomish  (I) 
faith,  as  he  had  ali'cady  done  in  secret  to  Possevin,  an  emissary  dispatched 
by  the  Pope  on  this  important  errand.  But  the  symptoms  of  an  opposition, 
verj^  formidable  in  a  country  which  has  never  allowed  its  kings  to  trifle  with 
it  (except  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation),  made  this  wavering  monarch  re- 
trace his  steps.  His  successor,  Sigismund,  went  further,  and  fell  a  victim  to 
his  zeal,  by  being  expelled  from  his  kingdom."^ — Here  was  Protestant  toler- 
ation ! 

♦  Ranke,  ii,  p.  78.     f  lb-,  P- 121.     t  lb.,  p.  147.     5  Hallam,  ib.,  p.  275,  J 14 


J 


THE    GREAT   CATHOLIC    REACTION.  213 

"  This  gi  eat  reaction  of  the  papal  rehgion,"  he  proceeds,  "  after  the  shock 
it  had  sustained  in  the  first  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  ought  forever  to 
restrain  that  temerity  of  prediction  so  frequent  in  our  ears.  As  women 
sometimes  beheve  the  fashion  of  last  year  in  dress  to  be  wholly  ridiculous, 
and  incapable  of  being  ever  again  adopted  by  any  one  solicitous  for  her 
beauty,*  so  those  who  affect  to  pronounce  on  future  events  are  equally  con- 
fident against  the  possibility  of  a  resurrection  of  opinions  which  the  major- 
ity have  for  the  time  ceased  to  maintain.  In  the  year  1560,  every  Protest- 
ant in  Europe  doubtless  anticipated  the  overthrow  of  popery ;  the  Catholics 
could  have  found  little  else  to  warrant  hope  than  their  trust  in  heaven.  The 
late  rush  of  many  nations  towards  democratical  opinions  has  not  been  so 
rapid  and  so  general  as  the  change  of  religion  about  that  period.  It  is  im- 
portant and  interesting  to  inquire  what  stemmed  this  current.  We  readily 
acknowledge  the  prudence,  firmness,  and  unity  of  purpose  that,  for  the  most 
part,  distinguished  the  court  of  Rome,  the  obedience  of  its  hierarchy,  the 
severity  of  intolerant  laws,  and  the  searching  rigor  of  the  inquisition  ;  the 
resolute  adherence  of  the  great  princes  to  the  Catholic  faith,  the  influence  of 
the  Jesuits  over  education  :  but  these  either  existed  tefore,  or  would,  at 
least,  not  have  teen  sufficient  to  withstand  an  overwhelming  force  of  opinion. 

"  It  must  he  acknowledged  that  there  urns  a  principle  of  vitcditi/  in  that  relig- 
ion independent  of  its  external  strength.  By  the  side  of  its  secular  pomp,  its 
relaxation  of  morality  (!),  there  had  always  been  an  intense  flame  of  zeal 
and  devotion.  Superstition  it  might  be  in  the  many,  fanaticism  in  a  few ; 
but  both  of  these  imply  the  qualities  which,  while  they  subsist,  render  a 
rehgion  indestructible.  That  revival  of  an  ardent  zeal  through  which  th? 
Franciscans  had  in  the  thirteenth  centurv,  with  some  good,  and  much  more 
evil  effect  (!),  spread  a  popular  enthusiasm  over  Europe,  was  once  more  dis- 
played in  counteraction  of  those  new  doctrines,  that  themselves  had  drawn 
their  life  from  a  similar  development  of  moral  emotion."f 

Coining  from  the  source  it  does,  this  is  truly  a  vahmble 
avowal.  After  all  the  talk,  then,  about  the  "downfall  of 
popery,"  after  all  the  loud  boasting  and  high  pretensions  of 
Protestantism,  the  experiment  of  three  hundred  years  is  be- 
ginning to  convince  all  reasonable  men  of  what  they  should 
have  known  before:  that  the  Catholic  religion  "has  a  prin- 
ciple of  vitality  in  her,"  after  all,  and  that  she  is  "indestruc- 
tible."    It  could  not  be  otherwise :  Christ  himself  had  pledged 

*  A  very  apposite  comparison,  truly,  to  illustrate  the  new  religious  fashions ' 
t  Hallam,  p.  275,  276,  \  15. 
14 


214  REFORMATION    IN   GERMANY 

his  solemn  word  that "  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against 
his  Church,  built  on  a  rock  :"*  and  this  simple  promise  solves 
the  whole  mystery  which  so  sadly  puzzled  such  men  as  Rank^ 
and  Ilallam.  It  is  the  thread  of  Ariadne,  which  would  have 
conducted  them  with  security  from  the  tortuous  windings  of  the 
labyrinth  of  history,  in  which  they  appear  to  have  been  lost. 
It  would  have  explained  to  them,  among  other  things,  why  it 
is  that  in  all  the  great  emergencies  of  the  Church,  God  has 
always  raised  up,  as  instruments  to  do  his  high  behests,  men 
and  institutions  just  such  as  the  exigency  of  the  times  de- 
manded. Thus,  for  instance,  the  Franciscans  and  Domini- 
cans (why  did  Mr.  Ilallam  omit  the  latter?)  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  the  Jesuits  and  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  to  pass 
over  many  more  illustrious  names,  in  the  sixteenth ;  together 
with  St.  Athanasius  in  the  fourth  century,  St,  Cyril,  St.  Leo,  St. 
Chrysostom,  and  St.  Augustine  in  the  fifth,  St.  Gregory  the 
Great  in  the  end  of  the  sixth,  St,  Gregory  VII.  in  the  eleventh, 
St.  Bernard  in  the  twelfth,  St.  Thomas  Aqninas  in  the  thir- 
teenth, and  many  others  in  various  other  ages,  are  all  examples 
of  this  wonderful  providence  of  God  watching  over  the  safety 
of  his  Church,  which  is  "the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth."! 

The  reaction  in  favor  of  the  Catholic  Church  continued 
with  redoubled  force  in  the  seventeenth  century. 

"  The  progress  of  the  latter  Church "  (the  CathoHc),  says  Mr.  Hallam, 
"for  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  present  (seventeenth)  century,  was  as 
striking  and  uninterrupted  as  it  had  been  in  the  final  period  of  the  six- 
teenth.    Victory  crowned  its  banners  on  every  side The  nobility,  both 

in  France  and  Germany,  who  in  the  last  age  had  l)een  the  first  to  embrace 
a  new  faith,  became  afterwards  the  first  to  desert  it.  Many  also  of  the 
learned  and  able  Protestants  gave  evidence  of  the  jeopardy  of  that  cause  by 
their  conversion.  It  is  not  just,  however,  to  infer  that  they  were  merely 
influenced  by  this  apprehension.  Two  other  causes  mainly  operated  :  one, 
to  which  we  have  already  alluded,  the  authority  given  to  the  traditions  of 
the  Church,  recorded  by  the  writers  called  fathers,  and  with  which  it  was 
found  difficult  to  reconcile  all  the  Protestant  creed  ;  another,  the  intolerance 
of  the  reformed  churches,  both  Lutheran  and  Calviiiistic,  whicii  gave  as  little 
'.latitude  (less)  as  that  which  they  had  quitted."! 

V-  St.Mattli    w-:  :  IS         f   1  'i'im.  iii  •  IT).         !    Ilallam.  vol.  ii,  p.  30,  \  11 


CASAUBON    AND    GROTIUS.  215 

"  The  detections,"  (from  Protestantism)  he  continues,  "  from  whatever 
cause,  are  numerous  in  the  seventeenth  century.  But  two,  more  eminent 
than  any  who  actually  renounced  the  Protestant  religion,  must  be  owned  to 
have  given  evident  signs  of  wavering,  Casaubon  and  Grotius.  The  proofs  of 
this  are  not  founded  merely  on  anecdotes  which  might  be  disputed,  but  on 
their  own  language.*  Casaubon  was  staggered  by  the  study  of  the  fatliers, 
in  which  (whom  ?)  he  discovered  many  things,  especially  as  to  the  Euchar- 
ist, which  he  could  not  in  any  manner  reconcile  with  the  tenets  of  the 
French  Huguenots.  Peiron  used  to  assail  him  w^ith  arguments  he  could 
not  parry.  If  we  may  believe  this  cardinal,  he  was  on  the  point  of  declar- 
ing publicly  his  conversion,  before  he  accepted  the  invitation  of  James  I.  to 
England  :  and  even  while  in  England,  he  promoted  the  Catholic  cause  more 
than  the  world  was  aware." — After  a  feeble  endeavor  to  impair  the  validity 
of  this  statement  of  Perron,  he  adds  :  "  Yet  if  Casaubon,  as  he  had  much 
inclination  to  do,  being  on  ill  terms  with  some  in  England,  and  disliking  the 
country,  had  returned  to  France,  it  seems  probable  that  he  would  not  long 
have  continued  in  w'hat,  according  to  the  principles  he  had  adopted,  would 
appear  a  schismatical  communion."t 

"  Grotius,"  he  says,  "  was,  from  the  time  of  his  turning  his  attention  to 
iheology,  almost  as  much  influenced  as  Casaubon  by  primitive  authority, 
and  began,  even  in  1614,  to  commend  the  Anglican  church  for  the  respect  it 
showed,  very  unlike  the  rest  of  the  reformed,  to  that  standard.|  But  the  ill 
usage  he  sustained  at  the  hands  of  those  who  boasted  their  independence  of 
papal  t3Tann3^  (!) ;  the  caresses  of  the  Gallican  clergy  after  he  had  fixed  his 
residence  at  Paris  ;5  the  growing  dissensions  and  virulence  of  the  Protest- 

*  In  a  very  lengthy  and  learned  note,  he  here  accumulates  evidence  from 
the  writings  and  correspondence  of  Casaubon,  in  support  of  the  statement 
made  in  the  text.  He  also  speaks  at  length  of  the  labors  of  the  learned: 
Cardinal  Perron.  f  Hallam,  vol.  ii,  p.  30,  5  11. 

I  Truly,  as  the  wisest  of  men  has  said,  there  is  nothing  new  under  the 
Bun.  Grotius,  Casaubon,  and  many  other  learned  Protestants,  more  than 
two  hundred  years  ago,  seem  to  have  taken  the  identical  ground  now  or 
lately  occupied  by  the  Puseyites  in  England.  This  will  appear  from  a  perusal 
of  the  copious  notes  of  Hallam  on  their  writings.  (Ibid.)  Speaking  of  the  efibrt 
of  Grotius  to  extract  from  the  Council  of  Trent  a  meaning  favorable  to  his  own 
semi-catholic  views,  he  says ;  "  his  aim  was  to  search  for  subtle  interpretatioTis, 
by  which  he  might  profess  to  believe  the  words  of  the  Church,  though  conscious 
that  his  sense  w%as  not  that  of  the  imposers.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  this  is 
not  very  ingenuous,"  etc.  Perhaps  the  history  of  Grotius  and  Casaubon  may 
serve  to  throw  additional  light  on  the  end  and  aim  of  the  Puseyite  controversy. 

5  It  is  remarkable  that  Grotius,  persecuted  by  brother  Protestants  in 
Holland,  found  a  peaceful  shelter  from  the  storm  in  Catholic  France  ! 


21G  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

ants ;  the  choice  that  seemed  alone  to  be  left  in  their  communion  between 
a  fanatical  anaichy,  disintegrating  every  thing  hke  a  church  on  the  one  hand, 
and  a  domination  of  bigoted  and  vulgar  ecclesiastics  on  the  other  ;  made  hnn 
gradually  less  and  less  averse  to  the  comprehensive  and  majestic  unity  of 
the  Catholic  hierarchy,  and  more  and  more  willing  to  concede  some  point  of 
uneeitain  doctrine,  or  some  form  of  ambiguous  expression.  This  is  abun- 
•lantly  pei-ceived,  and  has  been  often  pointed  out,  in  his  Annotations  on  the 
Consultation  of  Cassandcr,  written  in  1641 ;  in  his  Animadversions  on  Rivet, 
who  had  censured  the  former  treatise  as  inclining  to  popery  ;  in  the  Yotum 
pro  Pace  Ecclesiastic'),  and  in  the  Rivetiani  Apologetici  Discussio ;  all  which 
are  collected  in  the  fourth  volume  of  the  theological  works  of  Grotias.  These 
treatises  display  a  vmiform  and  progressive  tendency  to  defend  the  Church 
of  Piome  in  every  thing  that  can  be  reckoned  essential  to  her  creed  ;  and  in 
fact  he  will  be  found  to  go  further  in  this  direction  than  Cassander."* 

But,  alas !  neither  Casaubon  nor  Grotins  ever  penetrated 
beyc»nd  the  threshold  of  the  temple  of  Catholicity.  Though 
they  seem  to  have  had  light  enough  to  know  and  to  love  the 
truth,  yet  were  they  not  worthy  the  gift  of  faith,  which  is 
granted  to  those  only  who  become  "as  little  children"  for 
Christ's  sake.  We  have  already  seen  by  what  circumstances 
the  former  was  prevented  from  entering  the  Catholic  pale. 
Of  the  latter  Hallam  says : 

"  Upon  a  dispassionate  examination  of  all  these  testimonies,  we  can  hardly 
deem  it-an  uncertain  question  whether  Grotius,  if  his  life  had  been  prolonged, 
would  have  taken  the  easy  leap  which  still  remained ;  and  there  is  some 
positive  evidence  of  his  design  to  do  so.  But,  dying  on  a  journe}',  and  in  a 
Protestant  countiy,  this  avowed  declaration  (in  favor  of  Catholicity)  Avas 
never  made."f 

It  is  dangerous  to  tamper  with  the  proffered  grace  of  heaven, 
or  to  put  off  conversion  !  The  learned  Lipsius  went  further ; 
lie  was  faithful  to  grace,  and  "  took  the  easy  (not  so  easy) 
leap"  into  the  Catholic  Church.  Hallam  tells  us  that  he 
spent  the  latter  years  of  his  life  "in  defending  legendary  mi- 
racles, and  in  waging  war  against  the  honored  dead  of  the 

*  Hallam,  vol.  ii,  p.  32-35,  5 13.  Cassander  was  a  Catholic  theologian,  who 
was  commissioned  by  the  emperor  Ferdinand  to  wi'ite  a  work  to  conciliate 
the  Protestant  part}'.  IMany  think  that,  in  executing  this  task,  he  had,  through 
the  best  motives  no  doubt,  conceded  too  much.  He  died  in  1566,  aged  53 
years.  -f  Ibid.,  p.  35.  J  16. 


CA  HOLTC    CHURCH    INDESTRUCTIBLE.  217 

Reformation!"*  This  remark  was,  of  course,  intended  by 
the  historian  as  an  evidence  of  his  own  Protestant  orthodoxy, 
and  as  a  douceur  to  English  bigotry.  This  unworthy  viru- 
lence, however,  but  enhances  the  more  the  value  of  his  pre- 
vious admissions  in  favor  of  Catholicity,  which  could  have 
been  wrung  from  him  only  by  the  sternest  evidence  of  facts. 
Justus  Lipsius  was  a  prodigy  of  classical  learning  and  erudi- 
tion. He  became  a  most  exemplary  Catholic,  and  died  at 
Louvain  in  1606. 

We  have  now  completed  our  rapid  analysis  of  the  facts 
connected  with  the  decline  of  Protestantism  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  reaction  of  Catholicity  on  the  other.  We  have  shown, 
on  unquestionable  Protestant  authority,  the  existence  and 
extent  of  both  these  parallel  developments.  Every  candid 
man  will  easily  draw  the  obvious  inference  from  these  re- 
markable results  of  the  two  opposite  systems :  which  is,  that 
Protestantism  was  a  human,  and  Catholicity  a  divine  institu- 
tion. We  can  explain  the  facts  in  no  other  way.  To  attempt 
to  explain  them  on  the  principles  of  mere  human  philosophy 
is  a  miserable  fallacy.  If  Protestantism  was  true,  it  would 
have  conquered  and  endured;  if  Catholicity  was  false,  it 
must  have  fallen.  What  is  human  is  changeable,  and  liable 
to  decline  and  decay;  what  is  divine  has  the  principle  of 
vitality  strong  within  it,  and  abideth  forever.  "By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

We  will  close  our  remarks  on  this  subject  by  a  well- 
known  avowal  of  another  Protestant  writer  of  great  emi- 
nence, Thomas  Babington  Macaulay,  whose  testimony,  though 
already  often  quoted,  is  too  apposite  to  the  matter  in  hand  to 
be  here  omitted.  The  passage  is  taken  from  an  article  in  the 
Edinburg  Review  on  Ranke's  History  of  the  Papacy,  another 
circumstance  which  would  seem  fairly  to  entitle  it  to  a  place 
m  this  chapter, 

"There  is  not,   and  there  never  was,  on   this  earth,   a  work   so   weiJ 
deseiTing  of  examination  as  the  Roman  Cathohc  Church.     The  history  of 

*  Hallara,  vol.  ii,  p.  35,  {  16, 
VOL.   I. — 19 


218  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

that  Church  joins  together  the  two  great  ages  of  human  civilization.  Nc 
other  institution  is  left  standing  which  carries  the  mind  back  to  the  times 
when  the  suioke  of  sacrifice  rose  from  the  Pantheon  ;  and  when  cameleopardg 
and  tigers  bounded  in  the  Flavian  amphitheatre.  The  proudest  royal  houses 
are  but  of  yesterday,  when  compared  with  the  line  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs. 
This  line  we  trace  back,  in  an  unbroken  series,  fiom  the  Pope  who  crowned 
Napoleon  in  the  nineteenth  century,  to  the  Pope  who  crowned  Pepin  in  the 
eighth ;  and  far  beyon'.'  '.he  time  of  Pepin,  the  august  dynasty  extends  until 
its  origin  is  lost  in  the  twilight  of  fable!  (Was  the  apostolic  age  "the  twi- 
light of  fable?")  The  republic  of  Venice  came  next  in  antiquity.  But  the 
republic  of  Venice  was  modern  when  compared  with  the  Papacy ;  and  the 
republic  of  Venice  is  gone,  and  the  Papacy  remains.  The  Papacy  remains, 
not  in  decay,  nor  a  mere  antique,  but  full  of  life  and  youthful  vigor.  The 
Catholic  Church  is  still  sending  for'th,  to  the  furthest  ends  of  the  world, 
missionaries  as  zealous  as  those  who  landed  in  Kent  with  Augustine,  and 
still  confronting  hostile  kings  with  the  same  spirit  with  which  she  con- 
fronted Attila.  27(6  number  of  her  children  is  greater  than  in  any  former  age. 
Her  acquisitions  in  the  new  world  have  more  than  compensated  her  for 
what  she  has  lost  in  the  old.  Her  spiritual  ascendency  extends  over  the 
vast  countries  which  lie  between  the  plains  of  the  Missouri  and  Cape  Horn, 
countries  which,  a  century  hence,  may  not  improbably  contain  a  population 
as  large  as  that  which  now  inhabits  Europe.  The  members  of  her  com- 
munion ai'e  certainly  not  fewer  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  millions,*  and  it 
will  be  difficult  to  show  that  all  the  other  Christian  sects  united  amount  to 
one  hundred  and  twenty  millions.f 

"  Nor  do  we  see  any  sign  which  indicates  that  the  term  of  her  long 
dominion  is  approaching.  She  saw  the  commencement  of  all  the  govern- 
ments, and  of  all  the  ecclesiastical  establishments  that  now  exist  in  tho 
world ;  and  we  feel  no  assurance  that  she  is  not  destined  to  see  the  end  of 
them  all.  She  was  great  and  respected  before  the  Saxon  set  foot  on  Britain 
— before  the  Frank  had  passed  the  Rhine — when  Grecian  eloquence  still 
flourished  at  Antioch — when  idols  were  still  worshiped  in  the  Temple  of 


*  The  number  of  Catholics  in  the  world  has  been  variously  stated. 
An  official  statistical  account,  lately  published  in  Rome,  makes  the  number 
160,842,424.  Malte  Brun  estimates  it  at  above  164,000,000;  and  others 
have  staled  it  at  180  or  even  200,000,000.  The  Roman  statement  is  perhaps 
the  most  to  be  relied  on.  It  does  not  at  least  exceed ;  it  may  even  fall  below 
the  mark,  in  consequence  of  the  probable  incompleteness  of  the  returns. 

|-  This  embraces  the  Greek  and  Oriental  churches,  and  is  still  doubtless 
excessive.  The  total  number  of  Protestants,  including  free-thinkers,  etc.,  is 
not  proU'ibly  over  50,000,000. 


MACAULAY.  219 

Mecca.  And  she  may  still  exist  in  undiminished  vigor,  when  some  traveler 
fix)m  New  Zealand  shall,  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  solitude,  take  his  stand  on  a 
broken  arch  of  London  bridge  to  sketch  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's !" 

Truly  splendid  testimony  to  the  vitality  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  coming,  as  it  does,  from  the  pen  of  a  sworn  enemy — 
of  a  Scotchman  and  a  Presbyterian !  Speaking  of  the  trite 
remark  that,  as  the  world  becomes  more  enlightened,  it  will 
renounce  Catholicity  and  embrace  Protestantism,  he  says : 

"  Yet  we  see  that,  during  these  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  Protestantism 
has  made  no  conquests  worth  speaking  of.  Nay,  we  believe,  that  as  far  as 
there  has  been  a  change,  that  change  has  been  in  favor  of  the  Church  of 
Rome.  We  can  not  therefore  feel  confident  that  the  progress  of  knowledge 
will  necessarily  be  fatal  to  a  system,  which  has,  to  say  the  least,  stood  its 
ground  in  spite  of  the  immense  progress  which  knowledge  has  made  since 
the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth."  He  a  little  after  adds  :  "  four  times  since 
the  authority  of  the  Church  of  Rome  was  established  in  western  Christen- 
dom, has  the  human  intellect  risen  up  against  her.  Twice  she  remained 
completely  victorious.  Twice  she  came  forth  from  the  conflict  bearing  the 
marks  of  cruel  wounds,  but  with  the  principle  of  life  still  strong  within  her. 
When  we  reflect  on  the  tremei\dous  assaults  which  she  has  survived,  we 
find  it  difficult  to  conceive  in  what  way  she  is  to  perish  ! " 

Yes — it  must  be  avowed :  the  Catholic  Church  is  indestruc- 
tible, and  therefore  divine !  You  might  as  as  well  try  to  blot 
out  the  sun  froiii  the  heavens,  as  to  extinguish  the  bright  light 
of  the  Catholic  Church  from  the  earth  !  Clouds  may,  indeed, 
hide  for  a  time  the  sun's  disc  from  the  eye  of  the  beholder ; 
but  the  sun  is  still  there,  the  same  as  when  he  shone  forth 
before  upon  us  with  his  most  brilliant  light :  so  also,  the  clouds 
of  persecution  and  prejudice  may  cover  for  a  time  the  fair 
face  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  but  the  eye  of  faith  penetrates 
those  dark  clouds,  and  assures  us,  that  though  partially  con- 
cealed, she  is  still  there !  And  when  those  clouds  will  clear 
away,  she  will  again  shine  out  with  a  more  brilliant  and  a 
more  cheering  light  than  ever !  He  who  said :  "  Heaven  and 
earth  may  pass  away,  but  my  words  shall  not  pass  away,"  has 
also  pronounced  that  "The  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  her." 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  circumstance  in  the  tendency 


220  REFORMATION    IN    GERMANY. 

of  modern  society,  is  the  general  and  manifest  reaction  iL 
favor  of  Catholicity  throughout  the  world,  and  especially  in 
Protestant  countries.  There  seems  to  be  a  universal  gravita- 
tion of  all  spirits  towards  Rome  !*  Germany,  the  first  theater 
of  the  Reformation,  seems  to  have  led  the  way  in  this  awaken- 
ing. Besides  the  works  of  Voigt,  Hurter,  and  Ranke,  which 
are  well  known,  there  are  also  :  the  Universal  History  and  the 
Journeys  of  the  Popes,  by  the  great  Protestant  historian,  John 
Miiller ;  the  History  of  the  Princes  of  the  House  of  Hohenstau- 
fen,  by  the  famous  Raumur ;  the  History  of  the  Church,  and  the 
History  of  Italy,  by  M.  Leo ; — not  to  mention  a  host  of  other 
works  by  eminent  German  Protestant  writers  of  the  day,  all  of 
which  evidence,  by  their  spirit  and  their  disposition  to  do 
at  least  partial  justice  to  the  Popes  and  to  the  old  religion, 
this  wonderful  resuscitation  of  Catholic  feeling  in  Protestant 
Germany.  England,  Scotland,  and  the  United  States  even, 
have  participated,  to  a  certain  extent,  in  this  movement. 
We  trust  that  De  Maistre's  prophetic  remark  to  the  effect, 
that  when  sectarianism  should  have  run  through  the  whole 
circle  of  error,  it  would  return  again  to  the  great  Catholic 
center  of  truth,  is  on  the  eve  of  its  fulfillment  If 

What  we  will  now  proceed  to  prove  in  relation  to  the  mani. 
fold  influences  of  the  Reformation,  on  religion  and  on  society, 
will,  we  trust,  throw  additional  light  upon  the  matter  we  have 
treated  in  this  chapter;  and  it  may  serve  also  greatly  to  ex- 
plain why  it  was  that,  after  a  brief  storm  of  excitement, 
Catholicity  so  greatly  reacted  and  Protestantism  so  suddenly 
declined. 

*  See  the  Introduction  to  Ranke's  History  of  the  Papacy,  etc.,  by  M. 
Alexandre  de  Saint  Cheron,  page  xv,  seqq. 

f  This  was  written  about  fifteen  years  ago ;  and  we  are  sorry  to  have  to 
say,  that  the  sanguine  anticipations  with  which  we  then  solaced  ourselves 
have  not  been  fully  realized  by  the  event.  Still  many  have  returned  to  the 
Catholic  Church  during  this  time,  both  in  England  and  in  Germany,  as  well 
as  in  the  United  States ;  while,  unhappily,  others  have  imitated  the  dilatory 
tampering  with  divine  grace  which  we  have  remarked  in  Casaubon  and  Qro- 
tiua.     Let  such  beware  ! 


FAKT  111. 


INFLUENCE 

OF   THE 

.REFORMATION    ON    RELIGION. 

CHAPTER     VIII. 

INFLUENCE     OF    THE     REFORMATION     ON     DOCTRINAL 

BELIEF. 

"Who  would  ever  have  believed  that  the  Reformation  from  the  beginning  would 
have  attacked  morality,  dogma,  and  faith;  or  that  the  seditious  genius  of  a  monk 
could  have  caused  so  much  disturbance  ?  " — Erasm.  ( Epiat,  Georgio  Dud). 

"As  long  as  words  a  different  sense  will  bear, 
And  each  may  be  his  own  interpreter. 
Our  airy  faith  will  no  foundation  find, 
The  word's  a  weathercock  for  every  wind." — Dbyden. 

The  nature  of  Eeligion — A  golden  chain — Question  stated — Private  judg- 
ment— Church  authority — As  many  rehgions  as  heads — D'Aubigne's 
theory — Its  poetic  beauty — Fever  of  logomachy — "Sons  of  liberty" — 
The  Bible  dissected — A  hjxlra -headed  monster — Erasmus — "Curing  a 
lame  horse" — Luther  puzzled — His  plaint — His  inconsistency — Missions 
and  miracles  —  Zuingle's  inconsistency  —  Strange  fanaticism  —  Storck, 
Miinzer,  Karlstadt,  and  John  of  Leyden — A  new  deluge — Retorting  the 
argument — Discussion  at  the  "Black  Boar" — Luther  and  the  cobbler — 
Discussion  at  Marburg — Luther's  avowal — Breaking  necks — Melancthon's 
lament — The  inference — Protestantism  the  mother  of  infidelity — Picture 
of  modern  Protestantism  in  Germany  by  Schlegel. 

Religion  is  a  divinely  established  system,  which  came 
down  from  heaven  to  conduct  man  thither.  By  the  disobe- 
dience of  Adam,  man,  originally  created  upright  or  at  least 
constituted  in  a  state  of  righteousness,  fell  from  grace,  and 
was,  as  it  were,  loosed  from  heaven,  to  which  he  had  been 
previously  bound  by  the  most  sacred  ties  of  fellowship. 
Religion  may  be  compared  to  a  golden  chain  reaching  down 
from  heaven  to  earth,  which,  according  to  the  etymological 

(221) 


222  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    DOCTRINE. 

import  of  the  term,  hinds  man  again  to  heaven.*  And  to 
pursue  the  illustration  a  little  further,  as  the  loss  of  even  one 
link  would  destroy  the  integrity  of  a  chain,  and  would  render 
it  useless  as  a  means  of  binding  together  distant  objects ;  so 
also,  the  removal  of  one  link  from  the  chain  of  religion,  would 
destroy  its  integrity  and  mar  its  lofty  purpose  of  binding 
man  to  his  God.  These  links  are  united  together  in  tliree 
divisions  ;  comprising  severally  the  doctrines  revealed  by  and 
through  Jesus  Christ,  the  moral  precepts  which  He  gave,  and 
the  sacraments  and  sacrifice  which  lie  instituted.  All  these 
are  as  essentially  and  as  intimately  connected  together,  as  are 
the  several  parts  of  a  chain.  "  He  that  offendeth  in  one,  is 
guilty  of  all  :"t  because  by  a  single  ofl'cnse  he  rebels  against 
the  authority  from  which  the  whole  emanates. 

lieligion  then  consists  of  three  parts:  doctrines  to  be  be- 
lieved, commandments  to  be  observed,  and  sacramental  and 
sacrificial  ordinances  to  be  received  and  complied  with.  The 
third  department  partakes  of  the  nature  of  the  other  two: 
being  partly  doctrinal  and  partly  moral.  In  other  words, 
the  Christian  Religion  embraces,  as  essential  to  its  very 
nature  and  divine  purposes,  doctrines,  morals,  and  worship: 
and  we  propose  briefly  to  examine  the  influence  of  the  pre- 
tended Reformation  on  each  of  these  separately.  Was  this 
influence  beneficial?  Did  it  really  reform  Religion,  as  it 
purported  to  do  ?  D'Aubigne  tells  us :  that  "  the  reform 
saved  Religion,  and  with  it  society."  J  We  shall  see  here- 
after what  it  did  for  society;  and  we  will  now  inquire 
whether  it  "saved  Religion?" 

And  first,  what  was  its  influence  on  the  doctrines  oi  Chris- 
tianity? Did  it  teach  them  in  greater  purity,  and  integrity, 
or  with  greater  certainty,  than  the  Catholic  Church  had 
done?  Did  it  shed  on  them  a  clearer  or  more  steady  light? 
Or  did  it,  on  the  contrary,  give  out  a  very  doubtful   and 


*  Some  persons  derive  Inu  woia  Keiigiou  irom  the  Latin  re-ligo — to  bind 
igain.  f  St.  James,  ii :  10.  X  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  67. 


PRIVATE   JUDGMENT.  223 

uncertain  light;  leaving  the  minds  of  men  in  perplexity  as  to 
the  tenets  to  be  believed ;  and  permitting  its  disciples  "  to  be 
tossed  to  and  fro  by  every  wind  of  doctrine,"*  on  the  stormy 
sea  of  conflicting  human  opinions?  We  shall  see.  It  will 
not,  however,  be  necessary  to  our  inquiry,  to  examine  the 
grounds  which  establish  the  truth  of  the  various  Catholic,  or 
the  falsity  of  the  Protestant  doctrines  in  controversy :  all  that 
will  be  requisite  for  our  purpose,  will  be  an  investigation  of 
the  facts  bearing  on  the  historical  question  itself,  as  to  the 
actual  influence  of  the  Reformation  on  this  vital  department 
of  Religion. 

The  great  distinctive  principle  of  the  Reformation  was  its 
rejection  of  Church  authority,  and  its  assertion  of  the  right 
of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  Religion.  This  is  the  key 
of  the  new  system:  this  the  proudest  boast  of  those  who 
afiected  to  bring  about  the  "emancipation  of  the  human 
mind."  This  is  the  cardinal  principle  of  "  Christian  liberty," 
as  asserted  by  Dr.  Martin  Luther,  in  a  special  work  on  the 
subject:  this  is  the  means  he  boastingly  adopted  for  being 
rescued  from  the  degrading  "captivity  of  Babylon." f  The 
Catholic  Religion  had  taught  that,  in  all  matters  of  contro- 
versy, Christians  were  bound  by  the  solemn  command  of 
Christ,  "to  hear  the  Church."  J  Church  authority  was  the 
ultima  ratio — last  resort — of  controversy,  the  great  means  of 
attaining  to  certainty  in  what  we  are  to  believe  or  to  reject; 
the  strong  bond  of  union  among  Christians.  Not  that  the 
Church  meant  to  decide  on  every  controverted  point:  she 
only  decided  where  she  found  sufficient  warrant  in  revelation 
.to  guide  her  with  certainty.  In  other  matters  —  and  they 
were  numerous — she  wisely  abstained  from  any  definition, 
and  allowed  her  children  a  reasonable  latitude  of  opinion, 
provided,  however,  their  opinions  did  not  either  directly  or 

*  Ephesians,  iv  :  14. 

f  See  the  two  works  of  Luther,  "  De  Christiana  Libertate,"  and  "  l)e 
Captivitate  Babylonica." 
t  St.  Matthew,  xviii :  17. 


224  INFLUENCE   OF    REFORMATION    ON    DOCTRINE. 

indirectly  infringe  on  the  unchangeable  principles  of  faith. 
This  was  hallowed  and  consecrated  ground,  which  was  not  to 
be  trodden  by  the  rude  foot  of  controversy.  She  said  to  the 
stormy  billows  of  proud  human  opinion :  "  Thus  far  shall  you 
come,  and  no  further:  and  here  shall  you  break  yuur  boiling 
waves ! "  * 

"When  the  reformers  cast  off  this  yoke  of  Church  authority, 
and  said  ''they  would  not  serve"  any  longer,  they  had  no  al- 
ternative left,  but  to  decide,  each  one  for  himself,  what  was 
the  doctrine  of  Christ.  Private  judgment  was  thus  necessa- 
rily substituted  for  the  teaching  of  the  Church  :  human  opin- 
ion for  faith.  As  men  were  differently  constituted,  they 
naturally  took  different  views  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  Each 
one  struck  out  a  new  system  for  himself;  and  soon,  instead 
of  the  onelleligion  which  had  been  received  with  reverence 
for  ages,  the  world  beheld  the  novel  spectacle  of  almost  as 
many  religions  as  there  were  heads  among  the  Protestant 
party ! 

D'Aubigne's  theory  on  this  subject  is  as  curious  as  it  is  lib- 
eral— in  the  modern  sense  of  this  term.  He  thus  discourses 
on  what  he  calls  the  diversities  of  the  Reformation : 

"  We  are  about  to  contemplate  the  diversities,  or,  as  they  have  been  since 
called,  the  variations  of  the  Reformation.  These  diversities  are  among  its 
most  essential  characters.  Unitj^  in  diversit}',  and  divei'sity  in  unity,  is  a 
law  of  nature,  and  also  of  the  church.  Truth  may  be  compared  to  the  light 
of  the  sun.  The  light  comes  from  heaven  colorless,  and  ever  the  same  :  and 
yet  it  takes  different  hues  on  earth,  varying  according  to  the  objects  on 
which  it  falls.  Thus  different  fornmlaries  may  sometimes  express  the  same 
Christian  truth,  viewed  under  diftcrent  aspects.  How  dull  would  be  this 
visible  creation,  if  all  its  boundless  variety  of  shape  and  color  were  to  give 
place  to  an  unbroken  uniformity !  "f 

A  beautiful  theory  truly,  and  aptly  illustrated !  S j,  then, 
"  the  different  formularies "   of  Luther,  openly  asserting  the 

*  Job  xxxviii :  12.  "Hue  usque  venies  et  non  amplius;  ct  hif  con- 
fringes  tumentes  fiuctus  tuos." 

t  D' Aubignc,  vol.  iii,  p.  235,  in  the  introduction  to  the  eleventh  lx)ok,  in  which 
he  treats  of  the  controversies  between  the  partisans  of  Zuingle  and  Luther. 


AS    MANY    RELIGIONS    AS    HEADS.  225 

real  presence  of  Christ  in  the  holy  Sacrament,  and  ol'  Zuingle 
flatly  denying  this  presence,  "both  express  the  same  Christian 
truth  viewed  under  different  aspects!"  These  great  cham- 
pions of  Protestantism,  as  we  have  seen,  mutually  anathema- 
tized and  denounced  each  other  as  children  of  Satan  on  this 
very  ground^  awdi  yet,  in  good  sooth,  they  maintained  "the 
same  Christian  truth  under  different  aspects  !"  They  plainly 
contradicted  each  other  on  many  other  important  points,  and 
the  Wittenberg  doctor  would  consent  to  hold  no  communion 
with  him  of  Zurich  ;*  and  yet  they  maintained  "  the  same 
Christian  truth !"  Luther  said  to  Zuingle,  who  proposed  mu- 
tual communion  at  the  close  of  the  famous  conference  of 
Marburg,  in  1528,  "No,  no:  cursed  be  the  alliance  which 
endangers  the  truth  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  souls.  Away 
with  you:  you  are  possessed  by  a  different  spirit  from  ours. 
But  take  care :  before  three  years  the  anger  of  God  will  fall 
on  you  !"t  And  yet  D'Aubigne  would  have  us  believe,  that 
they  agreed  as  to  the  substance  of"  Christian  truth!"  Verily, 
he  must  think  others  as  credulous  as  he  himself  seems  to  be ! 
And  then,  the  charming  illustration  from  the  light  of  the 
sun !  It  is  almost  a  pity  to  spoil  its  poetic  beauty ;  though 
even  a  poet  would  lay  himself  open  to  the  most  severe  criti- 
cism, were  his  figures  no  more  appropriate  or  true  to  nature. 
D'Aubigne  has  taken  more  than  even  a  poetic  license.  Does 
the  light  of  the  sun,  no  matter  how  diversified,  reflect  contra- 
dictory images  "of  the  objects  on  which  it  falls?"  Is  it  so 
very  uncertain,  as  to  leave  us  in  doubt,  as  to  the  shape  and 
color  of  external  objects  ?  Does  it  make  us  the  dupes  of  con- 
stant optical  illusions  ?  The  light  which  the  reformers  pro- 
fessed to  borrow  from  heaven  did  all  this.  And  then,  does  it 
fall  much  short  of  blasphemy,  to  maintain  that  God  is  indif- 
ferent as  to  whether  we  believe  truth  or  error ;  and  that  He 
delights  in  such  a  diversity  of  opinions  as  runs  into  open  con- 

*  In  the  conference  of  Marburg.    See  Audin,  "  Life  of  Luther,"  p.  415, 41(>. 
T  Audin.  ilV  \.     See  also  Luther's  Ep.  ad  Jacobum,  prajp.  Bremens. 


226  INFLUENCE   OF    REFORMATION    ON    DUCi'Ll^vE. 

tradictions  ?  And  this  too,  when  his  well  beloved  Son  came 
on  earth  "  to  bear  testimony  to  the  truth,''  and  laid  down 
His  life  to  seal  it  with  his  blood !  And  when  the  Saviour 
pronounced  the  awful  declaration  :  "  He  that  believeth  not 
shall  be  condemned  ;"*  which  declaration  referred  to  the 
necessity  of  belief  "in  all  things  whatsoever  he  had  com- 
manded !"t 

The  doctrine  of  private  judgment,  broached  by  the  re- 
formers, led  to  endless  inconsistencies  and  contradictions.  It 
was  the  prolific  parent  of  sects  almost  innumerable.  More 
than  fifty  J  of  these  arose  before  the  death  of  Luther!  It 
was  natural  that  it  should  be  so:  "These  diversities  were 
among  the  most  essential  features  of  the  Reformation." § 
The  tree  was  only  bearing  its  natural  fruits ;  and  the  latter, 
according  to  the  divine  standard,  are  the  best  criterion 
whereby  to  judge  of  the  former:  "By  their  fruits  ye  shall 
know  them." — "  The  Reformation,  which  promised  to  put  an 
end  to  the  reign  of  disputatious  theology,  had,  on  the  con- 
trary, awakened  in  all  minds  a  fondness  for  dispute,  bordering 
on  fanaticism :  it  was  the  fever  of  logomachy.||  Half  a  cen 
tury  before,  men  indeed  disputed ;  but  then  the  doctrine  of 
the  Church  wiis  not  called  into  question:  now  however  it 
was  attacked  on  all  sides.  In  each  university,  and  even  in 
every  private  house,  Germany  saw  a  pulpit  erected  for  who- 
ever pretended  to  have  received  the  understanding  of  the 
divine  word."  Tf 

This  raging  fever  of  disputation  has  continued  to  burn  in 
the  bosom  of  Protestantism  even  to  the  present  day :  it  has 
not  abated  in  the  progress  of  ages.  True,  in  Germany  and 
on  the  continent  of  Europe,  it  has,  to  a  great  extent,  lately 
cooled  down  into  a  state  of  mortal  apathy — a  more  dangerous 
symptom  far  than  the  malady  which  it  has  superseded:  but 


*  St.  Mark,  xvi :  16.     f  The  parallel  passage  in  St.  Matthew,  ^xviii :  2ft 

I  See  Audin,  p.  331.  \  D'Aubigne,  ut  supra. 

II  A  war  of  words.  %  Audin,  ibid.,  p.  190,  191. 


THE   BIBLE   WRKSTED.  227 

elsewhere,  it  has  left  the  patient  in  the  saine  restless  and 
tossing  condition,  as  formerly. 

Most  of  the  reformers  found  in  the  Bible,  that  a  priest 
who  had  made  a  solemn  vow  of  celibacy  to  God,  might  and 
even  ought  to  break  it,  by  taking  a  wife.  The  first  who 
made  this  consoling  discovery,  were  Bernard  of  Felkirk, 
abbot  of  Remberg,  and  the  aged  Karlstadt,  archdeacon  of 
Wittenberg.  The  new  light  which  had  dawned  upon  them 
was  hailed  with  ecstasy  by  the  lovers  of  "Christian  liberty" 
throughout  Germany.  Some  went  still  further,  and  main- 
tained, Bible  in  hand,  with  Bucer,  Capito,  Karlstadt  and 
other  evangelists,  that  marriage  was  not  indissoluble;  and 
that  a  Christian  could  dismiss  his  wife,  or  even  retain  her, 
and  take  one  or  more  others  at  the  same  time,  after  the  ex- 
ample of  the  ancient'  patriarchs.  These  styled  themselves 
"the  sons  of  liberty" — they  should  have  said  libertinism. 

We  shall  see,  a  little  later,  to  what  frightful  consequences 
these  horrid  doctrines  led ! 

"All  the  hallucinations  of  a  disordered  intellect  were  for  a  time  ascribed 
to  the  Holy  Ghost.  Never  had  the  divine  wisdom  communicated  itself 
more  liberally  to  the  human  mind !  The  Bible  was  laid  open,  as  an  ana- 
tomical subject,  on  an  operator's  table,  and  every  doctor  came  with  his 
lance  in  hand — as  afterwards  did  Dumoulin — to  anatomize  the  word  of  God, 
and  to  seek  the  spirit,  which  before  Luther  had  escaped  the  eye  of  Catho- 
licism. It  was  an  epoch  of  glosses  and  commentaries,  which  time  has  not 
had  the  trouble  of  destroying,  for  they  abounded  with  absurdity,  and  fell 
beneath  the  weight  of  ridicule  which  crushed  them  at  their  birth.  There 
were  new  lights,  who  came  to  announce  that  they  had  discovered  an  iiTe- 
sistible  argument  against  the  Mass,  purgatory,  and  prayers  to  the  saints. 
This  was  simply  to  deny  the  immortality  of  the  soul !  "* — This  startling 
impiety  was  really  maintained  in  full  school  at  Geneva,  by  certain  "new 
lights,"  who  came  from  Wittenberg.f 

Menzel,  the  Protestant  historian  of  Germany,  freely  admits 

*  Audin,  p.  192. 

f  "Quidquid  de  animarum  habetur  imraortalitate,  ab  antichristo  ad  statu- 
endam  suam  culinam  cxcogitatum  est."  Prateolus — Elench.  voce  Atbei, 
p.  72.     See  also  Bayle's  Dictionary,  art.  liUther. 


228  INFLUENCE    OF    RI'^FORMATION    ON    DOCTRINE. 

that  division  was  the  essential  heritage  of  the  Reformation, 
whose  unity  it  fatally  marred,  thereby  frittering  away  ita 
strength.     He  says: 

"The  Protestants,  blind  to  the  unity  and  strength  resulting  from  the 
policy  of  the  Catholics,  weakened  themselves  more  and  more  by  division. 
The  reformed  Swiss  were  almost  more  inimical  to  the  Lutherans  than  the 
Catholics  were,  and  the  general  mania  for  disputation  and  theological  ob- 
stinacy produced  divisions  among  the  reformers  themselves.  When,  ir 
1562,  BuUinger  set  up  the  Helvetic  Confession,  to  which  the  Pfalz  also 
assented  in  Zurich,  Basle  refused  and  maintained  a  particular  Confession."* 

From  the  earliest  period  of  its  history,  "  the  hydra  of  the 
Reformation  had  a  hundred  heads.  The  Anabaptists  believed 
with  Miinzer,  that  without  a  second  baptism,  man  could  not 
be  saved.  The  Karlstadtians  preached  up  polygamy.  The 
Zuinglians  rejected  the  real  presence.  .Osiander  taught  that 
God  had  predestined  only  the  elect.  The  Majorists  taught 
that  works  were  not  necessary  for  salvation ;  while  the  fol- 
lowers of  Flaccus  accused  the  Majorists  of  popery.  The 
Synergists  preached  up  man's  liberty.  The  Ubiquitarians 
believed,  that  the  humanity  of  Christ  was,  like  His  divinity, 
omnipresent.  Some  held  original  sin  to  be  the  nature,  sub- 
stance, the  essence  of  man ;  while  others  regarded  it  as  a  mere 
mode  of  his  being.  All  these  sects  boasted  of  the  Bible,  as  a 
sufficient  rule  of  faith ;  they  published  confessions,  composed 
creeds,  and  insisted  on  faith,  as  a  condition  of  communion. 
Children  of  the  same  father,  whom  they  had  severally  denied, 
they  cursed  and  proscribed  each  other :  they  gave  the  name 
of  heretic  to,  and  shut  the  gates  of  heaven  against,  all  their 
brethren  in  revolt,  who  happened  to  differ  with  them."-t 
Other  fanatics  preached  up  the  community  of  goods,  with 
Storck  and  the  Anabaptists ;  others  with  the  prophets  of 
Alstell,  "  the  demolition  of  images,  of  churches,  of  chapels, 
and  the  adoration  of  the  Lord  on  high  places; "J  and  others, 

*  History  of  Germany,  II,  275. 

f  Audin,  p.  208,  209.     See  the  authorities  he  quotes,  'bid.,  note. 
Idem ,  p.  331. 


A    HYDRA.  229 

the  inutility  of  the  law  and  of  prayer. — The  feverish  spirit  of 
innovation  knew  no  rest;  every  day  brought  forth  a  new  sect. 
And  is  it  not  so,  even  in  our  own  age  and  country  ? 

Erasmus  thus  hits  off,  in  his  own  polished  and  caustic 
style,  the  extravagant  inconsistencies  of  the  Protestant  rule 
of  faith : 

"  They  ask :  '  Do  philosophy  and  learning  aid  us  in  understanding  the 
holy  books?'  I  reply:  'Will  ignorance  assist  you?'  They  say:  'Of 
what  authority  are  these  councils,  in  which  not  perhaps  a  single  member 
received  the  Holy  Ghost  ? '  1  ask  in  reply  :  '  Is  not  the  gift  of  God,  pro- 
bably, as  rare  in  your  conventicles  ? '  The  Apostles  would  not  have  been  be- 
lieved, had  they  not  proved  the  truth  of  their  doctrines  by  miracles.  Among 
you  every  individual  must  be  believed  on  his  own  word.  When  the  Apos- 
tles lulled  the  serpents,  healed  the  infirm,  and  raised  the  dead  to  life,  peoj-le 
were  forced  to  believe  in  them,  though  they  announced  incomprehensible 
mysteries.  Among  these  doctors,  who  tell  us  so  many  wonderful  things, 
is  there  one  who  has  been  able  to  cure  a  lame  horse  ?  .  .  .  .  Give  me  mira- 
cles.— '  They  are  unnecessary  :  there  have  been  enough  of  them  : ' — the  bright 
Ught  of  the  Scriptures  is  not  so  very  clear,  since  I  see  so  many  men  wander 
in  the  dark.  Although  we  had  the  spirit  of  God,  how  can  we  be  certain 
that  we  have  the  knowledge  of  His  word  ?  What  must  I  believe,  when  I  see, 
in  the  midst  of  contradictory  doctrines,  all  lay  claim  to  dogmatical  infallibi- 
lity, and  rise  up  with  oracular  authority  against  the  doctrines  of  those  who 
have  preceded  us  ?  Is  it  then  likely  that,  during  thirteen  centuries,  God 
should  not  have  raised  up,  among  the  many  holy  personages  he  has  given 
to  His  Church,  a  single  one  to  whom  he  revealed  His  doctrine."* 

Luther  was  often  saddened  by  the  defection  of  his  own  dis- 
ciples, as  well  as  grievously  puzzled,  when  these  played  off 
on  him  the  same  arguments  which  he  had  used  against  the 
Pope.  His  cherished  disciple  Mathesius  relates  the  mental 
anguish  he  endured,  when,  being  at  the  castle  of  the  Wart- 
burg  in  1521,  he  heard  of  the  revolt  and  strange  doings  of 
Karlstadt  at  Wittenberg.  He  yielded  to  dejection  ;  he  seemed 
to  himself  to  have  been  abandoned  by  God  and  by  men : 
"His  head  grew  weary,  his  forehead  burned  with  the  excite- 
ment  of  his  mind,  his  eye  grew  dim — and   he  would  open  his 


*  "  De  Libero  Arbitrio."     Diatribe,  and  Adolf  Menzel,  i,  140 
15 


230  IJSTf.UENCE    OF    REFORMATION    UN    DOCTRINE. 

window,  and  inhaling  the  ambrosial  breeze,  would  endeavo) 
to  forget  the  world  and  its  wrongs !  "* 

But  all  his  efforts  to  (j[uiet  his  own  mind  proved  ineffectual: 
he  chafed  like  a  tiger  in  his  cage.  At  length  he  resolved, 
against  the  advice  of  his  friends,  to  leave  the  Wartburg,  and 
to  precipitate  himself  into  the  midst  of  his  recreant  disciples 
at  Wittenberg.  He  harangued  them  for  full  two  hours  on 
the  wickedness  of  their  defection  from  his  standard  ;  and 
concluded  liis  burning  invective  with  the  following  memora- 
ble sentence:  "Yes,  if  the  devil  himself  had  entreated  me" 
— to  remove  the  images  from  the  church  by  violence  —  "I 
would  have  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  him!"-|- 

Tlie  reformer  draws  a  graphic  sketch  of  his  own  perplex 
ity  in  a  letter  to  the  "Christians"  of  Antwerjj,  written  in 
1525.     We  will  furnish  a  few  extracts  : 

"  The  devil  has  got  among  you  :  he  daily  sends  me  visitors  to  knock  at 
my  door.  One  will  not  hear  of  baptism;  another  rejects  the  sacrament  of 
the  Eucharist ;  a  third  teaches  that  a  new  world  will  be  created  by  God  be- 
fore tlie  day  of  judgment ;  another,  that  Christ  is  not  God  :  in  short,  one 
this,  another  that.  There  are  almost  as  many  creeds  as  individuals.  There 
is  no  booby,  who,  when  he  dreams,  does  not  believe  himself  visited  by  God, 
and  who  does  not  claim  the  gift  of  prophecy.  I  am  often  visited  by  these 
men  who  claim  to  be  favored  by  visions,  of  which  they  all  know  more  than 
I  do,  and  which  they  undertake  to  teach  me.  I  would  be  glad  they  were 
what  they  profess  to  be.  No  later  than  yesterday  one  came  to  me  :  '  Sir,  I 
am  sent  by  God  who  created  heaven  and  earth  ; '  and  tlien  he  began  to 
preach  as  a  veritable  idiot,  that  it  was  the  order  of  God  that  I  should  read 
the  books  of  Moses  for  him.  'Ah  !  where  did  you  find  this  commandment 
of  God  ?'  'In  the  gospel  of  St.  John  ! '  After  he  had  spoken  much,  I  said 
to  him  :  '  Friend,  come  back  to-morrow,  for  I  cannot  read  for  you,  at  one 
sitting,  the  books  of  Moses.'  '  Good-by,  master  ;  the  heavenly  Father,  who 
shed  his  blood  for  us,  will  show  us  the  right  way  through  his  Son  Jesus. 
Amen  !'....  While  the  Papacy  Justed  there  were  no  such  divisions  or  disfen- 
sions  :  the  strong  man  peaceably  ruled  the  minds  of  men  ;  but  now  one 
stronger  is  come,  who  has  vanquished  and  put  him  to  tliglit,  and  the  former 
one  storms  and  wishes  not  to  depart.  A  spirit  of  confusion  is  thus  among 
you,  which  tempts  you,  and  seeks  to  withdraw  you  from  the  true  path." 

*  Matliesius.    In  Vit\  Lutheri,  apud  Audin,  p.  -09. 
f  Soe  the  harangue  in  Au.l'n,  p.  237,  238. 


LUTHER't;     PERPLEXITY.  231 

Ele  concludes  this  strange  epistle  with  tliese  churaeteristic 
words :  "  Begone,  ye  cohort  of  devils,  marked  with  the  char 
acter  of  error :  God  is  a  spirit  of  peace  and  not  of  dissension.*'* 

But  Luther  could  not  succeed  in  exorcising  the  demons, 
whom  his  owti  principle  of  private  judgment  had  evoked 
from  the  abyss.  True,  he  occasionally  made  trial  of  the  good 
old  Catholic  specifics  for  this  purpose ;  but  they  proved  utterly 
powerless  in  his  hands.  Thus,  when  pressed  by  the  Anabap- 
tists, to  prove  infant  baptism  from  the  Scriptures — his  only 
rule  of  faith — he  had  recourse  to  the  good  old  Catholic  argu- 
ment of  Church  authority  founded  on  tradition  !  He  appealed 
to  the  testimony  of  St.  Augustine  and  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Church  during  his  day. — "  But,  it  is  objected,"  he  says,  "  what 
if  Augustine  and  those  whom  you  call  and  believe  to  be  the 
Church,  erred  in  this  particular  ?  But  this  objection  can  be 
easily  impugned.  If  you  do  not  admit  the  right,  Qns)  at  least 
will  you  not  admit  the  fact  (factum)  of  this  having  been  the 
belief  of  the  Church?  And  to  deny  that  this  was  the  faith 
of  the  true  and  lawful  Church,  I  deem  most  impious."t 

Another  argument,  which  he  employed  to  refute  the  Ana- 
baptists, was  that  drawn  from  the  necessity  of  a  lawful  mis- 
sion to  preach  the  gospel,  and  of  miracles  to  confirm  this 
mission,  whenever  it  was  not  derived  through  the  ordinary 
channels  of  the  Church.  In  a  sermon  delivered  at  V/itten- 
berg  against  their  prophets,  in  1522,  he  employed  this  remark- 
able language : 

"Do  you  wish  to  found  a  new  church  ? — Let  us  see  :  who  has  sent  you  ? 
From  whom  have  you  received  your  mission  ?  As  you  give  testimony  of 
yourselves,  we  are  not  at  once  to  beheve  you,  but  according  to  the  advice  of 

*  "  Ein  Briefe  D.  Martin  Luther  an  die  Christen  zu  Antorf "  AVitten- 
berg,  1525,  4to.     "  Doct.  M.  Luther  Briefe,"  tom.  iii,  p.  60.    Cf  Audin. 

i  Objicitur  vcro  :  quid  si  Augustinus,  et  quos  ecclesiam  vocas  vel  esse 
credis,  in  hac  parte  errirint?  ....  At  eadem  objectio  facile  impugnabitur. 
Si  nonnis,  tamen  (actum  proprie  credendi  in  ecclesia  ?  Hanc  autem  confes- 
sioneni  negare  esse  ecclesiaa  illius  verje  et  legitimae,  arbitror  impiissimum 
esse." — Epist.  Melancthoni,  l."^  January,  1522. 


232  iNFLUt:::cK  of  reformation  on  doctrine. 

St.  John,  we  must  try  you.  God  has  sent  no  one  into  this  world  who  was 
not  called  by  man,  or  announced  by  signs — not  even  excepting  his  own  Son. 
The  prophets  derived  their  title  from  the  law,  and  from  the  prophetic  order, 
as  we  do  from  men.  I  do  not  care  for  you,  if  you  have  only  a  mere  revela- 
tion to  propose  :  God  would  not  permit  Samuel  to  speak,  except  by  the 
authoritv  of  Heli.  When  the  law  is  to  be  changed,  miracles  are  necessary. 
Where  are  your  miracles  ?  What  the  Jews  said  to  the  Lord,  we  now  say 
to  you  :  '  Miister,  we  wish  for  a  sign.'  "* 

Luther  often  used  this  argument  :t  and  yet,  it  might  have 
been  retorted  with  unanswerable  force  against  himself.  And 
it  was  retorted  by  Stiibner  and  Cellarius,  two  of  the  Anabaptist 
prophets,  whom  he  had  attacked.  The  answer  of  the  Saxon 
reformer  is  not  recorded  :J  perhaps  he  had  none  to  give. 
According  to  Erasmus,  the  reformers  never  succeeded  ever, 
"in  curing  a  lame  horse!"  Luther  himself,  somewhat  later, 
acknowledged,  that'  he  had  never  performed  any  miracles, 
except  that  "  he  had  sUqjped  Satan  in  the  face,  and  struck 
the  Papacy  in  its  core."§ — Astonishing  miracles  truly ! 

Luther  was  not  alone,  in  thus  inconsistently  appealing  to 
arguments  which  condemned  both  himself  and  his  own  cause. 
Many  of  the  other  principal  reformers  were  driven  to  the 
same  straits.  In  order  to  refute  George  Blaurock,  an  Ana- 
baptist enthusiast,  Zuingle  used  the  following  argument: 

"  If  we  allow  every  enthusiast  or  sophist  to  dilFuse  among  the  people  all 
the  foolish  fancies  of  his  heated  imagination,  to  assemble  together  disciples 
and  make  a  sect,  we  shall  see  the  Church  of  Christ  split  up  into  an  infinity 
of  foctions,  and  lose  that  unity  which  she  has  maintained  at  so  great  sacri- 
fices. It  is  necessary  then  to  consult  the  Church,  and  not  to  listen  to  passion 
or  prejudice.  The  interpretation  of  Scripture  is  not  the  right  of  individuals, 
but  of  the  Church  :  she  has  the  kej^s,  and  the  power  of  unlocking  the  treas- 
sures  of  the  divine  word."ll 

*  Apud  Audin,  p.  238. 

f  As  in  lib.  iii,  c.  iv.     "Contra  Anabaptistas ;"  and  elsewhere. 

\  In  his  letter  to  Spalatin,  in  which  he  relates  his  interview  with  Stiibnei 
and  Cellarius,  Luther  is  silent  on  this  retort.  Epist.  Spalatino,  12  Ap.  1522 
Yet  the  Anabaptist  historians  relate  it.     Cf.  Audin,  p.  239. 

5  See  Audin,  p.  238,  note,  for  authority  for  this  feat. 

il  Zuinglius.     "De  Baptismo,"  p.  72. — Cf  Audin,  p.  240. 


EXTRAVAGANT   FANATICISM.  233 

As  might  have  been  expected,  Blaurock  was  nut  satisfied 
with  this  appeal  to  authority.  Bullinger*  tells  us,  that  he 
answered  in  a  loud  voice:  "Did  not  you  Sacramentarians 
break  with  the  Pope,  without  consulting  the  Church  which 
you  abandoned — and  that,  too,  a  Church  which  was  not  of 
yesterday  ?  Is  it  not  lawful  for  us  to  abandon  your  church, 
which  is  but  a  few  days  old  ?  Can  not  we  do  what  you  have 
done  ? " — Zuingle  was  nonplussed  ;  and  if  even  he  made  an 
attempt  to  reply,  his  answer  is  not  recorded. 

We  will  give  a  few  instances  of  the  strange  fanaticism  to 
which  this  same  principle  of  private  judgment  naturally  led. 
We  might  fill  a  volume  with  such  examples :  but  our  limits 
will  permit  of  only  a  few.f  Listen,  for  instance,  to  this  start- 
ling announcement  of  Storck  in  one  of  his  sermons : 

"Behold,  what  I  announce  to  you.  God  has  sent  his  angel  to  me  during 
the  night,  to  tell  me  that  I  shall  sit  on  the  same  throne  as  the  archangel 

Gabriel.     Let  the  impious  tremble  and  the  just  hope It  is  to  me, 

Storck,  that  heaven  has  promised  the  empire  of  the  world.  Would  you 
desire  to  be  visited  by  God  ?  Prepare  your  hearts  to  receive  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Let  there  be  no  pulpit  whence  to  announce  the  word  of  God :  no 
priests,  no  preachers,  no  exterior  worship :  let  your  dress  be  plain ;  your 
food  bread  and  salt ;  and  God  will  descend  upon  you."J 

Miinzer,  another  Anabaptist,  thus  pleaded  for  the  general 
division  of  property : 

"  Ye  rich  ones  of  the  earth  who  keep  us  in  bondage,  who  have  plundered 
us,  give  us  back  our  liberty  and  possessions.  It  is  not  only  as  men  that  we 
now  demand  what  has  been  taken  from  us :  we  ask  it  as  Christians.  In 
the  primitive  Church,  the  apostles  divided  with  their  brethren  in  Jesus  Christ 
the  money  that  was  laid  at  their  feet.  Give  us  back  the  goods  you  unjustly 
retain.  Unhappy  flock  of  Jesus  Christ,  how  long  will  you  groan  in  oppres- 
sion under  the  yoke  of  the  priest  and  the  magistrate  ?" — "  And  then  the 
prophet  suddenly  fell  into  an  epileptic  fit :  his  hair  stood  erect ;  perspiration 
rolled  down  his  foce,  and  foam  issued  from  his  mouth.  The  people  cried 
out:  'silence,  God  visits  his  prophet!' "5 

*  "In  Apologia  Anabaptist."     P.  254.— Cf  Audin,  p.  240. 
t  Those  who  wish  to  see  more  are  referred  to  Catrou,  Histoire  du  Fana- 
tisme,  torn,  i;  to  Me.shovius,  Ottovius,  and  other  writers. 

I  See  Audin,  p.  230.  5  Ibid.,  p.  231. 

VOL.   T.— 20 


234  INFLUENCE    OF   REFORMATION    ON    DOCTRINE. 

At  the  termination  of  his  ecstasy,  which  continued  foi 
some  minutes,  the  prophet  cried  out  at  the  top  of  his  stenlo- 
rian  voice :  "  Eternal  God,  pour  into  my  soul  the  treasures 
of  thy  justice,  otherwise  1  shall  renounce  thee  and  thy  proph- 
ets."* A  Lutheran  havin<^  appealed  to  the  Bible, — "  The 
Bible  ?  Babel !"  cried  out  Munzer.f 

What  will  be  thought  of  this  strange  conceit  of  Karlstadt  ? 

"  Ono  day,  Karlstadt  was  seen  running  through  the  streets  of  Wittenberg 
with  the  Bible  in  his  hand,  and  stopping  the  passers-bj^  to  inquire  of  theiL 
the  meaning  of  difficult  passages  of  the  sacred  books :  '  What  are  you 
about  ?' said  the  Austin  friars  to  him.  'Is  it  not  written ' — answered  the 
archdeacon — '  that  the  voice  of  truth  shall  be  heard  from  the  lips  of  infants  ? 
I  only  accomplish  the  orders  of  heaven.'  "| 

Who  has  not  heard  of  the  revolting  obscenities  of  John  of 
Leyden,  and  of  the  prophets  of  Munster?  All  of  these  im- 
pure extravagances,  perpetrated,  too,  under  the  bright  new 
light  of  the  Reformation,  and  under  its  alleged  sanction ! 
Who,  in  fine,  that  has  even  glanced  at  the  history  of  this 
period,  has  not  marked  the  endless  extravagances,  the  absurd 
conceits,  the  astonishing  fanaticism  which  marked  almost 
every  day  of  its  annals ! 

Truly,  then  "  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep  were  broken 
up,  and  the  flood-gates  of  heaven  were  opened  *,"§  and  a  new 
deluge  flooded  the  earth,  more  destructive  than  that  which 
had  buoyed  up  Noah's  ark !  For  this  destroyed  only  the 
bodies  of  men;  that  carried  away  and  ruined  men's  souls. 
"The  flood-gates  of  heaven" — did  we  say?  No,  the  origin 
of  those  waters  must  be  sought  elsewhere.  Luther  himself 
aids  us  in  detecting  their  source.  We  have  seen  above  his 
opinion  on  the  subject,  in  his  letter  to  the  Christians  of  Ant- 
werp. And  in  liis  subsequent  controversies  with  the  Sacra- 
mentarians,  after  having  spoken  of  their  dissensions  among 
themselves,  lie  said :  "This  is  a  great  proof  that  these  Sacra- 
mento-magists   come   not  from    God,   but   from   the   devil. "|| 

*  Mcshovius,  p.  4.     Catron,  sup.  cit.  f  Ibid.  |  Ibid. 

5  Genesis,  vi :  11.         1|  "An  die  Christen  zu  Reuthngen,"  5  Januarj^,  1526 


FANATICISM    OF   ANABAPTISTS.  235 

And  we  have  also  seen  how  triumphantly  Zuingle  retorted  the 
compliment  on  Luther  and  his  branch  of  the  lleformation. 

Can  not  we  turn  this,  and  all  the  other  arguments  employed 
by  the  several  reformers  to  refute  each  other,  against  all  of 
them?  Can  not  we  point  to  the  numberless  dissensions  ol 
Protestants  among  themselves — dissensions  perpetuated  a 
hundred  fold  even  unto  the  present  day — to  prove  against 
them  all,  that  their  pretended  lleformation,  which  always 
produced  such  fruits  as  these,  is  not  and  can  not  be  from 
God,  "who  is  not  the  God  of  dissension,  but  of  peace?" 
Can  not  we  ask  them,  whence  they  had  their  mission  to  re- 
form the  Church  ?  And  if  they  answer,  "  from  heaven ;"  ask 
them  again  to  prove  it  to  us  by  miracles  ?  How  will  they, 
how  can  they  answer  these  arguments,  which  they  themselves 
80  often  wielded  against  one  another  ? 

It  will  be  curious  to  see  how  the  modern  Protestant  histo- 
rian of  Germany  speaks  of  the  Anabaptists  and  their  extrav- 
agant excesses.  We  accordingly  here  present  to  our  readers 
the  following  extracts  from  Menzel,  who,  it  will  be  seen,  sub- 
stantially confirms  the  statements  made  above,  and  adds 
some  new  facts: 

"  The  illiterate  and  the  enthusiastic,  however,  far  outstripped  Luther  in 
their  ideas ;  instead  of  reforming  they  wished  to  annihilate  the  church,  and 
to  grasp  political  as  well  as  religious  liberty,  and  it  was  justly  feared  lest 
these  excesses  might  fiirnish  Rome  with  a  pretext  for  rejecting  every  species 
of  reform.  'Luther,' wrote  their  leader,  Thomas  Miinzer, 'merely  draws 
the  word  of  God  from  books,  and  twists  the  dead  letters.*  Nicholas  Storck, 
Miinzer's  first  teacher,  a  clothier,  who  surrounded  himself  with  twelve 
apostles  and  seventy-two  disciples,  boasted  of  receiving  revelations  from  an 
angel.  Their  rejection  of  infant  baptism  and  sole  recognition  of  that  of 
adults  as  efficacious,  gained  for  them  the  appellation  of  xAnabaptists.  Karl- 
Btadt  joined  this  sect,  and  followed  the  example  already  given  by  Bartholo- 
mew Bernhardi,  a  priest,  one  of  Luther's  disciples,  who  had  married."  .... 

"  The  Anabaptists,  repulsed  by  Luther,  encouraged  by  these  precedents, 
drew  near  to  Zuingle,  and  their  leader,  Thomas  Miinzer,  who  had  been  ex- 
pelled from  Wittenberg,  went  to  Waldshut  on  the  Ehins,  where,  counten- 
anced by  the  priest,  Hubmaier,  the  greatest  disorder  took  place.  Zuingle  de- 
clared against  them,  and  caused  several  of  them  to  be  drowned  [A.  D.  1524"',, 


236  INFLUENCE    OF   REFORMATION    ON    DOCTRINE. 

but  w  «s,  nevertheless,  still  regarded  by  Luther  as  a  man  who,  under  the 
cW .  of  spiritual  liberty,  sought  to  bring  about  political  changes."* 

Of  the  insurrection  in  which  Miinzer  perished,  lie  says : 
"  At  the  same  time,  in  the  summer  of  1525,  an  insurrection,  bearing  a 
more  religious  character,  broke  out  in  Thuringia,  where  Thomas  Miinzer 
appeared  as  a  prophet,  and  preached  the  doctrines  of  equality  and  fraternity. 
The  insurgents  were  defeated  by  Ernest,  Count  von  Mansfield,  whose  brother 
Albert  had  conceded  all  their  demands  ;  and  afterwai'ds  at  Fulda,  by  Philip 
of  Hesse,  who,  i-einforced  by  Ernest,  the  Duke  George,  and  the  elector  John 
of  Saxony,  marched  on  Frankonhausen,  the  headquarters  of  the  rebels,  who, 
infatuated  with  the  belief  that  heaven  would  fight  for  them,  allowed  them 
selves  to  be  slaughtered  whilst  invoking  aid  from  God.  Five  thousand  were 
slain.  Frankenhausen  was  taken  and  pillaged,  and  three  hundred  prisoners 
were  beheaded.  Miuizer  was  discovered  in  a  hay-stack,  in  which  he  had 
secreted  himself,  put  to  the  rack,  and  executed  with  twenty-six  of  his  com- 
panions."! 

He  writes  as  follows  of  the  excesses  committed  at  Ley 
den,  which  became  the  headquarters  of  the  Anabaptists : 

"  The  most  extravagant  folly  and  license  ere  long  prevailed  in  the  city. 
John  Bockelson,  a  tailor  from  Ley  den,  gave  himself  out  as  a  prophet,  and 
proclaimed  himself  king  of  the  universe ;  a  clothier,  named  KnipperdoUing, 
and  one  Krechting,  were  elected  burgomasters.  A  community  of  goods 
and  wives  was  proclaimed  and  carried  into  execution.  Civil  dissensions  en- 
sued, but  were  speedily  quelled  by  the  Anabaptists.  John  of  Le3'den  took 
seventeen  wives,  one  of  whom,  Divara,  gained  great  influence  by  her  spirit 
and  beauty.  The  city  was,  meanwhile,  closely  besieged  by  the  expelled 
bishop,  Francis  von  Waldeck,  who  was  aided  by  several  of  the  Catholic  and 
Lutheran  princes ;  numbers  of  the  nobility  flocked  thither  for  pastime,  and 
carried  on  the  siege  against  the  Anabaptists,  who  made  a  long  and  vahant 
defense.  The  attempts  of  their  brethren  in  Holland  and  Friesland  to  reheve 
them  proved  ineffectual.  A  dreadful  famine  ensued  in  consequence  of  the 
closeness  of  the  siege  ;  the  citizens  lost  courage  and  betrayed  the  city  by 
night  to  the  enemy.  Most  of  the  fixnatics  were  cut  to  pieces.  John,  Knip- 
perdoUing, and  Krechting  were  captured,  enclosed  in  iron  cages,  and  carried 
for  six  months  thi-oughout  Germany,  after  which  they  were  brought  back  to 
Munster  to  suffer  an  agonizing  death.  Divara  and  the  rest  of  the  principal 
fanatics  were  beheaded."| 

To  illustrate  this  matter  still   further,  and   t )  show  what 
•  History  of  Germany,  ii,  232-3.         f  Ibid.,  p.  243.         |  Ibid.  p.  256. 


LUTHER    AND    KARLSTADT.  237 

spirit  originated  and  perpetuated  the  dissensions  by  which 
early  Protestantism  was  torn  into  fragments,  we  will  here  ex- 
hibit a  few  specimens  of  the  manner  in  which  controversies 
among  the  reformers  were  then  conducted.  In  1524,  Luther 
went  to  Jena,  where  he  preached  against  the  new  prophets 
of  the  Anabaptists,  whose  arguments  had  been  answered  by 
their  brother  Protestants  with  the  convincing  weapons  of  fire 
and  sword !  Tens  of  thousands  of  the  vast  multitudes,  whom 
these  fanatics  had  misled,  had  been  butchered;  still  their 
spirit  was  not  wholly  subdued.  Karlstadt,  then  pastor  at 
Jena,  feeling  himself  aggrieved  by  the  violence  of  Luther's 
sermon,  challenged  him  to  an  oral  discussion.  The  challenge 
was  accepted,  and  the  tavern  of  the  Black  Boar,  where  Luther 
lodged,  was  the  place  appointed  for  the  meeting.  After  some 
preliminary  discussion,  in  which  the  two  new  apostles  in- 
dulged in  insulting  personalities,  Karlstadt  maintaining  that 
Luther  had  meant  him  in  his  sermon,  and  Luther  calling  on 
him  for  proof,  telling  him  "  if  he  saw  the  likeness  in  the  pic- 
ture, it  must  have  suited  him,"  etc.,  the  discussion  proceeded 
after  this  wise: 

Karlstadt. — Well  then,  I  will  dispute  in  public,  and  I  will  manifest  the 
truth  of  God,  or  my  own  confusion. 

Lnther. — Your  own  folly  rather.  Doctor. 

Karlstadt. — My  confusion,  which  I  shall  bear  for  God's  glory. 

Luther. — And  which  will  fall  back  on  your  own  shoulders.  I  care  little 
for  your  menaces.     Who  fears  you  ? 

Karlstadt. — Whom  do  I  fear  ?  My  doctrine  is  pure  ;  it  comes  from  God. 

Luther. — If  it  comes  from  God,  why  have  you  not  imparted  to  others  the 
spirit  that  made  you  break  the  images  at  Wittenberg  ? 

Karlstadt. — I  was  not  the  only  one  concerned  in  that  enterprise.  It  was 
done  after  a  mature  decision  of  the  senate,  and  by  the  co-operation  of  some 
of  your  disciples,  who  fled  in  the  moment  of  peril. 

Luther. — False,  I  protest. 

Karlstadt. — True,  I  protest. 

Karlstadt  complained  a  little  afterwards,  that  Luther  had 
condemned  him  at  "Wittenberg  without  previous  admonition. 
This  Luther  flatly  contradicted,  stating  that  "  he  had  brought 


238  USFLUENCE    OF    EEFORMATION    ON    DOCTRINE. 

Philip  and  Pomoranius  into  his  study,"  tor  that  purpose, 
hereupon  Karlstadt  became  enraged,  and  exclaimed:  "If  you 
speak  the  truth,  may  the  d — il  tear  me  in  pieces  1"  The  dis- 
cussion ended  in  nothing — as  most  discussions  of  the  kind 
do.  Luther  challenged  Karlstadt  to  write  against  him ;  the 
latter  accepted  the  challenge :  Luther  then  gave  him  a  gold 
florin  as  stake-money,  and  the  compact  was  duly  ratified, 
after  the  old  German  fashion,  by  twa  overflowing  bumpers 
of  ale.*  Never  had  the  Black  Boar  of  Jena  been  so  crowded, 
or  witnessed  a  spectacle  of  such  stirring  interest !  And  such 
a  spectacle ! 

From  Jena  Luther  proceeded  to  Orlamunde,  where  he  car- 
ried on  a  spirited  controversy,  in  the  presence  of  the  town 
council,  with  a  cobbler  theologian,  named  Crispin,  who  had 
recently  learned — thanks  to  the  Reformation — how  to  apply 
his  craft  to  interpreting,  if  not  mending  the  Bible.  The  dis- 
cussion was  long  and  animated ;  Crispin  supplying  his  lack 
of  argument  by  a  stentorian  voice,  and  by  furious  gesticula- 
tions. The  subject  was  the  lawfulness  of  images;  Luther 
defending,  and  Crispin  objecting;  and  both  appealing  to  the 
Bible.  What  was  most  mortifying  to  the  reformer,  the  town 
council  sided  with  the  cobbler,  and  decided  against  the  Wit 
tenberg  doctor ! 

"'So  then,'  said  Luther  to  the  council,  'you  condemn  me  ?' 

" '  Most  assuredly ;'  cried  out  Crispin — '  you  and  all  who  teach  what  is 

opposed  to  God's  word.' 

"'A  childish  insult,' said  Luther  as  he  mounted  the  car.     One  of  the 

chamtei-lains  here  caught  hold  of  his  garments,  and  said:  'Before  you  go 

away,  master,  a  word  with  you  on  baptism,  and  the  sacrament  of  the 

Eucharist.' 

"  '  Have  you  not  my  books  ?'  said  the  monk  to  him.     '  Read  them.' 

" '  I  have  read  them,  and  ray  conscience  is  not  satisfied  with  them  ;'  said 

the  chamberlain. 

" '  If  any  thing  displeases  you  in  them  write  against  me ;'  said  Luther  : 

and  he  started  off.'  "f 

*  See  the  whole  discussion  in  Audin,  p,  322,  seqq.  f  Ibid ,  329 


THE    REAL    PRESENCE.  239 

Luther  himself  rehites  to  us  this  adventure,  and  alsu  gives 
to  us  the  words  of  awful  malediction  with  which  the  people 
greeted  him,  when  he  was  leaving  Orlamunde.* 

But  the  most  interesting  discussion  of  all,  was  that  held  at 
Marburg  in  1528,  on  the  subject  of  the  holy  Sacrament,  be- 
tween Luther,  Melancthon,  Justus  Jonas,  and  Cruciger,  on 
the  one  part;  and  Zuingle,  CEcolampadius,  Martin  Bucer, 
and  Gaspard  Hedio,  on  the  other.  Luther  contended  for  the 
real  presence  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  along  with 
that  of  the  bread  and  wine;  and  Zuinglius  maintained  a 
figurative  presence,  or  rather,  no  presence  at  all.  This  point 
was  the  greatest  subject  of  contention  among  the  early  re- 
formers. "  Li  1527,  Luther  counted  already  no  less  than 
eight  different  interpretations  pf  the  text:  'this  is  my  body!' 
Thirty  years  afterwards,  there  were  no  less  than  eighty- 
five!"!  Rasperger,  who  wrote  at  a  somewhat  later  period, 
reckoned  no  less  than  two  hundred !  J  A  pretty  good  com- 
mentary this,  on  the  principle  of  private  judgment.  It  must 
surely  be  a  good  rule  of  faith,  since  it  has  thus  led  to  those 
diveymties^  which  D'Aubigne  admires  so  much,  and  deems 
essential  developments  of  the  Reformation .§ 

One  of  Zuingle's  chief  arguments  against  the  real  presence, 
was  based  on  the  fact  that  this  doctrine  was  held  by  the 
Catholic  Church.  Luther  answered:  Wretched  argument  I 
Deny  then  the  Scripture  also;  for  we  have  received  it  too 
from  the  Pope We  must  acknowledge  that  there  are 

*  0pp.  torn,  i,  edit.  Jen^,  fol.  467 ;  edit.  Witt,  i,  214.  Cf.  Audin,  p.  329. 
As  he  was  leaving,  the  populace  roared  out  after  him :  "  May  the  devil  and 
all  his  imps  have  you !  May  you  break  your  neck  and  limbs  before  you 
leave  the  city ! " 

f  See  Audin,  p.  408,  note,  for  an  account  of  the  principal  interpretations ; 
most  of  them  singular  enough,  even  for  those  days  of  Bible  mania. 

X  Apud  Liebermanu,  Theologia  Dogmat.     De  Eucharistia. 

5  Bellarmine  bears  evidence  that  two  hundred  interpretations  of  the 
words : — this  is  my  body — had  been  enumerated  in  a  work  published  in 
1577 ! — Controversiae  vol.  iii,  cap.  viii,  de  Eucharist,  p.  195.  Edit.  VenctiiB, 
1721— in  6  vols,  folio. 


240  INFLUENCE   OF    EEFORM.VilON    ON    DOCTRINE. 

great  mysteries  of  faith  in  the  Papacy ;  yea,  all  tlui  truths 
we  have  inherited :  for  it  is  in  popery  that  we  found  the  true 
Scriptures,  true  baptism,  the  true  sacrament  of  the  altar,  the 
true  keys  which  remit  sin,  true  preaching,  the  true  catechism, 
which  contains  the  Lord's  prayer,  the  ten  commandments— 
that  is  true  Christianity.* 

Precious  avowal,  coming,  as  it  does,  from  the  father  of  the 
Reformation — the  most  inveterate  enemy  of  Rome!  How  it 
contrasts  with  many  of  his  other  declarations  ?  Why  abandon 
the  Catholic  Church,  if  it  taught  all  this,  and  held  "true 
Christianity?"  "Out  of  thy  own  mouth,  I  judge  thee,  thou 
wicked  servant!"  On  another  occasion,  Luther  had  said: 
"  Had  Karlstadt  or  any  other  proved  to  me,  five  years  ago, 
that  there  was  nothing  but  bread  and  wine  in  the  sacran)ent, 
he  would  have  rendered  me  great  service.  It  would  have 
been  a  great  blow  to  the  Papacy :  but  it  is  all  in  vain ;  the 
text  is  too  plain."t  It  was  perhaps  too  late :  he  had  already 
taken  his  stand,  and  committed  himself  on  the  question. 

The  conference  on  this  subject  at  Marburg,  was  long  and 
violent :  instead  of  healing,  it  only  widened  the  breach  among 
the  reformers.  "We  can  furnish  but  one  extract  from  the 
debate. 

To  prove  the  figurative  presence,  Zuingle  had  appealed  to 
Ezechiel's  wheel,  and  to  the  famous  text  from  Exodus,  chap, 
xii :  "  For  it  is  the  phase,  that  is,  the  passover  of  the  Lord," 

*  0pp.  Lutheri,  Jenje,  fol.  408,  409.     Audin,  410. 

"  Profecto  frivolum  est  hoc  argumentum,  supra  quod  nihil  boni  aedificatun 
sumus.  Hoc  enim  pacto  negare  eos  oporteret  totam  quoque  Scripturam 
Sacram  et  prajdicandi  oflBcium  ;  hoc  enim  totum  a  Papa  habemus.    Stultitia 

est  hoc  totum Nos  autera  fatemur  sub  Papatu  phu-imum  esse  bom 

Christiani,  imo  omne  honum  Christianinii,  atque  etiam  illinc  ad  nos  devenisse. 
Quippe  flitemur  in  Papatu  veram  esse  Scripturam  Sacram,  verum  baptis- 
mum,  verum  sacramentum  altaris,  veras  claves  ad  remissionem  peccatorum. 
verum  praidicaiuli  officium ;  ....  Dico  insuper  in  Papatu  veram  Ohristiani- 
tatem  esse, imo  vero  nudeum  Ckristiani talis  esse." 

t  Lutheri  0pp.  edit.  Hall.  tom.  xv,  p.  2448.     Ad.  Menzel,  i,  269,  270. 


LUTHER    AND    ZUINGLE.  241 

which  text  had  been  suggested  to  him  by  the  nocturnal  visitor 
of  whom  "  he  could  not  say  whether  he  was  black  or  white  !"* 
Luther  answered : 

" '  The  pasch  and  the  wheel  are  allegorical.  I  do  not  mean  to  dispute 
with  you  about  a  word.  If  is  means  signifies,  I  appeal  to  the  words  of  Christ, 
who  says :  "  This  is  my  body."  The  devil  can  not  get  out  of  them  {Da  kann 
der  Teufel  nicht  fur).  To  doubt  is  to  fall  fi'om  the  faith.  Why  do  you  not 
also  see  a  trope  in  "  he  ascended  into  heaven  ?  "  A  God  made  man,  the  Word 
made  flesh,  a  God  who  suffers — these  are  all  incomprehensible  things,  which 
you  must  however  believe  under  penalty  of  eternal  damnation.' 

"  Zuingle. — '  You  do  not  prove  the  matter.  I  will  not  permit  you  to  incur 
the  begging  of  the  question.  You  must  change  your  note  (_Ihr  werdet  mir 
anderes  singen).  Do  you  think  that  Christ  wished  to  accommodate  himself 
to  the  ignorant  ? ' 

"  Luther. — '  Do  you  then  deny  it  ?  "  This  is  a  hard  saying,"  muttered  the 
Jews,  who  spoke  of  the  thing  as  impossible.     This  passage  can  not  serve  you. 

"  Zuingle. — '  Bah !  it  breaks  your  neck  {Nein,  nein,  hruht  each  den  Hals  ab).' 

"  Luther. — '  Softly,  be  not  so  haughty :  you  are  not  in  Switzerland,  but  in 
Hesse ;  and  necks  are  not  so  easily  broken  here  (Die  Ealse  brechen  nicht  also).'  "f 

The  wavering,  but  often  candid  Melancthon  wept  bitterly 
over  the  dissensions  of  early  Protestantism.  He  had  not  the 
power  to  heal  the  crying  evil,  nor  the  courage  to  abandon  tin 
system  in  which  it  originated.  From  many  passages  of  his 
writings  bearing  on  the  subject,  we  select  the  following 
lament,  in  a  confidential  letter  to  a  friend:  "The  Elbe  with 
all  its  waves  could  not  furnish  tears  enough  to  weep  over  the 
miseries  of  the  distracted  Reformation."  J 

A  learned  German  historian  of  the  day,  Dr  Dollinger,  has 
published  an  extensive  work,  replete  with  erudition,  on  the 
character  of  the  German  reformers,  and  the  nature  and  tend- 
ency of  the  religious  revolution  which  they  brought  about, 
as  described  by  themseVes.§     We  had  intended   to  draw 

*  Florimond  Remond,  and  Schlussenburg,  in  proem.  Theolog.  Calvin. 
Zuingle's  own  words  have  been  already  quoted. 

t  For  an  account  of  the  entire  discussion,  taken  fi'om  Rodolph  Collin,  an 
eye  and  ear-witness,  see  Audin,  p.  413,  seqq. 

I  Epist.  lib.  ii,  Ep.  202. 

5  The  work  was  published  at  Ratisbon,  in  1846-8,  in  three  volumes,  8vo 
VOL.  I. — 21 


242  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON   DOCTRINE. 

copiously  from  its  pages ;  but  we  luckily  find  the  task  already 
performed  to  our  hands.  The  excellent  condensed  summary 
of  its  contents  furnished  by  the  Dublin  Review*  suits  exactly 
the  scope  of  our  present  essays;  and  hence,  in  this  and  the 
following  chapters,  we  shall  quote  Dollinger  from  this  sum- 
mary, under  the  appropriate  heads.  And  here  we  present  to 
our  readers  a  view  of  the  unsettledness  of  faith  produced  by 
the  principle  of  private  judgment,  as  certified  by  contem- 
porary Protestants  writers  themselves : 

"  It  is  really  painful  to  read  the  lamentations  of  the  Protestant  writers  of 
those  days,  over  the  utter  and  inextricable  confusion  in  which  every  doc- 
trinal subject  had  been  involved  by  the  disputes  and  contentions  of  the  rival 
religions.  '  So  great,'  writes  the  learned  Christopher  Fischer,  superintendent 
of  Smalkald,  'are  the  corruptions,  falsifications,  and  scandalous  contentions, 
which,  like  a  fearful  deluge,  overspread  the  land,  and  afflict,  disturb,  mislead, 
and  perplex  poor  simple  common  men  not  deeply  read  in  Scripture,  that 
one  is  completely  bewildered  as  to  what  side  is  right,  and  to  which  he 
should  give  his  adhesion.'  Bartholomew  Meyer,  professor  of  theology  at 
Marburg,  declares  that  the  'last  times,'  predicted  by  the  Lord  and  his 
apostles,  have  arrived,  and  that  'not  only  in  morals,  but  also  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  church,  there  is  such  confusion,  that  it  may  be  doubted  whether  there 
IS  a  believer  on  earth.'  An  equally  unimpeachable  witness  of  the  same 
period  admits,  that  'so  great,  on  the  part  of  mo.st  people,  is  the  contempt  of 
religion,  the  neglect  of  piety,  and  the  trampling  down  of  virtue,  that  they 
would  seem  not  to  be  Christians,  nothing  but  downright  savage  barbarians.' 
Flacius  lUyricus  declares,  that  'the  llilsification  of  the  doctrine  of  penance 
and  justification  had  led  to  complete  epicurianism.'  Klopfer,  the  parish 
minister  of  Bolheim,  in  Wurtemberg,  (1566)  complains,  that  'the  greater 
number  among  them  hold  all  that  God  has  revealed  in  the  Scripture,  to  be 
silly  and  idle  things,  old-world  fiibles  and  tales.'  Ratzenberger,  an  old 
friend  and  fellow-laborer  of  Luther,  had  long  before  complained  that  'all 
true  doctrine  and  religion  was  utterly  extinguished  in  Germany ;'  and  the 
celebrated  Selnecker  was  so  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  hopelessness  Oi 
the  evil,  that  he  declared  that  many  pious  hearts  gave  up  in  despair : — '  T 
advised  that  things  should  be  left  to  themselves,  that  it  was  not  possible  to 
change  them,  so  completely  had  this  spirit  got  the  upperhand  almost 
throughout  Christendom.'  " 

*  Number  for  September,  1848.  The  writer  furnishes  references  fw 
kfach  quotation,  which  we  omit. 


ENDLESS   DIVISION,  243 

Such  then  were  the  "diversities"  of  early  Protestantism ! 
Such  its  endless  maze  of  inconsistencies,  contradictions,  and 
absurdities!  Such  the  bitter  fruits  of  that  tree  of  revolt 
which  Luther  planted  in  the  centre  of  Germany :  and  which 
was  watered  by  the  blood  of  the  slaughtered  Anabaptists,  of 
the  hundred  thousand  men  who  fell  in  the  war  of  the  peas- 
ants, and  of  the  countless  multitudes,  who  perished  in  the 
thirty  years'  war !  Such  was  the  influence  of  the  Reformation 
on  the  doctrines  of  Christianity !  It  found  out  one  faith  on 
the  earth ;  and  it  created  a  hundred  new  ones,  all  contradict- 
ing one  another !  Before  it  came,  mankind  were  of  "  one 
tongue  and  of  one  speech ;"  after  it  had  done  its  deadly  work, 
there  was  a  confusion  of  tongues  on  the  earth,  and  men  no 
longer  understood  each  other.  Does  not  St.  Paul  draw  a 
lively  picture  of  early,  and  even  of  modern  Protestantism, 
when  he  speaks  of  those  who  are  like  "children  tossed  to 
and  fro,  and  carried  about  with  every  wind  of  doctrine,  in 
the  wickedness  of  men,  in  craftiness,  in  which  they  lie  in 
wait  to  deceive?"*  Could  a  system  which  thus  divided  and 
unsettled  faith — which  produced  all  these  disastrous  results, 
be  approved  by  heaven  ? 

Let  it  not  be  said,  that  the  Reformation  did  not  produce  all 
these  bitter  consequences.  It  is  fairly  responsible  for  them 
all.  No  effect  ever  followed  more  necessarily  or  more  imme- 
diately from  any  cause,  than  these  divisions  followed  from 
their  first  great,  and  their  only  cause,  private  judgment  as  the 
only  rule  of  faith.  This  principle  is  responsible  for  still  more 
evil  results :  it  has  led,  by  gradual,  but  by  certain  steps,  to 
infidelity.  History  does  not  tell  us  of  any  at  least  consider- 
able body  of  men,  who  made  an  open  profession  of  infidel 
principles,  in  Christian  countries,  during  the  first  fifteen  ages 
of  the  Church.  But  now,  what  is  the  state  of  that  portion 
of  the  world,  which  on  the  continent  of  Europe  professes 
Protestant  Christianity?     Infidelity  is  the  order  of  the  day 


*  Ephesians,  iv  :  14. 


244  INFLUENCE   OF    REFORMATION    ON    DOCTRINE. 

both  in  Gernuiny  and  in  Switzerland ;  the  two  fatherlands  of 
Protestantism.  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  proof  on  a  mat- 
ter so  unquestionable.  Even  D'Aubigne  virtually  admits, that 
the  majority  of  Protestants  have  there  passed  over  to  the 
standard  of  rationalism,  or  the  religion  of  men* — that  is,  to 
rank  deism.  And  even  where  Protestantism  still  subsists, 
what  is  it,  but  a  lifeless  tree,  the  withered  branches  of  which 
are  stirred  only  by  the  breath  of  its  own  internal  dissensions  ? 
We  will  conclude  this  Chapter  with  the  picture  of  Protes- 
tantism in  modern  Germany,  drawn  by  the  master-hand  of 
Frederick  Von  Schlegel,  whose  mighty  mind,  disgusted  with 
the  endless  mazes  of  Protestantism,  sought  refuge  within  the 
pale  of  Catholic  unity.  He  is  speakmg  of  the  boasted  bibli- 
cal learning  of  Germany,  in  w^hich  he  says  "  the  true  key  of 
interpretation,  which  sacred  tradition  alone  can  furnish,  was 
irretrievably  lost,  as  the  sequel  has  but  too  well  proved!" 
He  then  adds : 

"  This  is  nowhere  so  fully  understood,  and  so  deeply  felt  as  in  Protestant 
Germany  of  the  present  day,  Germany,  where  lies  the  root  of  Protestantism, 
its  mighty  center,  its  all-ruling  spirit,  and  its  life-blood,  Germany,  where,  to 
supply  the  want  of  the  true  spirit  of  religion,  a  remedy  is  sought  sometimes 
in  the  external  forms  of  liturgy,f  sometimes  in  the  pompous  apparatus  of 
biblical  philology  and  research,  destitute  of  the  true  key  of  interpretation ; 
sometimes  in  the  empt}"  philosophy  of  rationalism,  and  sometimes  in  the 
mazes  of  a  mere  interior  pietism."]: 

*  D'Aubigne,  preface  to  vol.  i,  p.  9. 

f  He  here  refers  to  the  ordinances  promulgated  some  years  ago  by  the 
king  of  Prussia,  for  the  reform  of  the  Liturgy  (Protestant). 
I  i?hiioscpli>  of  History,  vol.  ii,  p.  207. 


TWO    METHODS    OF    INVESTIGATION.  245 


CHAPTER    IX. 

INFLUENCE    OF    THE    REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

"  This  world  is  fallen  on  an  easier  way ; 
This  age  knows  better  than  to  fast  and  pray." — Dryden. 

Two  methods  of  investigation — Connection  of  doctrine  and  morals — Salu- 
tary influence  of  Catholic  doctrines — Of  confession — Objections  answered — 
Of  celibacy — Its  manifold  advantages — Utility  of  the  docti-ines  of  satisfac- 
tion and  indulgences — Of  fasting — Of  prayers  for  the  dead — Of  communion 
of  saints — Sanctity  of  marriage — Divorces — Influence  of  Protestant  doc- 
trines— Shocking  disorders — Testimony  of  Erasmus — Bigamy  and  poly- 
gamy —  Mohammedanism  —  Practical  results  —  Testimonies  of  Luther, 
Bucer,  Calvin,  and  Melancthon — The  reformers  testifying  on  their  own 
work — Bollinger's  researches — Character  of  Erasmus — John  Reuchlin — 
Present  state  of  morals  in  Protestant  countries. 

We  have  seen  what  was  the  influence  of  the  Reformation 
on  the  doctrines  of  Christianity.  We  will  now  briefly  ex- 
amine its  influence  on  morals.  Was  this  beneficial  or  was  it 
injurious  ?  There  are  two  ways  to  decide  this  question  :  the 
one  by  reasoning  a  priori  on  the  nature  and  tendency  of  the 
respective  doctrines  of  Catholicism  and  of  Protestantism ;  the 
other,  which  will  greatly  confirm  the  conclusions  of  the  for- 
mer by  facts  showing  what  was  the  relative  practical  influence 
of  both  systems.  We  will  employ  both  these  methods  of 
investigation. 

I.  Doctrines  have  a  powerful  influence  on  morals.  The 
former  enlighten  the  understanding,  the  latter  guide  and 
direct  the  movements  of  the  heart  and  will.  These  are  of 
themselves  mere  blind  impulses,  until  light  is  reflected  on 
them  from  the  understanding.  A  sound  fiiith,  then,  illumin- 
ating the  intellect,  is  an  essential  pre-requisite  to  sound  morals 
guiding  the  heart,  in  the  individual  as  well  as  in  society, 
True,  we  are  able,  by  the  exercise  of  our  free  will,  to  shut  our 
eyes  to  the  light,  and  to  Ci)ntinue  acting  perversely;  but  thi^ 
does  not  disprove  the  powerful  influence,  which  the  under- 
standing, enlightened  by  faith,  has  over  our  moral  conduct. 
16 


246  INFLUENCE   OF    REFORMATION    ON    MORALS 

What  was  the  necessary  moral  influence  of  tliose  doctrines 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  which  the  Reformation  rejected  ;  and 
what  that  of  those  new  ones  which  it  substituted  in  the  place 
of  the  old  ?  We  speak  only,  of  course,  of  the  distinctive  doc- 
trines of  the  two  communions,  not  of  the  common  ground 
which  they  occupy.  The  Reformation  retained  many  of  the 
great  principles  of  Christianity,  which,  according  to  the  testi 
mony  of  Luther  himself,  referred  to  above,  it  had  borrowed 
from  the  Catholic  Church.  Among  the  doctrines,  or  impor- 
tant points  of  discipline  which  the  reformers  repudiated,  the 
principal  were :  confession  ;  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy ;  the 
doctrine  of  satisfaction,  implied  in  fasting,  purgatory,  prayers 
for  the  dead,  and  indulgences ;  the  honor  and  invocation  of 
saints ;  and  the  indissoluble  sanctity  of  marriage ;  to  say 
nothing  of  the  real  presence,  which  the  greater  portion  of 
Protestants  also  rejected.  We  will  say  a  few  words  on  the 
moral  influence  of  each  of  these  doctrines.  We  may  remark 
of  them  all,  in  general,  that  they  had  a  restraining  as  well  as 
an  elevating  eflect ;  that  many  of  them  were  painful  to  human 
nature,  and  opposed  a  strong  barrier  to  the  passions. 

Even  Voltaire  admitted  the  salutary  moral  influence  of 
confession.  He  says  :  "  The  enemies  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
who  opjjosed  an  institution  so  salutary,  seem  to  have  taken 
away  from  men  the  greatest  possible  check  to  secret 
offenses."*     Another  infidel,  and  a  mortal  enemy  of  Rome — 

*  Annates  de  I'Empire,  quoted  by  Robelot,  in  his  work  entitled  :  Influ- 
ence de  la  Picformation  de  Luther,  sur  la  croyance  religieusc,  la  politique,  et 
le  proves  des  lumieres.  Par  M.  Robelot,  ancien  chanoine  de  I'Eglisa 
cathedrale  de  Dijon.  A  Lyon.  1822.  1  vol.  8vo,  pp.  440.  (Influence  of 
the  Reformation  of  Luther  on  religious  belief,  on  politics,  and  on  the  progress 
of  enlightenment.     By  M.  Robelot.) 

This  work  was  written  in  reply  to  the  Essay  on  the  Reformation  which 
had  been  published  by  M.  Villers,  and  had  been  rewarded  with  a  prize  by 
the  infidel  French  Institute.  Of  this  essay  an  unexceptionable  witness,  Ilal- 
lam,  writes  as  follows  :  "  The  essay  on  the  Influence  of  the  Reformation  by 
Villers,  which  obtained  a  prize  from  the  French  Institute,  and  has  been  ex- 
lolled  by  a  very  friendly  but  better  informed  writer  in  the  Biographic  Univer- 


UTlLrrV    OF   CONFESSION.  247 

Marmontel  —  says:  "How  salutary  a  preservative  for  the 
morals  of  youth,  is  the  practice  and  obligation  of  going  tc 
confession  every  month  ?  The  shame  attending  this  humble 
avowal  of  the  most  hidden  sins,  prevents  perhaps  the  com- 
mission of  more  of  them,  than  all  other  motives  the  most 
holy  taken  together."*  Nothing  but  stern  truth  could  have 
drawn  such  avowals  from  such  men. 

How  many  crimes,  in  fact,  has  not  the  practice  of  confes- 
sion prevented  or  corrected !  How  much  implacable  hatred 
has  it  not  appeased!  How  much  restitution  of  ill-gotten 
goods,  and  how  much  reparation  of  injured  character,  has  it  not 
brought  about !  How  often  has  it  not  preserved  giddy  youth 
from  confirmed  habits  of  secret  and  degrading  vice !  How 
much  consolation  has  it  not  poured  into  bosoms  torn  by 
anguish,  or  weighed  down  by  sorrow!  What  amount  of 
good  and  salutary  advice  has  it  not  imparted !  How  often 
has  it  not  prevented  the  sinner  from  being  driven  to  the  very 
verge  of  despair !  In  a  word,  how  much  has  it  not  contrib- 
uted to  the  preservation  of  morals  in  every  portion  of  society, 
which  felt  its  influence ! 

Tell  us  not,  that  confession  may  be  abused  by  corrupt  men, 
that  it  has  been  often  made  an  instrument  of  unholy  ambi- 
tion in  the  hands  of  the  priesthood,  and  that  it  facilitates  the 
commission  of  crime,  by  its  oifer  of  pardon.     These  objec- 

selle,  appears  to  me  the  work  of  a  man  who  had  not  taken  the  pains  to  read 
any  one  contemporary  work,  or  even  any  compilation  which  contains  many 
extracts.  No  wonder  that  it  does  not  represent,  in  the  shghtest  degree,  the 
real  spirit  of  the  times,  or  the  tenets  of  the  reformers.  Thus,  ex.  gr.,  '  Luther,' 
he  says,  '  exposed  the  abuse  of  the  traffic  of  indulgences,  and  the  danger  of 
believing  that  heaven  and  the  remission  of  all  crimes  could  be  bought  with 
money ;  while  a  sincere  repentance  and  an  amended  life  were  the  only  means 
of  appeasing  divine  justice.'  (Page  65,  English  translation.)  This  at  least 
is  not  very  Uke  Luther's  antinomian  contempt  for  repentance  and  amend- 
ment of  life  ;  it  might  come  near  to  the  notions  of  Erasmus." — Introduction  to 
the  Literature  of  Europe  in  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries. 
In  2  vols.  8vo.  Harper  &  Brothers ;  New  York,  1841.  Vol.  i,  p.  166,  note.- 
*  "Memoires,"  torn,  i,  liv.  i.     Apud  Robelot,  ibid 


248  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON   MORALS. 

tions  are  all  based  on  unfounded  suspicion,  or  on  gross  mis- 
apprehension of  the  nature  of  confession.  At  least,  the  evils 
complained  of  are  very  greatly  exaggerated,  and  are  not  to 
be  put  in  comparison  with  the' incalculable  amount  of  good 
which  this  institution  is  calculated  to  effect,  and  which  it  has 
really  accomplished.  What  good  thing  is  there,  which  has 
not  been  abused  ?  Has  not  the  Bible  itself,  abused  by  wicked 
men,  been  a  source  of  incalculable  mischief?  And  has  not 
the  Church  guarded  against  abuses  in  the  confessional,  by  the 
sternest  enactments?  One  of  these  takes  from  the  wicked 
priest  all  power  of  absolving  an  accomplice  in  crime ;  and 
another  requires  the  penitent  to  denounce  the  unfaithful  min- 
ister to  the  proper  authorities.* 

And  then,  how  sacred  and  inviolable  has  not  the  seal  of 
confession  ever  been  ?  History  does  not  record  a  single  in- 
stance of  its  violation,  among  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
priests,  in  the  long  lapse  of  ages  If  How  can  the  priest  avail 
himself  of  the  knowledge  obtained  through  confession,  in 
order  to  exercise  political  or  any  other  undue  influence,  when 
he  is  bound  by  the  most  sacred  obligation,  sanctioned  by  the 
most  severe  penalties,  to  make  no  use  whatever  of  the  kriowl- 
edge  thus  acquired,  outside  of  the  confessional  itself?  Why 
reason  from  mere  idle  suppositions  and  mere  vague  possibili- 
ties, against  the  strongest  evidences,  and  the  most  stubborn 
facts  ? 

As  to  the  other  objection — that  confession  encourages  the 
commission  of  sin — it  is  as  puerile,  as  it  is  hackneyed.  Ab- 
surdity is  stamped  on  its  very  face.  What?  is  it  easier  then 
to  commit  a  sin  which  you  know  you  have  to  confess  to  a  fel- 
low man,  than  it  would  be  to  commit  the  same  sin,  without 
feeling  any  such  obligation  ?     We  would  not  be  guilty  of  an 

*  See  the  two  bulls  of  Benedict  XIV.  on  this  subject.  They  begin  Sn/-- 
ramentum  and  Apostolid.  Another  enactment  to  tlie  same  effect  was  made 
hy  Pope  Gregory  XV.,  in  the  year  1622.    See  Liguori — '^  Homo  Apostoh'^tis.'* 

"Tract,  xvi,  numo.  95,  pcqq.  and  numo.  165,  seqq.     De  complice  et  sollicit. 

*  See  the  testimony  of  Marmontel  to  this  effect.     Memoires,  lorn.  iv. 


AND    OF   CELIBACY.  249 

offence,  forsooth,  which  we  believed,  at  the  time,  we  could 
expiate  by  a  mere  act  of  internal  repentance,  joined  with 
confession  to  God ;  and  yet  we  would  be  encouraged  to  com- 
mit this  same  oflence,  if  we  felt  that,  in  addition  to  all  this, 
we  would  be  obliged  to  confess  it  to  a  priest !  The  objection 
is  predicated  on  a  strange  ignorance  of  human  nature.  The 
Catholic  Church  requires,  for  the  remission  of  sin,  all  that 
Protestants  demand ;  and,  over  and  above  all  this,  it  requires, 
as  essential  conditions  to  pardon,  many  very  painful  things — 
confession,  restitution,  works  of  penitential  satisfaction — 
which  Protestants  do  not  require.  Which  system  )-eally  en- 
courages the  commission  of  sin  ? 

The  people  never  could  be  induced  to  confess  their  sins  to 
a  married  clergy.  From  the  testimony  of  Burkard,  Bishop  of 
"Worms,  it  appears  that  the  Catholic  population  of  that  city 
refused  to  go  to  confession  to  those  priests,  who,  stimulated 
by  the  principles  of  the  Reformation  then  just  commencing, 
had  broken  their  vows  of  celibacy  by  taking  wives.  Confes- 
sion and  celibacy  fell  together.  A  married  clergy  never  can 
command  the  respect,  which  has  ever  been  paid  to  those  who 
are  unmarried.  This  is  generally  admitted  by  Protestants 
themselves,  and  it  is  even  made  a  matter  of  censure  against 
the  Catholic  clergy,  who  are  accused  of  having  too  much  in- 
fluence over  their  flocks !  The  true  secret  of  this  influence 
lies  in  the  greater  abstraction  from  the  world,  in  the  greater 
freedom  from  worldly  solicitude,  and  in  the  more  spiritual 
character  of  an  unmarried  clergy.  Does  not  St.  Paul  allege 
these  very  motives,  in  the  strong  appeal  which  he  makes  in 
favor  of  celibacy,  in  his  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  P 
Does  he  not  advise  the  embracing  of  this  state,  both  b}'  word 
and  by  his  own  example  ?  Can  the  Catholic  Church  be 
blamed  for  having  adopted  his  principles,  and  acted  on  his 
advice,  in  the  matter  of  the  celibacy  of  her  clergy? 

Who  can  recount  the  immense  advantages  of.  priestly  celi- 


*  Chapter  vii.     Read  the  whole  chapter. 


250  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

h'dcj  to  society  ?  Who  can  tell  of  all  the  splendid  churches  it 
has  erected ;  of  the  hospitals  for  the  sick  and  the  aftlicted,  it 
has  reared  ;  of  the  colleges  it  has  built ;  of  the  ignorant  it  has: 
instructed ;  of  the  noble  examples  of  heroic  charity  it  has 
given  to  the  world  ;  and  of  the  pagan  nations  it  has  converted 
to  Christianity  ?  Catholic  Europe  is  full  of  noble  monuments 
to  religion,  to  literature  and  to  charity,  which  an  unmarried 
priesthood  has  built  up ;  and  which  a  married  clergy,  "  solic- 
itous for  the  things  of  the  world,  how  they  might  please  their 
wives,"  and  support  their  children,  would  certainly  never 
have  erected  ? 

To  advert  briefly  to  the  last  consideration  named  above ; 
can  a  married  clergy,  other  things  being  equal,  cope  with  one 
that  is  unmarried,  in  missionary  labors  among  heathen  na- 
tions ?  With  the  incumbrance  of  their  wives  and  children, 
can  the  former  be  as  free  in  their  movements,  or  be  as  zealous 
and  disinterested ;  can  they  mingle  as  freely  with  the  people, 
labor  as  much,  or  succeed  as  well,  in  any  respect  as  the  lat- 
ter ?  What  say  the  annals  of  Protestant  missionary  enter- 
prise on  this  very  subject?  Can  they  point  to  one  single 
nation  or  people  converted  to  Christianity  by  their  married 
preachers,  notwithstanding  the  immense  outlay  of  money  for 
this  purpose,  and  all  the  parade  that  is  made  about  carrying 
the  gospel  to  the  heathen  ?  True,  there  are  other  weighty 
causes,  which  have  also  greatly  contributed  to  this  signal  fail- 
ure of  Protestant  missions  ;  but  the  absence  of  celibacy  in 
their  missionaries  is  no  doubt  one  of  the  chief  causes. 

The  doctrine  of  satisfaction  was  another  strong  Catholic 
barrier  against  vice,  which  the  Reformation  removed.  The 
reformers  could  not  api)reciate  the  utility  of  fasting,  of  vigils, 
and  of  other  works  of  penance,  undertaken  for  the  expiation 
of  sin.  They  had  abolished  the  great  sacrifice  of  the  new 
law ;  and  they  wished  also  to  abolish  all  those  painful  obser- 
vances, w^iich  could  nourish  and  keep  alive  in  the  soul  of  the 
Christian  that  spirit  of  sacrifice,  which  might  incline  him  "to 
deny  himself,  to  take  up  his  cross  and  to  follow  Christ."  Both 


DOING    PENANCE.  251 

kinds  of  sacrifice  were  intimately  connected ;  and  they  both 
fell  together.  The  reformers  no  longer  taught  their  disciples, 
after  the  example  of  St.  Paul,  "  to  chastise  their  bodies  and 
bring  them  into  subjection,"  or  "to  fill  up  those  things  that 
are  wanting  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  in  their  flesh."* 

And  yet,  besides  aiding  in  expiating  sin,  and  rendering 
Christians  more  conformable  to  the  image  of  the  Saviour  and 
of  St.  Paul,  this  doctrine  was  fraught  with  other  almost  in- 
calculable advantages  to  society.  To  expiate  their  sins, 
Catholics  of  the  olden  time  not  only  "chastised  their  bodies," 
but  they  also  bestowed  abundant  alms,  and  reared  splendid 
institutions  of  learning  and  of  charity.  Many  of  the  colleges 
and  hospitals  of  Europe  owe  their  erection  to  the  operation  of 
this  principle.  It  is  quite  common  to  find  in  the  testamentary 
dispositions  of  the  pious  founders  of  these  noble  institutions, 
this  consideration  expressed  in  such  clauses  as  this :  "  For 
the  expiation  of  my  sins,  I  found  this  hospital  or  college." 

We  have  seen  that  St.  Peter's  church  and  the  university  of 
Wittenberg  were  both  indebted  for  their  erection  mainly  to 
indulgences,  which  were  predicated  on  the  necessity  of  satis- 
faction for  sin.  These  are  two  instances,  out  of  hundreds 
which  might  be  stated,  to  show  the  beneficial  influence  of 
this  doctrine  on  society.f  Alas !  Charity  hath  grown  cold,  in 
those  places  particularly  where  this  principle  hath  ceased  to 
exist!  Private  interest,  a  fever  for  speculation,  selfish  and 
sordid  avarice,  have  dried  up  those  deep  fountains  of  Catho- 
lic charity,  which  in  the  good  old  Catholic  times  so  abundantly 
ii-rigated  and  fertilized  the  garden  Catholic ! 

How  manifold  also  are  the  advantages  of  holy  fasting  1 
How  it  elevates  the  mind,J  fosters  temperance,  teaches  us  to 


*  Colossians,  i :  24 ;  and  1  Corinthians,  ix. 

f  See  "  The  Ages  of  Faith"  by  Kenelm  Digby,  which  is  full  of  such  ev 
amples. 

I  Vitia  comprimit,  inentem  elevat,  virtutem  largitur  et  prsemia — Praef 
ad  Missa. 


252  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON   MORALS. 

restrain  the  passions,  and  to  subdue  the  rebellious  flesh  1 
"  Like  another  spring,"  according  to  the  beautiful  couipaneou 
of  St.  John  Chrysostom,*  ''  it  renews  the  spirit,  and  brings 
calm  and  joy  to  the  soul."  It  also  promotes  health,  and  con- 
duces to  longevity.  Who  has  not  remarked  the  great  age  to 
which  the  anchorites  of  the  desert  attained  ?  Malte  Brun  in- 
forms us,  that  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  anchorites,  who 
lived  in  different  climates,  and  in  different  centuries,  the  aver- 
age age  was  seventy-six  years.f  By  accustoming  us  to  endure 
privation,  fasting  teaches  us  to  bear  patiently  the  necessary 
ills  of  life,  and  disposes  us  for  great  enterprises.  In  fact  it  is 
remarkable,  that  Moses  and  Elias  approached  the  Deity  to 
receive  his  special  communications,  only  after  the  preliminary 
disposition  of  long  fasting:  and  that  Christ  himself  "fasted 
forty  days  and  forty  nights,"  ere  he  entered  on  his  divine 
mission  of  mercy. 

How  soothing,  too,  to  the  ^oul,  is  that  sweet  communion 
with  the  departed,  which  is  kept  up  by  the  Catholic  practice 
of  praying  for  the  dead?  Even  the  stern  Doctor  Johnson 
felt  the  beauty  and  the  force  of  this  sympathy :  he  not  only 
defended  the  practice,  but  he  seems  to  have  occasionally  adopted 
it  himself.  He  was  not  satisfied  with  merely  dropping  a  tear, 
warm  from  his  heart,  over  the  grave  of  his  departed  mother ; 
but  he,  at  the  same  time,  wafted  a  fervent  prayer  to  heaven 
for  her  repose.J 

And  how  elevating  and  useful,  on  the  other  hand,  is  that 
constant  communion  with  heaven,  which  is  kept  up  by  the 
invocation  of  saints !  It  powerfully  stimulates  us,  not  only 
to  admire  their  super-eminent  glory  and  to  implore  their  aid; 
but  also  to  imitate  their  virtues.  The  Offices  of  the  Church 
keep  up  a  constant  round  of  aniversary  celebrations  of  the 
virtues  and  triumphs  of  these  heroes  of  Christianity ;  whose 
virtues  are  thus  always  kept  fresh  in   the  minds  of  the  faith- 

*  St.  John  Chrysostom — "  De  excellentia  Jejun."  0pp.  T.  ii. 

f  "  Precis  de  la  Geographic,"  ii,  44.         I  See  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnsoa 


DIVORCFS.  253 

fill,  who  are  by  this  means  powerfully  excited  to  follow  their 
example.  Who  does  not  perceive  the  highly  beneficial  influ 
ence  of  this  practice  on  the  tone  and  morals  of  society  ? 

On  the  subject  of  marriage,  the  Catholic  Churcii  has  neyer 
swerved  in  the  least  from  the  stern  line  of  duty.  She  has 
ever  defended  its  sanctity,  and  maintained  its  indissolubility. 
Many  of  her  struggles  with  princes  during  the  middle  agea, 
were  undertaken  by  her  for  the  vindication  of  these  sacred 
principles  lying  at  the  basis  of  the  matrimonial  contract,  the 
well-spring  of  society.  England  was  lost  to  the  Church,  be- 
cause the  unwavering  firmness  of  the  Pope  would  not  permit 
Henry  VIII.  to  repudiate  a  virtuous  wife,  and  tu  wed  another 
more  to  his  royal  taste.  She  has  won  imperishable  honors  in 
this  battle  field  of  conjugal  unity  and  purity  against  lawless 
vice  in  high  places,  on  which  she  has  nobly  and  victoriously 
contended  with  the  army  of  the  passions. 

On  this  point,  as  we  have  seen,  the  reformers  were  very  far 
from  being  so  stern  or  unyielding.  They  not  only  allowed 
two  wives  to  the  landgrave  of  Hesse,  but  they  permitted  di- 
vorce for  trivial  causes ;  and  some  of  them  even  openly  sanc- 
tioned polygamy,  after  the  example  of  the  patriarchs.  What 
were  the  sad  effects  of  their  teaching  on  this  subject,  we  shall 
see  more  fully  in  the  sequel.  It  will  suffice  here  to  remark 
on  one  obvious  result  of  this  laxity  of  doctrine,  in  regard  to 
the  sacredness  and  permanency  of  the  marriage  contract. 
Before  the  Reformation,  divorces  were  almost  unheard  of; 
great  princes  sometimes  applied  for  them,  but  met  with  deter- 
mined resistance  and  a  stern  rebuke,  on  the  part  of  the  Church. 
Even  at  present,  in  Catholic  countries,  they  are  almost  un- 
known. Is  it  so  in  those  communities  where  the  influence  of 
the  Reformation  has  been  long  or  extensively  felt  ?  Alas !  in 
these,  men  seem  almost  wholly  to  have  lost  sight  of  the  divine 
injunction :  "  What  God  has  united,  let  not  man  put  asun- 
der."*    Divorces  have  multiplied  to  a  frightful  extent.     In 

*  St.  Matthew,  xix  :  6. 


254  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    iMORALS. 

the  United  States,  our  legislatures  and  courts  receive  annually 
thousands  of  petitions  for  divorce :  and  what  is  more  deplora- 
ble, they  usually  grant  the  prayer  of  the  petitioners  !*  Is  not 
this  a  lamentable  evil,  most  injurious  to  society  ?  Whence 
does  it  originate,  if  not  in  the  weakening  of  Catholic  princi- 
ples in  regard  to  the  indissolubility  of  the  marriage  contract 
by  the  counter  principles  broached  at  the  period  of  the  Ref 
ormation  ? 

A  volume  might  be  written  on  the  salutary  influence  on 
society  of  those  distinctive  doctrines  of  the  Church  which 
Protestants  have  rejected.f  But  our  limits  permitted  only 
the  above  rapid  and  imperfect  sketch  :  and  we  must  now  pass 
on  to  the  additional  inquiry ;  what  was  the  moral  influence 
of  those  new  doctrines  which  the  Reformation  introduced? 
We  have  already  seen  what  many  of  these  doctrines  were, 
and  we  have  already  been  enabled  to  estimate,  in  a  great 
measure,  their  probable  eflect  on  the  morals  of  society.  But 
we  will  here  give  some  further  details  on  a  subject  so  inter- 
esting and  important. 

Luther's  famous,  or  rather  infamous  sermon  on  marriage, 
preached  in  the  public  church  of  Wittenberg  in  1522,  in  the 
plain  vernacular  language,  gave  great  scandal,  and  was  a 
source  of  incalculable  moral  evil  throughout  Germany.  It 
openly  pandered  to  the  basest  passions  of  human  nature.  It 
was  busily  circulated  and  greedily  devoured  by  all  classes, 
especially  among  those  who  were  favorable  to  the  Reforma- 
tion. Never  was  there  a  grosser  specimen  of  unblushing  lu- 
bricity :  and  its  having  been  so  much  relished  by  the  parti- 
sans of  Luther,  is  a  certain  index  of  a  very  low  standard  of 
morality  at  that  period.  But  this  was  not  the  only  specimen 
of  decency  given  by  the  "  father  of  the  Reformation."    Many 

*  The  chancery  court  of  Louisville  granted  sixty  divorces  in  a  single 
year !  And  in  many  other  places  the  case  is  still  woi-se ;  as,  for  instance, 
in  Indiana. 

f  Those  who  may  wish  to  see  more  on  this  subject,  are  referred  to  Scotti 
Teoremi  di  Politica  Christiana — ^an  excellent  Italian  work,  in  2  vols.  8vo 


TESTIMONY    OF   ERASMUS.  255 

of  his  letters  to  his  private  friends  are  much  too  obscene  to  be 
exhibited,  even  in  the  original  Latin.  Yet  they  had  a  power 
ful  eflect  on  the  morals  of  the  age.  Luther  openly  invited 
the  Catholic  priests,  monks,  and  nuns,  who  had  vowed  celib- 
acy, to  break  their  vows,  which  he  styled  the  "  bonds  of  anti- 
christ." His  soul  overflowed  with  joy  at  the  news  of  each 
new  sacrilegious  marriage.  He  would  congratulate  the  in- 
fjinger  of  his  vows,  " on  his  having  overcome  an  impure  and 
damnable  celibacy,"  by  entering  into  marriage,  which  he 
painted  as  "a  paradise  even  in  the  midst  of  poverty."*  He 
wrote  a  work  against  celibacy  and  monastic  vows,  teeming 
with  the  strongest  appeals  to  the  lowest  and  basest  passions. 
He  openly  urged  princes  to  expel  by  force  the  religious  from 
their  monasteries. f 

Erasmus,  an  eye  witness,  paints  the  horrible  disorders  to 
which  Luther's  epistles,  sermons  and  works  against  celibacy, 
naturally  led.  He  represents  certain  cities  of  Germany  as 
swarming  with  apostate  monks,  who  drank  beer  to  excess, 
danced  and  sang  in  the  public  streets,  and  gave  in  to  all  manner 
of  scandalous  excesses.  He  says  of  them :  "  That  if  they  could 
get  enough  to  eat  and  a  wife^  they  cared  not  a  straw  for  any 
thing  else."J  "When  they  found  not  wives  among  the  fe- 
male religious,  they  sought  them  in  the  haunts  of  vice.  Wliat 
cared  they  for  the  priestly  benediction  ?  They  married  each 
other,  and  celebrated  their  nuptials  by  orgies,  in  which  the 
new  married  couple  generally  lost  their  reason."§ 

"  Formerly  "  continues  Erasmus,  "  men  quitted  their  wives 
for  the  sake  of  the  gospel ;  nowadays,  the  gospel  flourishes 
nosit,  when  a  few  succeed  in  marrying  wives  with  rich  dow- 


*  "Paradisum  arbitror  conjugium,  vel  summa  inopia  laborans."  Epist 
Nicholao  Gerbellis,  Nov.  1,  1521. 

f  See  his  words  quoted  by  Audin,  p.  335,  seqq. 

\  "  Ainant  viaticum  et  uxorem  :  ccetera  pili  non  faciunt."  Erasmi  Epist 
p.  637. 

\  Audin  p.  336,  who  quotes  from  Erasmus — loco  citato. 


25G  INFLUENCE   OF    REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

nes."*  He  caustically  remarks,  "that  (Ecolampadius  had 
lately  married  a  beautiful  young  girl,  he  suspects,  to  mortify 
his  flesh."t  He  also  informs  us,  that  these  ex-mouKS,  after 
having  become  the  most  zealous  partisans  of  the  Reformation, 
subsisted  by  open  robbery  of  the  churches  and  their  neigh- 
bors, indulged  to  excess  in  drinking  and  in  games  of  hazard, 
and  presented  a  spectacle  of  the  most  revolting  licentiousness.^ 

Luther  had  taught  that  "  as  in  the  first  days  of  Christanity, 
the  Church  was  forced  to  exalt  virginity  among  the  pagans, 
who  honored  adultery ;  so,  now,  when  the  Lord  had  made 
the  light  of  the  gospel  (!)  shine  forth,  it  was  necessary  to  exalt 
marriage,  at  the  expense  of  popish  celibacy ."§  The  apostate 
monks  eagerly  seized  on  this  and  similar  teachings  of  the 
reformer ;  and  the  above  are  some  of  the  disorders  which 
naturally  ensued.  But  even  they  are  not  the  worst.  Bigamy 
was  quite  common  among  them,  at  least  for  a  time.  They 
defended  it,  too,  on  scriptural  grounds.  Luther  was  appealed 
to  on  the  subject.  In  his  reply,  he  wavers  and  hesitates, 
wishes  each  individual  to  be  left  to  the  guidance  of  his  own 
conscience,  and  concludes  his  letter  in  these  remarkable 
words : 

"  For  my  part  I  candidly  confess,  that  I  could  not  prohibit  any  one,  who 
might  wish  it,  to  take  many  wives  at  once,  nor  is  this  repugnant  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  But  there  are  things  lawful,  which  are  not  expedient.  Bigamy 
is  of  the  number."  II 

Karlstadt  went  still  further :  he  wished  to  make  polygamy 
ohligatory,  or  at  least  entirely  permissible  to  all.  He  said  to 
Luther :  "  As  neither  you,  nor  I,  have  found  a  text  in  the 
sacred  books  against  bigamy,  let  us  be  bigamists  and  triga- 
mists — let  us  take  as  many  wives  as  we  can  maintain.  '  Li- 
crease  and  multiply.' — Do  you  understand  ?     Accomplish  the 

♦  "  Nunc  floret  evangelium,  si  pauci  ducant  uxores  bene  dotatas." — Erasmi 
Epist.  p.  768.  f  Ibid.,  p.  632. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  766.  \  Luther  0pp.  tom  i,  p,  526,  seqq. 

II  Epist.  ad  K.  Bruck  13,  Janu.  1524.  "Ego  sane  fatcor  me  non  posse 
prohibere  si  quis  velit  plures  ducere  uxores,  nee  repugnat  Sacris  Uteris  ?' 


Luther's  lament.  257 

order  of  heaven."*  This  argument  must  have  had  great 
weight  with  lAither,  as  he  had  maintained  that  celibacy  was 
impossible,  and  had  himself  alleged  that  very  text  from 
Genesis,  to  prove  that  marriage  was  a  divine  command  obli- 
gatory on  all!  By  the  way,  as  Luther  married  only  at  the 
age  of  forty-two,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  purity  of  his 
previous  life,  when  he  openly  maintained  such  principles  as 
these?  They  were  well  calculated,  at  any  rate,  to  bring  down 
the  lofty  standard  of  Christian  morality  to  that  of  Moham- 
medanism :  and,  if  they  did  not  bring  about  this  result,  we 
certainly  owe  no  thanks  to  the  Reformation.  How  strongly 
these  loose  principlesof  morality  contrast  with  the  stern  teach- 
ings of  the  Catholic  Church  on  marriage ! 

II.  It  was  natural  to  expect,  that  the  influence  of  such 
principles  as  these,  as  well  as  of  those  other  distinctive  doc- 
trines of  the  Reformation  which  we  have  already  referred 
to,t  should  have  been  most  injurious  to  public  morals.  And 
accordingly  we  find,  from  the  testimony  of  the  reformers 
themselves,  and  of  their  earliest  partisans,  that  such  precisely 
was  the  case.  Luther  himself  assures  us  of  this  deterioration 
in  public  morals: 

"The  world  grows  worse  and  worse,  and  becomes  more  wicked  every 
day.  Men  are  now  more  given  to  revenge,  more  avaricious,  more  devoid  of 
mercy,  less  modest,  and  more  incoiTigible ;  in  fine,  more  wicked  than  in  the 
Papacy."! — ^^  another  place  he  says,  speaking  to  his  most  intimate  friends : 
"One  thing  no  less  astonishing  than  scandalous,  is  to  see  that,  since  the 
pure  doctrine  of  the  gospel  has  been  brought  to  light  (!),  the  world  daily 
goes  from  bad  to  worse."^ 

This  is  not  at  all  astonishing,  when  we  consider  the  nature 
and  necessary  tendency  of  that  "  pure  doctrine." 

He  draws  the  following  dreadful  picture  of  the  morals  of 
his  time,  after  "  the  pure  doctrine  had  been  brought  to  light :" 

"The  noblemen  and  the  peasants  have  come  to  such  a  pitch,  that  they 

*  Apud  Audin,  p.  339.  f  Supra,  Chapter  iii. 

I  Luther  in  Postillfi  sup.  1  Dom.  Adventus. 
5  Idem,  Table  Talk,  fol.  55. 

VOL.  I. — 22 


258  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

boast  and  proclaim  without  scruple,  that  they  have  only  to  let  themselves  bo 
preached  at ;  but  that  they  would  prefer  Ixiing  entirely  disenthralled  from 
the  word  of  Go  1 :  and  that  they  would  not  give  a  farthing  for  all  our  sermons 
put  together.  And  how  are  we  to  lay  this  to  them  as  a  crime,  when  they 
make  no  account  of  the  world  to  come  ?  They  live  as  they  believe  :  they 
are  and  continue  to  be  swine :  they  live  like  swine  and  they  die  like  real 
swine."* 

Aurifaber,  the  disciple  and  bosom  friend  of  Luther,  and  the 
publisher  of  his  Table  Talk,  tells  us :  "  Luther  was  wont  to 
say,  that  after  the  revelation  of  his  gospel,  virtue  had  become 
extinct,  justice  oppressed,  temperance  bound  with  cords,  vir- 
tue torn  in  pieces  by  the  dogs,  faith  had  become  wavering, 
and  devotion  had  been  lost."j  So  notoriously  immoral,  in 
fact,  were  the  early  Lutherans,  that  it  was  then  a  common 
saying  in  Germany,  to  express  a  day  spent  in  drinking  and 
debauch :  "  Hodie  Lutheranice  vivemus" — "  To-day  we  will 
live  like  Lutherans."J 

In  another  place,  Luther  laments  the  moral  evils  of  the 
Reformation,  in  the  following  characteristic  strain : 

"  I  would  not  be  astonished  if  God  should  open  at  length  the  gates  and 
windows  of  hell,  and  snow  or  hail  down  (up  ?)  devils,  or  rain  down  on  our 
heads  fij  e  and  brimstone,  or  bury  us  in  a  fiei'y  abyss,  as  he  did  Sodom  and 
Gomorrha.  Had  Sodom  and  Gomorrha  received  the  gifts  which  have  been 
granted  to  us — had  they  seen  our  visions  and  heard  our  instructions — they 
would  yet  be  standing.  They  were  a  thousand  times  less  culpable  than 
Germany,  for  they  had  not  heard  the  word  of  God  from  their  preachers. 
And  we  who  have  received  and  heard  it — we  do  nothing  but  rise  up  against 
God Since  the  downfall  of  popery,  and  the  cessation  of  its  excommu- 
nications and  spiritual  penalties,  the  people  have  learned  to  despise  the  word 
of  God.  They  care  no  longer  for  the  churches ;  they  have  ceased  to  fear  and 
to  honor  God." J 

Martin  Bucer,  another  of  the  reformers,  bears  the  followmg 
explicit  testimony  on  the  same  subject : 

*  Table  Talk,  super  i,  Epist.  Corinth.,  chap.  xv. 
f  Aurifaber,  fol.  623 ;  and  Florimond  Remond,  p.  225. 
t  Bened.  Morgenstern — Traite  de  I'Eglise,  p.  221. 

{  Luther  Wercke  Edit.  Altenburg,  tome  iii,  p.  519,  Reinhard's  '  Rofor 
flaations  Predigten,"  tom.  iii,  p.  445. 


TESTIMONY    OF   THE   REFORMERS.  ,  259 

"  The  gi-eater  part  of  the  people  seem  to  have  embraced  the  gospel  (!),  only 
ill  order  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of  discipline,  and  the  obligation  of  fasting, 
penances,  etc.,  which  lay  upon  them  in  the  time  of  popery,  and  to  live  at  their 
pleasure,  enjojnng  their  lust  and  lawless  appetite  without  control.  They 
therefore  lend  a  willing  ear  to  the  doctrine  that  we  are  justified  by  faith 
alone,  and  not  by  good  works,  having  no  relish  for  them."* 

The  reformers  ought  surely  to  have  known  better  probably 
than  any  one  else  what  was  the  real  tendency  of  the  new  gospel, 
and  they  certainly  had  no  motive  to  exaggerate  its  evil  results. 

John  Calvin  draws  a  picture,  not  much  more  flattering  of 
the  state  of  morals  to  his  branch  of  the  glorious  Reformation. 
He  states  that  even  the  preachers  of  the  new  doctrines  were 
notoriously  immoral: 

"There  remains  still  a  wound  more  deplorable.  The  pastors,  yes  the 
pastors  themselves  who  mount  the  pulpit ....  are  at  the  present  time  the 
most  shameful  examples  of  waywardness  and  other  vices.  Hence  their 
sermons  obtain  neither  more  credit  nor  authority  than  the  fictitious  tales 

uttered  on  the  stage  by  the  strolling  player I  am  astonished  that  the 

women  and  children  do  not  cover  them  with  mud  and  filth."f 

Another  leading  reformer  —  Philip  Melancthon  —  informs 
U8,  that  those  who  had  joined  the  standard  of  the  Reforma- 
tion at  his  day,  "  had  come  to  such  a  pitch  of  barbarity,  that 
many  of  them  were  persuaded  that  if  they  fasted  one  day, 
they  would  find  themselves  dead  the  night  folio  wing,"  J  And 
Btill  another  early  Protestant,  Jacob  Andreas,  says:  "It  is 
certain  that  God  wishes  and  requires  of  his  servants  a  grave 
and  Christian  discipline;  but  it  passes  with  us  as  a  new 
Papacy,  and  a  new  monkery ."§ — And  no  wonder,  after  all 
the  teaching  on  the  subject  of  Luther  and  the  other  leading 
reformers ! 

We  here  subjoin  an  analysis  of  the  testimony  furnished  by 
the  reformers  themselves,  according  to  the  learned  and  ac- 
curate DoUinger,  on  the  practical  moral  results  of  their 
teachings,  as  witnessed  by  themselves  in  their  own  times 


*  "De  regno  Christi."  f  Livre — sur  les  scandales — p.  128. 

t  In  vi,  cap.  Mathei  J  Comment,  in  St.  Lucam.     Chap.  xxi. 


260  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON   MORALS. 

If  some  of  these  testimonies  are  similar  to  those  alread;^ 
given,  the  contirmation  is  still  more  forcible.  As  will  be 
seen,  the  analysis  is  sufficiently  thorough  and  searching, 
and  its  length  will  be  pardoned  to  the  great  interest  of  the 
subject.* 

THE  MORAL  RESULTS  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

"  Upon  this  head,  few  will  be  disposed  to  call  in  question  the  authority 
of  our  first  evidence,  the  father  of  the  Reformation  himself  With  all  his 
partiality  for  the  child  of  his  own  labors,  Luther  is  forced  to  admit,  that  it 
were  no  wonder  if  his  beloved  Germany  'were  sunk  in  the  earth,  or  utterly 
overthrown  by  the  Turks  and  Tartars,  by  reason  of  the  hellish  and  damn- 
able forgetfulness  and  contempt  of  God's  grace  which  the  people  manifest ; 
nay,  that  the  wonder  is,  that  the  earth  does  not  refuse  to  bear  them,  and 
the  sun  to  shine  upon  them  any  longer.'  He  doubts  '  whether  it  should  any 
longer  be  called  a  world,  and  not  rather  an  abyss  of  all  evils,  wherewith 
those  sodomites  afflict  his  soul  and  his  eyes  both  day  and  night.'  '  Every 
thing  is  reversed,'  he  laments,  '  the  world  grows  every  day  the  worse  for 
this  teaching;  and  the  misery  of  it  is,  that  men  are  noioadaijs  more  covetous, 
more  hard-lieaHed,  more  corrupt,  more  licentious,  and  more  wiclced,  than  of  old 
under  the  Papacy.'  '  Our  evangelicals,'  he  avows,  '  are  now  sevenfold  more 
wicked  than  they  were  before.  In  proportion  as  we  hear  the  gospel,  we 
steal,  lie,  cheat,  gorge,  swill,  and  commit  every  crime.  If  one  devil  has 
been  driven  out  of  us,  seven  worse  ones  have  taken  their  place,  to  judge 
from  the  conduct  of  princes,  lords,  nobles,  burgesses,  and  peasants,  their  utterly 
shameless  acts,  and  their  disregard  of  God  and  of  his  menaces.'  'Under 
the  Papacj'',  men  were  charitable  and  gave  freely ;  but  now,  under  the  gospel, 
all  almsgiving  is  at  an  end,  every  one  fleeces  his  neighbor,  and  each  seeks  to 
have  all  for  himself  And  the  longer  the  gospel  is  preached,  the  deeper  do  men 
sink  in  avarice,  pride,  and  ostentation.'  So  utterly,  too,  does  he  de.spair  of 
the  improvement  of  this  generation  of  his  disciples,  that  he  'often  wishes 
that  these  Jilthij  swine-bellies  were  back  again  under  the  tyranny  of  the  Pope, 
for  it  is  impossible  that  a  race  so  savage,  such  a  "people  of  Gomorrha,'" 
could  be  ruled  by  the  peaceful  consolations  of  the  gospel' 

"  It  could  hardly  be  expected,  indeed,  that  Luther  would  himself  attribute 
the  universal  depravity,  the  presence  of  which  he  thus  frankly  acknowledges, 
to  the  influence  of  his  own  gospel.     But  he  can  not,  and  does  not  conceal 

*  We  take  this  excellent  summary  from  the  Dublin  Review  for  Septem 
ber,  1848,  which  gives  also  the  proper  references  to  DoUinger's  German 
work. 


REFORMATION    DESCRIBED    BY    THE    REFORMERS.  261 

that  such  was  the  popular  impression  regarding  it ;  and  although,  of  course, 
he  denounces  the  imputation  as  sinful  and  blasphemous,  he  admits  that  men 
'  loudly  and  complainingly  attributed  it  all  to  the  gospel,  or,  as  they  call  it,  the 
new  learning,'  and  tauntingly  demanded  what  was  the  good  of  all  their  fine 
preaching  and  instruction,  if  no  one  followed  it,  or  was  the  better  for  it,  nay 
rather,  if  they  grew  worse  than  they  were  before ;  'it  would  be  better,'  they 
said,  'if  things  had  remained  as  they  were.'  Indeed,  not  to  multiply  evi- 
dence of  a  fact  so  notorious,  he  himself  acknowledges  that  'the  peasants, 
through  the  influence  of  the  gospel,  have  become  utterly  bej^ond  restraint, 
and  think  they  may  do  what  they  please.  They  no  longer  fear  either  hell 
or  purgatory,  but  content  themselves  with  saying,  "I  believe,  therefore  I 
shall  be  saved :"  and  they  become  proud,  stiff-necked  Mammonists,  and 
accursed  misers,  sucking  the  very  substance  of  the  country  and  the  people.' 

"  These  are  but  a  few  out  of  a  host  of  similar  avowals,  which  Dr.  Bollin- 
ger has  collected  fi-om  every  portion  of  Luther's  works.  Lest  it  should  be 
supposed  they  are  confined  to  the  earlier  years  of  the  Reformation,  and 
regard  only  the  state  of  the  Lutheran  body  in  the  first  phases  of  its  forma- 
tion, we  shall  venture,  even  at  the  risk  of  being  tedious,  to  select  a  few  pas- 
sages, written  during  the  last  years  of  his  life,  not  a  whit  less  expressive 
than  those  alreadj^  produced.  During  the  years  1540-6,  Lutheranism  may 
be  truly  said  to  have  reached  its  culminating  point,  as  far  as  regards  the 
career  of  its  founder.  In  a  letter  of  his  written  to  Hermann  Bonn,  (April 
5,  1543,)  he  expresses  his  exultation  at  the  completeness  of  his  success — 
'  From  Riga  to  Metz — from  the  foot  of  the  Alps  to  the  north  point  of  the 
peninsula  of  Jutland ' — his  realm  had  been  gradually  extended.  The  num- 
ber of  crowned  heads  and  of  sovereign  princes  now  in  his  following,  was 
very  great,  and  later  years  had  notably  increased  the  catalogue.  Duke 
Otho,  Henry,  elector  palatine  of  the  Rhine,  the  duchess  of  Calenberg,  Arch- 
bishop Hermann  of  Cologne,  and  the  bishop  of  IMiinster  and  Osnabruck, 
were  among  his  most  recent  adherents.  Wolfenbiittel  had  just  been  added 
to  the  ranks  by  the  ministry  of  Bugenhagen.  The  nobility  and  many  of 
the  lower  classes  in  Austria,  had  begun  to  feel  the  contagion.  The  great 
body  of  the  German  nobility  were,  at  least  indirectly,  favorers  of  the  movement. 
Many  of  the  noble  chapters  had  passed  over  en  masse,  and  others  were  but 
tottering  in  their  allegiance.  The  imperial  cities  were  for  the  most  part 
Protestant ;  and  it  seemed  but  a  question  of  time  to  complete  and  perpetu- 
ate the  conquest  thus  rapidly  and  systematically  achieved  ! 

"  Such  was  the  exterior  history  of  the  movement ;  such  was  the  external 
condition  of  the  Ijutlierau  communion  during  the  later  years  of  its  founder's 
fife.  But  how  hollow  the  triumph,  and  how  unsubstantial  the  conquest 
which  had  been  thus  obtained  ! 

"On  Nov.  lOth,  1541,  Luther  writes  to  one  of  his  friends,  that  'he  had 
17 


262  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

almost  abandoned  all  hope  for  Germany,  so  universally  had  avarico,  usury, 
tyranny,  disunion,  and  the  whole  host  of  untruth,  wickedness,  and  treach- 
ery, as  well  as  disregard  of  the  word  of  God,  and  the  most  unheard  of  in- 
gratitude, taken  possession  of  the  nobility,  the  courts,  the  towns,  and  the 
villages '  In  the  March  of  the  following  year,  he  writes  in  much  the  same 
strain,  adding,  that  '  his  only  hope  is  in  the  near  approach  of  the  last  day  ; — 
the  world  has  become  so  barbarous,  so  tired  of  the  word  of  God,  and  enter- 
tains so  thorough  a  disgust  for  it.'  On  the  23d  of  July,  he  declares,  that 
'those  who  would  be  followers  of  the  gospel,  draw  down  God's  wrath  by 
their  avarice,  their  rapine,  their  plunder  of  the  churches ;  while  the  people 
listen  to  instructions,  prayers,  and  entreaties,  but  continue,  nevertheless,  to 
heap  sin  upon  sin.'  On  an'^ther  occasion,  (October  25th,  1542,)  he  declares 
that  '  he  is  tired  of  living  in  this  hideous  Sodom  ;'  that  '  all  the  good  which 
he  had  hoped  to  effect  has  vanished  away ;  that  there  remains  naught  but  a 
deluge  of  sin  and  unholiness,  and  nothing  is  left  for  him  but  to  pray  for  his 
discharge.'  And  in  reality,  not  only  did  he  wish  for  death  as  a  boon  to 
himself,  'that  he  might  be  released  from  this  Satanical  generation,'  but  he 
was  even  able  calmly  to  see  his  little  daughter  Margaret,  to  wliom  he  was 
devotedly  attached,  die  before  his  eyes.  '  Alas !'  he  cried  to  the  prince  of 
Anhalt,  'we  live  in  Babylon  and  Sodom.  Every  thing  is  growing  worse 
each  day.'  And  even  in  the  very  last  hours  of  his  life,  .so  bitterly  did  he 
feel  the  immorality  and  irreligiousness  of  the  city  which  he  had  made  the 
chosen  seat  and  center  of  his  doctrines,  that  he  had  actuall}'^  made  up  his 
mind  to  leave  it  forever.  So  sensible  was  he  made  of  the  connection  between 
his  doctrines  and  the  moral  condition  of  Wittenberg,  that  the  thought  of 
residence  there  became  insupportable.  '  Let  us  but  fly  from  this  Sodom !' 
he  wrote  to  his  wife  a  few  months  before  his  death ;  '  I  will  wander 
through  the  world,  and  beg  my  bread  from  door  to  door,  rather  than 
embitter  and  disturb  my  poor  old  last  days  by  this  spectacle  of  the  disorder 
of  Wittenberg,  and  the  fruitlessness  of  my  bitter  dear  toil  in  its  service.'  It 
is  a  significant  commentary  on  the  fruitlessness  of  the  mission  to  which  he 
had  devoted  his  life,  that  it  needed  all  the  influence  of  the  elector  to  induce 
him  to  abandon  his  determination  ! 

"  Such  is  a  faint  outline  of  Luther's  own  report  of  the  moral  fruits  cf  his 
Reformation.  It  is  but  too  well  borne  out  in  its  worst  details  b}"  his  friends 
and  fel!ow-laV)orers.  The  reader  will  perceive  that  we  are  drawing  but 
lightly  upon  Dr.  Bollinger's  abundant  and  overflowing  pages ;  and  for  what 
remains,  we  must  be  even  more  sparing  in  our  extracts.  We  shall  only  ol> 
serve  that  those  which  we  mean  to  present  are  taken  almost  at  random ; 
that  it  would  have  been  easy  to  find  hundreds  of  others  equally  striking ;  and 
that  the  cfiect  of  all  is  grievously  impaired  1)}'  the  broken  and  fragmentary 
form,  in  which,  of  course,  they  must  appear  in  such  a  notice  as  the  present. 


REFORMATION    DESCRIBED    BY    THE   REFORMERS.  263 

"  Few  of  the  reformers  dealt  less  in  extremes  than  'the  mild  Melancthon.' 
What,  therefore,  are  we  to  think  of  the  state  of  things  which  di-ew  even 
from  him  the  declaration,  that  '  in  these  latter  times  the  world  has  taken  to 
itself  a  boundless  license  ;  that  very  many  are  so  unbridled  as  to  throiv  off 
every  bond  of  discipline,  though  al  the  same  time  they  pretend  that  t/iey  have 
faith,  that  they  invoke  God  with  true  fervor  of  heart,  and  that  they  are 
lively  and  elect  members  of  the  church  ;  living,  meanwhile,  in  truly  cyclo- 
pean  indiiference  and  barbarism,  and  in  slavish  subjection  to  the  devil,  who 
drives  them  to  adulteries,  murders,  and  other  atrocious  crimes  ?'  This  class, 
too,  he  tells  us,  are  firmly  wedded  to  their  own  opinions,  and  entirely  intol- 
erant of  remonstrance.  '  Men  receive  with  avidity  the  inflammatory  ha- 
rangues which  exaggerate  libeity  and  give  loose  rein  to  the  passions ;  as,  for 
an  example,  the  cynical,  rather  than  Christian  principle,  which  denies  the 
necessity  of  good  works.  Posterity  will  stand  amazed  that  a  generation 
should  have  ever  existed,  in  which  these  ravings  have  been  received  with 
applause.'  'Never  in  the  days  of  our  fathers,'  he  avows,  'had  there  existed 
such  gluttony  as  exists  now,  and  is  daily  on  the  increase.'  '  The  morals  of 
the  people,  all  that  they  do,  and  all  that  they  neglect  to  do,  are  becoming 
every  day  worse.  Gluttony,  debauchery,  licentiousness,  wantonness,  are 
gaining  the  upper  hand  more  and  more  among  the  people,  and  in  one  word, 
every  one  does  just  as  he  pleases.' 

" '  Most  of  the  preachers,'  writes  Bucer,  '  imagine,  that  if  they  inveigh 
Gtoutly  against  the  anti-christians  [papists],  and  chatter  away  on  a  few  un- 
important fruitless  questions,  and  then  assail  their  brethren  also,  they  have 
discharged  their  duty  admirably.  Following  this  example,  the  people,  as 
soon  as  they  know  how  to  attack  our  adversaries,  and  to  prate  a  little  about 
things  far  from  edifying,  believe  that  they  are  perfect  Christians.  Mean- 
while, there  is  nowhere  to  be  seen  modesty,  charity,  zeal,  or  ardor  for  God's 
glory  ;  and  in  consequence  of  our  conduct,  God's  holy  name  is  everywhere 
subjected  to  horrible  blasphemies.'  'Nobody,'  writes  Althanier,  in  the 
preface  of  his  Catechism,  '  cares  to  instruct  his  child,  his  servant,  his  maid, 
or  any  of  his  dependants,  in  the  word  of  God  or  his  fear ;  and  thus  our 
young  generation  is  the  very  worst  that  ever  has  existed.  The  elders  are  worth- 
less, and  the  young  follow  their  example.'  '  The  children,'  says  Culmaun, 
'  are  habituated  to  debauchery  by  their  parents,  and  thus  comes  an  endlestj 
train  of  diseases,  seductions,  tumults,  murders,  robberies,  and  thefts,  which 
unhappily,  owing  to  the  state  of  society,  are  committed  with  security.  And 
the  worst  of  all  is,  that  they  are  not  ashamed  to  palliate  their  conduct  by 
the  examples  of  Noah,  Lot,  David,  and  others.' 

"  In  one  word,  it  would  be  as  difficult  to  add  to  the  catalogue  of  popular 
crimes  enumerated  by  these  men — 'contempt,  falsification,  and  persecution 
of  God's  word;   abuse  of  his  holy  sacraments;   idolatry,  heresy,  simony, 


2()4  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

sorcery,  heathenish  and  epicurean  life,  indifference  about  God,  absolute  infi 
delity,  disregard  of  public  worship,  ignorance  of  the  first  elements  of  religion. 
and  the  whole  hideous  deluge  of  shame  and  sin  shamelessly  committed 
against  God's  commandments,  not  the  mere  result  of  human  weakness  and 
frailty,  but  persevered  in  remorselessly  and  unrepentingly,  and  regarded  by 
the  majority  of  men  as  no  longer  sinful  and  disgraceful,  but  as  downright 
virtues,  and  legitimate  subjects  of  boast  and  self-gratulation ' — as  it  would 
to  add  to  the  evidence  of  the  universal  prevalence  of  such  crimes  which 
they  supply,  and  for  the  truth  of  which  they  themselves  challenge  a  denial. 
'  Take  any  class  you  please,'  says  Dietrich,  '  high  or  low,  you  will  find  all 
equally  degenerate  and  corrupt.  What  is  more,  there  is  no  longer  any 
social  honesty  to  be  found  among  the  people.  The  majority  persecute  the 
gospel,  and  cling  to  the  old  idolatry.  The  rest,  who  have  received  God's 
word  and  gospel,  are  also  lawless,  insensible  to  instruction,  hardened  in  their 
old  sinful  life,  as  is  evident  from  the  whoredom,  adultery,  usury,  avarice, 
lying,  cheating,  and  manifold  wickedness  which  prevail.' 

"  There  is  one  branch  of  this  subject  which  we  do  not  approach  without 
great  repugnance,  but  which,  nevertheless,  it  would  be  most  unhistorical,  as 
well  as  unphilosophical,  to  overlook,  because  there  is  none  in  which  the 
working  of  the  positive  teaching  of  the  reformers  is  so  palpably'  and  unmis- 
takably recognized.  We  refer  to  the  avowed  and  undeniable  deterioration 
of  public  morality, — the  indifference  to  the  maintenance  of  chastity,  to  the 
observance  of  the  marriage  vow,  and  indeed  to  the  commonest  decencies  of 
life,  by  which  the  spread  of  Lutheranism  was  uniformly  and  instantaneously 
followed.  We  can  not  bring  ourselves  to  pollute  our  page  with  the  hateful 
and  atrocious  doctrines  of  Luther  (vol.  i,  pp.  428-9),  of  Sarcerius  (p.  431), 
Dresser  (p.  432),  Bugenhagen  (p.  434),  and  many  others  (p.  431),  founded 
upon  what  they  allege  to  be  the  physical  impossibility  of  observing  conti- 
nence, which  results  from  the  original  constitution  of  the  sexes  as  ordained 
by  God ;  but  we  are  necessitated  to  allude  to  them,  in  order  to  establish 
beyond  question  the  connection  of  these  doctrines  (which,  it  must  be  re- 
membered, were  enforced  by  Luther  chiefly  in  his  German  tracts  and 
sermons  addressed  to  the  entire  people)  with  the  moral  consequences  which 
we  shall  proceed  to  detail,  as  briefly  and  as  slightly  as  circumstances  will 
pennit,  in  the  words  of  the  authorities  collected  in  the  pages  before  us. 
Nothing  can  be  more  revolting  than  the  picture  of  universal  and  unrestrained 
depravity  which  they  reveal. 

"'The  youths  of  the  present  da)','  says  Brentius  in  1532,  'are  hardly 
released  from  their  cradles  when  they  must  take  women  to  themselves,  and 
girls,  long  before  the_y  are  marriageable,  begin  betimes  to  think  of  men  : 
priests,  monks,  and  nuns  marry  in  despite  of  every  human  law.'  Four 
years  earlier,  the  reformer  of  Ulm,  Conrad  Ian,  complained  that  'impurity 
and  adultery  were  universal  in  the  world  that  each  one  coiTupted  his  neigh- 


REFORMATION    DESCRIBED    BY    THE    REFORMERS.  2Go 

bor,  that  it  was  no  longer  reputed  as  a  sin  or  a  shame,  but  was  even  made 
subject  of  pubhc  boast.'  In  1537,  Osiander  complains,  that  'so  commonly, 
and,  unhappil}^  in  all  places  with  so  much  impunity,  were  fornication  and 
adultery  practiced,  that,  revolting  and  unchristian  as  it  is,  wives  and  daugh- 
ters were  hi^rdly  secure  among  their  own  blood  relations,  where  their  virtue, 
honor,  and  purity  should  be  most  rigidly  respected ;'  and  his  colleague  Link 
avows,  that  'nowadays  the  vice  of  unchastity  is  made  a  subject  of  laughter 
and  of  amusement'  Mathesius  discovered  a  token  of  the  approach  of  the 
end  of  the  world  in  the  prevalence  of  this  vice.  '  How  universal  was  the 
practice  of  debauchery,  adultery,  fornication,  incest,  conjugal  infidelity,  we 
learn  partly  fi'om  the  criminal  processes,  the  consistories,  and  the  superin- 
tendents, partly  from  private  intercourse.  Assuredly  either  the  last  day  is 
at  hand,  or  there  is  some  awful  pestilence  at  our  door.'  — '  We  Germans, 
nowadays,'  says  Sarcerius,  in  1554,  'can  boast  but  little  of  the  virtue  of 
chastity,  and  that  little  is  disappearing  so  fast  that  we  can  hardly  speak  of  it 
any  more.  The  number  who  still  love  it  are  so  small,  that  it  would  be 
matter  not  of  surprise,  but  of  absolute  horror;  and  debauchery  prevails 
without  fear  and  without  shame.  The  young  learn  it  from  the  old ;  one 
vice  leads  to  another,  and  now  the  young  generation  is  so  steeped  in  every 
species  of  vice,  that  they  are  more  experienced  in  it  than  were  the  oldest 
people  in  former  times.'*  liraunmiiller,  minister  of  Wurtemburg  in  1560, 
complains  that  '  bastardy  is  very  common.  Every  one  is  so  hardened,  and 
so  habituated  to  this  diabolical  vice,  that  it  is  not  considered  grievous,  for  it 
is  as  daily  bread  everywhere  around.  Almost  every  wife  is  unfaithful :  and 
hence  no  one  need  wonder  that  the  band  of  adulterers  in  these  our  days  is 
more  powerful  and  influential  than  it  was  in  the  days  of  our  ancestors,  or 
even  of  the  heathens.'  Again,  five  years  later,  Andrew  Hoppenrod  raised 
the  same  complaint  in  Mansfeld.  'We  see  and  hear  (alas!  God  help  us!) 
that  impurity  and  fornication  have  made  frightful  inroads  among  Christians, 
and  have  sunk  their  roots  so  deeply,  that  it  is  hardly  any  longer  reputed  a 
sin,  but  is  rather  gloried  in  as  a  noble  and  desirable  thing,  without  sorrow 
or  remorse  of  conscience.'      In  1573,  Christopher  Fischer,  superintendent 

*  "  We  shall  leave  the  following  passage  (which,  strange  to  say,  is  from 
an  old  popular  hymii)  in  its  original  German  : 

'  Die  funft  Kunst  ist  gemeine, 
1st  Ehebruch,  Unkeuschheit 
Das  kann  jetzt  gross  und  kleine 
Hat  man  jetzund  Beschied. 
Man  schamt  sich  auch  nichts  mehre, 
Man  halt's  gar  fur  eine  Ehre ; 
Niemand  tliut  es  fast  wehren  ; 
Welchcr's  jetzt  treibet  viel, 
Will  sej'n  im  bessten  Spiel.' 

"  After  all,  one  can  hardly  wonder  at  this,  when  one  recollects  the  chorus 
of  what  is  still  popularly  preserved  as  Luther's  favorite  chart : 

*  Wer  liobt  nich  Weiber,  Wein,  Gesang 
Er  bleibt  ein  Narr  sein  Leben  langl' 

*  Who  loves  not  women,  wine,  and  song, 
He  lives  a  fool  his  lifetime  long  I'  " 

VOL.    T.--23 


266  INFLUEJvCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

in  Brunswick,  complains  in  like  manner,  that  '  such  is  the  prevalence  ct 
whoredom  and  debauchery,  that  they  are  no  longer  looked  on  as  sinful ;  a  jy 
one  who  has  the  opportunity  thinks  he  does  well  in  availing  himself  ol  »/, 
fur  the  world  does  not  pimish  it ;  and,  as  for  adultery,  so  completely  has  .1 
obtained  the  upperhand,  that  no  punishment  can  avail  any  longer  to  Sk*p 
press  it ! '  " — Vol.  ii,  pp.  435-7. 

"  We  can  not  venture  to  extend  our  extracts  on  this  subject  further.  *( 
need  only  be  added,  that  the  frightful  state  of  morality  depicted  in  th««e 
pages  is  attributed  without  disguise,  even  by  the  Lutherans  themselves,  to 
the  doctrines  of  Luther  already  alluded  to.  The  reader  will  find  at  pa«os 
4.38-40  (of  Dollinger)  a  long  and  most  remarkable  extract  from  Czecano- 
vius,  in  which  the  connection  is  fully  and  freely  admitted.  Districts  in 
which  these  crimes  were  utterly  unknown,  were  scarcely  initiated  in  the 
principles  of  the  Refoi'mation  till  they  became  corrupted  to  the  heart's  core. 
A  most  remarkable  example  of  this  is  Ditmarsen,  a  district  in  Holstein,  in 
which  the  Catholic  religion  was  abolished  in  1532.  So  remarkable  had  this 
province  been  for  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  its  population,  that  it  was 
known  under  the  name  of  Mar/jlaml  [Marienland]  ;  cases  of  unchastity  were 
so  rare  and  unexampled,  that  the  forfeiture  of  her  virtue  on  the  part  of  a 
female  was  visited  with  perpetual  disgrace,  and  was  generally  atoned  for  by 
voluntary  exile,  and  even  in  some  cases  by  the  suicide  of  the  despairing  de- 
faulter. Before  Lutheranism  had  been  established  ten  years,  its  own  apos- 
tle, Nicholas  Boje  (in  1541),  was  forced  to  complain  that  'public  crimes — 
especially  whoredom,  adultery,  and  merciless,  heathenish,  Jewish,  nay, 
Turkish  usury — prevail  so  universally,  that  he  was  obliged  to  call  God  to 
witness,  that  neither  preaching,  teaching,  instruction,  menaces,  nor  the  terror 
of  God's  wrath,  and  of  his  righteous  judgments,  was  of  any  avail.'  The 
practice  of  divorce,  too,  was,  in  every  reformed  country,  an  immediate  con- 
sequence of  the  Reformation ;  and  if  there  were  no  other  evidence  of  the 
connection  between  the  introduction  of  the  new  religion  and  this  frightful 
deterioration  of  morals,  it  would  be  found  in  the  numberless  laws  against 
adulterj^  fornication,  bigam)^  etc.,  which  date  from  this  period,  and  the  fre- 
quent and  flagrant  convictions  and  sentences  under  these  laws  in  every  Prot- 
estant province  of  Germany.  For  abundant  and  convincing  evidence  of  all 
this,  we  must  refer  the  reader  to  the  fifteenth  section  of  the  first  volume, 
which  is  a  mine  of  curious  and  most  extraoi'dinary  learning,  but  yet  free 
from  that  coarseness  and  indelicacy  in  which  learned  writers  too  often  feel 
themselves  privileged  to  indulge  in  deaUng  with  such  subjects. 

"Indeed,  to  add  further  testimonies  would  be  but  to  weary  and  disgust 
the  reader.  We  can  say  with  truth,  that  to  cull  even  these  few  from  this 
mass  of  painful  and  revolting  record,  has  been  any  thing  but  an  agreeable 
task  ;  and  that  the  reader  who  will  be  content  to  pursue  the  general  inquiry 
further  for  himself,  to  read  through  the  evidence  of  Amsdorf,  Spalatin,  Bu- 


REFORMATION    DESCRIBED   BY    THE   REFORMERS.  267 

genhagen,  Gerbel,  Major,  Flacius  lUyricus,  Brentius,  Schnepf,  Wesshuss 
Camerarius,  and  the  numberless  others  whom  the  author's  industry  has 
accumulated,  must  make  up  his  mind  to  encounter  many  shocking  and  dis 
heartening  details,  for  which  the  popular  representations  of  the  social  and 
religious  condition  of  the  great  era  of  the  Reformation  will  have  but  ill  pre- 
pared him. 

"  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  testimonies  which  we  have  hitherto 
alleged,  or  the  great  mass  of  those  collected  by  the  author,  describe  the  social 
condition  but  of  a  portion  of  Germany,  under  the  Reformation.  There  is 
not  a  single  locality  which  has  not  its  witness.  Saxony,  Hesse,  Nassau, 
Brandenburg,  Strasburg,  Nurnberg,  Stralsund,  Thorn,  Mecklenburg,  West- 
phalia, Pomerania,  Friesland,  Denmark,  Sweden  ;  and  all,  or  almost  all,  are 
represented  by  natives,  or,  at  least,  residents,  familiar  with  the  true  state  of 
society,  and,  if  not  directly  interested  in  concealing,  certainly  not  liable  to 
the  suspicion  of  any  disposition  to  exaggerate,  its  shortcomings  or  its  crimes. 

"  Indeed,  the  connection  between  the  progress  of  Lutheranjsm  and  this 
corruption  of  public  morals,  could  not  possibly  be  put  more  strikingly  than 
in  the  words  of  John  Belz,  a  minister  of  Allerstadt  in  Thuringia  (1566)  : 
'If  you  would  find  a  multitude  of  brutal,  coarse,  godless  people,  among 
whom  every  species  of  sin  is  every  day  in  full  career,  go  into  a  city  where 
the  holy  gospel  is  taught,  and  where  the  best  preachers  are  to  be  met,  and 
there  you  will  be  sure  to  find  them  in  abundance.  To  be  pious  and  up- 
right (for  which  God  praises  Job)  is  nowadays  held,  if  not  to  be  a  sin,  at 
least  a  downright  folly ;  and  from  many  pulpits  it  is  proclaimed,  that  good 
works  are  not  only  xmncessary,  but  hurtful  to  the  soul.'  " 

Such  then  were  the  moral  effects  of  the  Reformation,  ac- 
cording to  the  testimony  of  the  reformers  themselves.  These 
new  apostles  professed  indeed  to  refoTTn  the  Church  in  doc- 
trine and  morals :  they  inveighed  against  the  immorality  of 
the  Catholic  priesthood,  whom  they  abused  and  vilified  beyond 
measure :  they  set  themselves  up  as  patterns  for  the  world : 
but  they  forgot  withal  to  reform  themselves  and  their  own 
disciples.  They  even  went  "  daily  from  bad  to  worse."  They 
were  wholly  unmindful  of  the  admonition  of  the  Saviour: 
"  Let  him  that  is  without  sin  among  you  first  cast  a  stone."* 

We  subjoin  to  this  copious  evidence  the  following  portrait- 
ure of  the  state  of  morals  in  Germany  shortly  after  the  begin- 
ning of  the   Reformation,   drawn  by  one  who  will  not  be 

*  St.  John,  viii  :  7. 


268  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION   ON    MORALS. 

suspected, — Wolfgang  Menzel.  The  horrible  details  wlueh 
he  furnishes  on  this  subject,  indicate  a  condition  of  courtly 
and  general  depravity  which  would  seem  almost  incredible ; 
but — alas !  the  evidence  is  overwhelming. 

"  The  Protestants  also  allowed  the  opportunity  offered  to  them  by  the 
emperor  to  pass  unheeded,  and,  although  they  received  a  great  accession  in 
number,  sank,  from  want  of  unity,  in  real  power  and  influence.  The  rest 
of  the  German  princes,  Charles  and  Ernest  of  Baden,  and  Julius  of  Bruns- 
wick— Wolfenbiittel,  the  son  of  Henry  the  Wild — embraced  Lutheranism. 
Austria,  Bavaria,  Lorraine,  and  Juliers  remained  Catholic.  The  reformers 
were  devoid  of  union  and  energy,  and  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  having  abused 
and  desecrated,  instead  of  having  rigidly  prosecuted,  the  Reformation. 

"  Was  their  present  condition  the  fitting  result  of  a  religious  emancipation, 
or  worthy  of  the  sacred  blood  that  had  been  shed  in  the  cause  ?  Instead 
of  one  Pope,  the  Protestants  were  oppressed  by  a  number,  each  of  the  princes 
ascribing  that  authority  to  himself;  and  instead  of  Jesuits,  they  had  court 
chaplains  and  superintendent-generals,  who,  their  equals  in  venom,  despised 
no  means,  however  base,  by  which  their  aim  might  be  attained.  A  new 
species  of  barbarism  had  found  admittance  into  the  Protestant  courts  and 
universities.  The  Lutheran  chaplains  shared  their  influence  over  the  princes 
with  mistresses,  boon-companions,  astrologers,  alchymists,  and  Jews.  The 
Protestant  princes,  rendered,  by  the  treaty  of  Augsburg,  unlimited  dictators 
in  matters  of  faith  within  their  territories,  had  lost  all  sen.se  of  shame. 
Philip  of  Hesse  married  two  wives.  Brandenburg  and  pious  Saxony  yielded 
to  temptation.  Surrounded  by  coarse  grooms,  equerries,  court- fools  of  obscene 
wit,  misshapen  dwarfs,  the  princes  emulated  each  other  in  drunkenness,  an 
amusement  that  entirely  replaced  the  noble  and  gallant  tournament  of  earlier 
times.  Almost  every  German  court  was  addicted  to  this  bestial  vice.  Among 
others,  the  ancient  house  of  Piast,  in  Silesia,  was  utterly  ruined  by  it.  Even 
Louis  of  Wurtemberg,  whose  virtues  rendered  him  the  darling  of  his  people, 
was  continually  in  a  state  of  drunkenness.  This  vice  and  that  of  swearing 
even  became  a  subject  of  discussion  in  the  diet  of  the  empire,  [A.  D.  1577,] 
when  it  was  decreed,  '  That  all  electoral  princes,  nobles,  and  estates  should 
avoid  intemperate  drinking  as  an  example  to  their  subjects.'  The  chase 
was  also  followed  to  excess.  The  game  was  strictly  preserved,  and,  during 
the  hunt,  the  serfs  were  compelled  to  aid  in  demolishing  their  own  corn- 
fields. The  Jews  and  alchymists,  whom  it  became  tlie  tkshion  to  have  at 
court,  were  by  no  means  a  slight  evil,  all  of  them  requiring  gold.  Astrology 
would  have  been  a  harmless  amusement  had  not  its  professors  taken  advan- 
tage of  the  ignorance  and  .superstition  of  the  times.  False  representations 
of  the  secret  powers  of  nature  and  of  the  devil  led  to  the  belief  in  witch 


TESTIMONY    OF   MENZEL.  269 

araft,  and  t )  the  bloody  persecution  of  its  supposed  agents.  Luther's  belief 
in  the  agency  of  the  devil  had  naturally  filled  the  minds  of  his  followers 
with  superstitious  fears."  .... 

"  The  Ascanian  family  of  Lauenburg  was  sunk  in  vice.  The  same  license 
continued  from  one  generation  to  another ;  the  country  was  deeply  in  debt, 
and  how,  under  the  circumstances,  the  cujus  regio  was  maintained,  may 
easily  be  conceived.  The  Protestant  clergy  of  this  duchy  were  pi-overbial  for 
ignorance,  license,  and  immorality. 

"  The  imperial  court  at  Vienna  offered,  by  its  dignity  and  morality,  a  bright 
contrast  to  the  majority  of  the  Protestant  courts,  whose  bad  example  was, 
nevertheless,  followed  by  many  of  the  Catholic  princes,  who,  without  taking 
part  in  the  Reformation,  had  thereby  acquired  greater  independence."* 

Erasmus  bus  well  described  tbis  cluinge  fur  tbe  worse  in 
tbe  morals  of  tbose  wlio  embraced  tbe  Reformation : 

"  Those  whom  I  had  known  to  be  pure,  full  of  candor  and  simplicity, 
these  same  persons  have  I  seen  afterwards,  when  they  had  gone  over  to 
the  sect  (of  the  gospelers,)  begin  to  speak  of  girls,  flock  to  games  of  hazard, 
throw  aside  prayer,  give  themselves  up  entirely  to  their  interests  ;  become 
the  most  impatient,  vindictive  and  frivolous ;  changed  in  fixct  from  men  to 
vipers.  I  know  well  what  I  say."f  And  again  :  "I  see  many  Lutherans, 
but  few  evangelicals.  Look  a  little  at  these  people,  and  say  whether  luxury, 
avarice,  and  lewdness,  do  not  prevail  still  more  amongst  them,  than  among 
those  whom  they  detest.  Show  me  one  who  by  means  of  this  gospel  is  be- 
come better.  I  will  show  you  very  many  who  are  become  worse.  Perhaps 
it  has  been  my  bad  fortune :  but  I  have  seen  none  who  have  not  become 
worse  by  their  gospel.  "| 

The  testimony  of  Erasmus  is  above  suspicion,  Tbougb  be 
continued  in  tbe  Catbolic  Church,  yet  be  was  tbe  early  friend 
of  Luther,  Melanctbon  and  several  others  among  tbe  principal 
reformers ;  and  be  bad  himself  contributed  not  a  little — per- 
haps, however,  only  indirectly  and  unintentionally — to  tbe 
success  of  the  pretended  Reformation.  He  was  a  mild,  peace- 
able man,  who  liked  bis  ease  more  than  any  thing  else  in  tbe 
world,  and  who  sought  to  please  both  sides,  but  succeeded  in 
pleasing  neither.  He  bad  joined  in  the  outcry  against  the 
Catliolic  priesthood  and  monks,  and  bad  thereby  no  doubt 

*  History  of  Germany,  ii,  280-1. 

f  Epist.  Tractibus  Germanise  inferioris. 

I  Idem.  Epist.  Anno  1526. 


270  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

greatly  aided  in  hightening  the  excitement  against  the 
Catholic  Church.  The  proverb  was  current  in  Germany  :  that 
"Erasmus  had  laid  the  egg,  and  Luther  had  hatched  it."* 
This  saying  perhaps  expressed  too  much ;  but  yet,  like  most 
popular  adages,  it  had  some  foundation  in  truth.  The  famous 
humanist  lleuchlin  seems  to  have  been  another  of  those  waver- 
ing and  uncertain  characters,  who  can  be  moulded  to  alau.st 
any  form  according  to  circumstances. 

For  three  whole  centuries,  the  lleformation  has  had  full 
sway  and  perfect  freedom  of  action  throughout  half  of  Ger- 
many and  all  of  Northern  Europe.  What  have  been  the 
practical  results  of  its  influence  ?  Wliat  is  the  present  moral 
condition  of  those  Protestant  countries  where  that  influence 
has  been  least  checked,  and  most  extended  and  permanent? 
We  will  close  this  chapter,  by  presenting  a  few  startling  facts 
on  this  subject,  from  the  works  of  two  recent  Protestant  travel- 
ers, Bremner  and  Laing.  Their  authority  in  the  matter  will 
Bcarcely  be  questioned  by  Protestants.  Themselves  bitterly 
prejudiced  against  the  Catholic  Church,  and  enamored  with 
the  Reformation,  they  merely  state  what  they  saw  and  ascer- 
tained during  a  long  residence  in  the  countries  which  they 
respectively  describe. 

Of  the  people  of  Protestant  Norway,  Mr.  Bremner  says : 
"  The  Norwegians  can  not,  with  justice,  be  described  as  more 
than  '  indifierently  moral,'  for  we  always  found  amongst  them 
a  greater  desire  to  take  advantage  of  a  stranger  than  in  any 
other  part  of  Europe."t  In  regard  to  chastity,  he  tells  us 
that  the  statistical  returns  show  that  out  of  every  five  chil- 
dren which  are  born,  one  is  illegitimate — the  same  proportion 
precisely,  in  this  widely  scattered  and  rural  population,  as  in 
"  the  densely  crowded  and  corrupted  atmosphere  of  Paris." 

*  "  Erasmus  hat  das  Ey  gelegt,  und  Luther  es  ausgebr  iitet."  An  oia 
Lutheran  painting  represented  the  reformers  bearing  the  ark,  and  Erasmus 
dancing  before  it  with  all  his  might ! 

f  "  Excursions  in  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden,"  etc.  By  Robert 
Bremner. — 2  vols.  8vo,  London,  1840. 


BREMNER    AND    LAING.  271 

Mr.  Laing  confirms  the  statement,  and  tells  us  of  one  countr}? 
parish  in  particuhir  where,  "without  a  town,  or  manufactur- 
ing establishment,  or  resort  of  shipping,  or  quartering  of 
troops,  or  other  obvious  cause,"  the  proportion  of  illegitimate 
to  legitimate  children,  in  the  five  years  from  1826  to  1830, 
was  one  in  three.* 

Both  these  Protestant  travelers  tell  us,  moreover,  that  in 
Norway  the  Sunday  is  the  usual  day  for  dances,  for  theatrical 
and  other  public  amusements ;  and  Mr.  Laing  accounts  for 
this  singular  fact  by  the  universally  received  interpretation, 
in  \hepure  Lutheran  Church,  of  the  Scriptural  words,  "and 
the  evening  and  the  morning  made  the  first  day."  Those 
"pure  Lutherans,"  going  further  than  even  the  Jews  of  the 
straightest  sect,  keep  the  Sabbath  from  midday  on  Saturday 
to  the  noon  of  Sunday !  The  Lutheran  clergy,  they  likewise 
inform  us,  pay  little  attention  to  the  instruction  of  the  people. 
In  proof  of  this  gross  negligence,  they  allege  the  fact,  that  in 
all  Norway  there  are  only  three  hundred  and  thirty-six  par- 
ishes with  resident  clergymen,  who  seldom  visit  their  scattered 
people.  They  also  justly  complain,  that  convicts  are  there 
treated  more  unmercifully  than  any  where  else. 

The  picture  they  draw  of  the  present  moral  condition  of 
Sweden  and  Denmark  is  even  still  less  flattering.  Mr. 
Bremner  tells  us,  that  in  the  female  house  of  correction  at 
Stockholm,  the  capital  of  Sweden,  he  found  thirty-eight  prison- 
ers condemned  for  life,  "  nearly  all  of  whom  had  been  con- 
victed of  the  too  frequent  crime  of  child  murder!"  Mr.  Laing 
enters  at  great  length  into  the  subject  of  Swedish  morality. 
He  states,  and  he  proves  from  regularly  avouched  statistical 
returns,  that  Sweden  is  the  most  corrupt  and  demoralized 

*  The  works  of  Mr.  Laing  from  which  we  borrow  this  and  the  following 
facts,  are  :  "  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  Norway  during  the  years  1834,  1835, 
1836,  made  with  a  view  to  inquire  into  the  moral  and  political  economy  of 
the  country,  and  the  state  of  the  inhabitants,"  London,  1836;  "A  Tour  in 
Sweden  in  1838,"  London,  1839  ;  and  "  Notes  of  a  Traveler,"  London,  1842. 
These  works  are  all  ably  noticed  in  the  Dublin  Review  for  May,  1843. 


272  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    MORALS. 

country  in  Europe,  and  that  Stockholm  is  the  most  debased 
citj!  in  the  world.  Here  is  his  testimony,  which  has  been 
often  quoted : 

"  It  is  a  singular  and  embarrassing  fact,  that  the  Swedish  nation,  isolated 
from  the  mass  of  European  people,  and  almost  entirely  agricultural  or  pas- 
toral, having,  in  about  three  millions  of  individuals,  only  fourteen  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  twenty-five  employed  in  manufactories,  and  these  not 
congregated  in  one  or  two  places,  but  scattered  among  two  thousand  and 
thirty-seven  factories,  having  no  great  standing  army  or  navy,  no  external 
commerce,  no  afflux  of  strangers,  no  considerable  city  but  one,  and  having 
schools  and  universities  in  a  fair  proportion,  and  a  powerful  and  complete 
church  establishment,  undisturbed  in  its  labors  by  sect  or  schism,  is,  not- 
withstanding, in  a  more  demoralized  state  than  amj  nation  in  Europe,  more 
demoralized  even  than  any  equal  portion  of  the  dense  manufacturing  popu- 
lation of  Great  Britain.     This  is  a  very  curious  fact  in  moral  statistics." 

He  proceeds  to  establish  this  singular  fact  by  unquestion- 
able, because  official  statistical  evidence.  From  this  it  appears 
that,  in  1837,  twenty-six  thousand  two  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  persons  were  prosecuted  in  Sweden  for  criminal  ofienses, 
of  whom  twenty-one  thousand  two  hundred  and  sixty-two 
were  convicted,  being  one  to  every  one  hundred  and  fourteen 
of  the  entire  population  accused,  and  one  to  every  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  convicted  of  crimes  of  a  heinous  character. 
In  1836,  the  number  so  convicted  was  one  out  of  one  hundred 
and  thirty-four  of  the  whole  population.  Among  the  crimes 
in  the  rural  population,  there  were  twenty-eight  cases  of  mur- 
der, ten  of  child  murder,  four  of  poisoning,  thirteen  of  besti- 
ality, and  nine  of  violent  robbery:  and  the  proportion  was 
four-fold  greater  for  the  town  and  city  population.  England 
is  bad  enougli ;  one  would  even  have  thought  that  England 
could  scarcely  be  surpassed  in  crime  of  every  description  ;  yet 
in  Eno-land  the  proportion  of  the  convicted  to  the  entire  popu- 
'ation  is  only  as  one  to  one  thousand  and  five.  The  amount 
of  crime  in  Sweden  is  thus  seven-fold  greater  than  it  is  in 
England !  Is  it  because  there  the  Keformation  was  more  un- 
checked in  its  operations,  and  had  therefore  a  freer  field  ? 

According  to  Mr.  Laing,  the  proportion  of  illegitimate  to 


PRUSSIA.  273 

legitimate  children,  for  all  Sweden,  is  as  one  to  fourteen ;  and 
for  the  capital,  Stockholm,  it  is  as  one  to  two  and  three- 
tenths  !  In  the  same  city  one,  out  of  every  forty-nine  of  the 
inhabitants,  is  annually  convicted  of  some  criminal  offense ! 

When  these  statements  of  Mr.  Laing  appeared,  the  Swedish 
government  attempted  to  refute  them,  by  a  pamphlet  pub- 
lished in  London.  This  drew  from  him  a  Reply,  in  which  he 
triumphantly  established  all  the  statements  he  had  previously 
made,  and  exhibited,  in  the  avouched  statistics  of  the  yeai 
1838,  others  still  more  appalling : 

"  The  divorces  of  this  year  were  one  hundred  and  forty-seven ;  the  sui- 
cides one  hundred  and  seventy-two.  Of  the  two  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  fourteen  children  born  in  Stockholm  that  year,  one  thousand  five  hun- 
dred and  seventy -seven  were  legitimate,  one  thousand  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  illegitimate,  making  only  a  balance  of  four  hundred  and  forty  chastp 
mothers  out  of  two  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fourteen,  and  the  propor- 
tion of  illegitimate  to  legitimate  children,  not  as  one  to  two  and  three-tenths, 
as  he  had  previously  stated,  but  as  one  to  one  and  a  half ! ! " 

Prussia  is  another  country  of  Europe  in  which  the  Refor 
mation  has  had  almost  unchecked  sway  for  three  centuries. 
Mr.  Laing  discourses  of  its  moral  condition  as  follows — the 
"  index  virtue"  of  which  he  speaks  is  female  chastity : 

"  Will  any  traveler,  will  any  Prussian  say  that  this  index  virtue  of  the 
moral  condition  of  a  people  is  not  lower  in  Prussia  than  in  almost  any  part 
of  Europe  ?  It  is  no  uncommon  event  in  the  family  of  a  respectable  trades- 
man of  Berlin  to  find  upon  his  breakfast  table  a  little  baby,  of  which,  who- 
ever may  be  the  father,  he  has  no  doubt  at  all  about  the  maternal  grand- 
father. Such  accidents  are  so  common  in  the  class  in  which  they  are  least 
common  with  us — the  middle  class,  removed  from  ignorance  or  indigence — 
that  they  are  regarded  but  as  accidents,  as  youthful  indiscretions,  not  as  dis- 
graces affecting,  as  with  us,  the  respectability  and  happiness  of  all  the  kith 
and  kin  for  a  generation." 

In  a  note,  he  gives  the  following  statistical  facts  on  this 
subject : 

"  In  1837,  the  number  of  the  females  in  the  Prussian  population  between 
the  beginning  of  their  sixteenth  and  the  end  of  their  forty-fifth  year — that 
is,  within  child-bearing  age — was  two  millions  nine  hundred  and  eighty- 
three  thousand  one  hundred  and  forty-six ;  the  number  of  illegitimate  chil 


274  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON    WORSHIP. 

dren  born  in  the  same  year  was  thirty-nine  thousand  five  hundred  and  one  j 
BO  that  one  in  every  seventy-five  of  the  whole  of  the  females  of  an  age  to 
bear  children  had  been  the  mother  of  an  illegitimate  child.''  He  adds: 
"  Prince  Puckler  Muskau  (a  Prussian)  states  in  one  of  his  late  publicationa 
(Siidostlicher  Bildersaal,  3  Thel.  1841)  that  the  character  of  the  Prussians 
for  honesty  stands  lower  than  that  of  any  other  of  the  German  populations."* 


CHAPTER    X. 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    REFORMATION    ON    PUBLIC 

WORSHIP. 

General  influence  of  the  Eeformation  on  worship — Audin's  picture  of  it — 
Luther  rebukes  violence — But  wavers — Giving  life  to  a  skeleton — Taking 
a  leap — Mutilating  the  sacraments — New  system  of  Judaism — Chasing 
away  the  mists — Protestant  inconsistencies — A  dreary  waste — No  altars 
nor  sacrifice — A  land  of  mourning — Protestant  plaints — And  tribute  to 
Catholic  worship — A  touching  anecdote — Continual  prayer — Vandalism 
rebuked — Grandeur  of  Catholic  worship — Churches  always  open — Prot- 
estant worship — The  Sabbath  day — Getting  up  a  revival — Protestant  music 
and  prayer — The  pew  system — The  fashionaUe  religion — The  two  forms 
of  worship  compared — St.  Peter's  church — The  fine  arts. 

In  nothing  perhaps  was  the  influence  of  the  Reformation 
more  pernicious,  than  in  the  changes  which  it  caused  to  be 
introduced  into  public  worship.  It  stripped  the  ancient  Cath- 
oKc  service  of  its  beauty  and  simple  grandeur :  it  dried  up  the 
deep  fountains  of  its  melody — hushed  its  organs,  mufl^led  its 
Angelus  bells,  and  put  out  its  lights.  It  rudely  tore  away  the 
ornaments  of  its  priesthood,  stripped  its  altars,  and  chased 
away  the  clouds  of  its  ascending  incense.  It  did  even  more. 
It  destroyed  the  beautiful  paintings  and  sculptures,  with 
which  art,  paying  tribute  to  religion,  had  decorated  the  walls 

*  That  the  rural  population  of  England  is  not  much,  if  at  all  better,  in  a 
moral  point  of  view,  than  that  of  Sweden  and  Prussia,  clearly  appears  from 
the  late  work  of  Joseph  Kay,  which  was  noticed  in  a  late  number  of  Brown- 
Bo  I's  Koview. 


SAD    VANDALISM.  275 

of  the  churches ; — and  when  it  did  not  ruthlessly  destroy,  it 
entirely  removed  those  sacred  emblems  of  piety.  Tearing 
them  in  shreds  or  breaking  them  in  pieces,  it  gave  them,  in 
almost  numberless  instances,  to  the  flames,  and  then  scattered 
their  ashes  to  the  winds.  And,  as  if  these  feats  of  Vandalism 
were  not  enough  to  prove  its  turning  zeal  for  religion,  it 
aimed  a  mortal  blow  at  the  very  substance  of  worship :  it 
abolished  the  daily  sacrifice,  removed  the  altars,  and  annihil- 
ated the  priesthood.  And  then,  exhausted  with  its  labors, 
Protestantism  lay  down,  and  fell  asleep  amidst  the  ruins  it 
had  caused  !* 

Audin  gives  the  following  graphic  description  of  the  eflPects 
of  early  Reformation  zeal  on  public  worship: 

"  Throughout  the  whole  of  Saxony,  no  more  canticles  were  heard  ;  no 
more  incense,  no  more  lights  on  the  altars,  no  more  organs  combining  their 
melody  with  the  infant's  hymn,  or  sacerdotal  anthem.  The  church  walls 
were  bare  ;  the  light  had  no  longer  to  steal  through  the  painted  windows, 
for  they  had  all  been  broken,  under  the  pretext  that  they  favored  idolatry. 
The  Protestant  temple  resembled  every  thing  but  the  house  of  God.  The 
magnificence  and  poetry  of  Catholic  worship,  the  loss  of  which  modern 
Protestants  deplore,  everywhere  disappeared."! 

Luther  at  first  disapproved  of  the  intemperate  zeal  of  Karl- 
stadt  and  of  other  hot-headed  disciples,  who,  during  his  ab- 
sence from  Wittenberg,  had  abolished  the  Mass,  and  removed 
by  violence  the  paintings  and  statues  from  the  church  of  All 
Saints.  Yet  his  disapproval  did  not,  it  would  seem,  proceed 
so  much  from  a  horror  of  the  act  itself,  as  of  the  violence 
which  had  attended  it ;  and  more  particularly  from  the  circum- 
stance,  that  this  innovation  had  taken  place  without  his  hav- 
ing been  previously  consulted  !  In  his  harangue  against 
those  new  Iconoclasts,  he  said  : 

"  You  ought  to  know  that  you  are  to  listen  to  no  one  but  to  me.  With 
the  help  of  God,  Doctor  Martin  Luther  has  advanced  first  in  the  new  way  ; 


*  "Le  Protestantisme  fiitigue  s'est  endormi  sur  des  mines ! — Exhausted 
Protestantism  fell  asleep  amidst  ruins." — Abbe  De  Lamennais. 
+  Life  of  Luther,  p.  331. 


276  INFLUENCE   OF    RITORMATION    ON    WORSHIP. 

the  others  followed  after  him  ;  they  ought  to  exhibit  the  docility  of  disci- 
ples, as  their  duty  is  to  obey.    It  is  to  mo  that  God  has  revealed  His  word ; 

it  is  out  of  my  mouth  that  it  has  proceeded  free  from  all  stain Was  I 

at  such  a  distance  that  I  could  not  be  consulted  ?  Am  I  no  longer  the 
source  of  pure  doctrine  ?  ....  It  is  neither  commanded  nor  prohibited  to 
keep  images.  I  wish  that  superstition  had  not  introduced  them  amongst 
us  ;  but  however  they  ought  not  to  be  removed  by  tumult."* 

But  Luther,  however  he  might  deplore,  could  not  curb  the 
destructive  spirit  of  his  disciples.  He  could  not  prevent  them 
from  wielding  the  weapons  which  himself  had  placed  in  their 
hands.  He  could  not  control  the  storm  which  he  himself  had 
put  in  motion.  The  work  of  destruction  went  on,  till  scarce 
a  vestige  of  the  venerable  and  time-honored  Catholic  worship 
remained  behind.  He  himself  was  uncertain  and  wavering, 
as  to  the  portion  of  Catholic  worship  he  should  retain.  The 
people  of  Wittenberg  murmured,  when  the  chapter  of  the 
church  of  All  Saints  in  that  city  abolished  the  Mass  during 
his  absence  from  the  city.  "Luther  restored  it:  not  however 
as  a  sacrifice,  but  as  a  mere  popular  symbol.  He  took  from 
it  the  ofl'ertory  and  the.  canon,  and  all  the  forms  of  sacrifice ; 
while  he  retained  the  elevation  of  the  bread  and  wine  by  the 
priest,  the  sacredotal  salutation  to  the  assistants,  the  mixture 
of  water  and  wine,  and  the  use  of  the  Latin  language."t 

To  enliven  somewhat  this  mutilated  skeleton  of  the  old  ser- 
vice, he  retained  many  of  the  Catholic  proses  and  hymns, 
uniting  with  them  some  compositions  of  the  old  German  poets. 

"  He  himself  composed  some  to  replace  our  hymns  aud  proses,  which  are 
precious  monuments  of  the  poetry  of  the  early  ages  of  Catholicism.  Those 
sweet  and  simple  melodies  which  were  by  turns  joyous  and  austere,  gay  and 
melancholy,  according  to  the  occasion,  were  now  replaced,  in  the  Protestant 
Churches  by  a  monotonous  drawl.  The  reformed  church  thus  lost  the 
poems,  inspirations,  and  symbols  of  the  Catholic  muse."J 

The  liturgy  was  not  the  only  subject  on  which  the  reformer 

*  Apud  Audin,  ibid.  pp.  237,  238.  f  Audin,  ibid.  p.  333. 

I  Ibid.  For  some  beautiful  and  charming  reflections  on  this  subject,  see 
an  article  "  on  Prayer  and  Prayer-books,"  in  a  late  number  of  the  Dublin 
Review. 


GOING    TOO   FAST.  277 

hesitated.  His  whole  career,  in  fact,  is  marked  with  hesitancy 
and  doubt,  as  to  what  he  should  reject,  and  what  he  should 
retain,  of  the  old  Catholic  institutions.  He  often  found  him- 
self in  trying  and  difficult  positions.  His  impatient  disciples 
sought  to  drag  him  down  the  declivity  of  reform  much  faster 
than  the  sturdy  monk  wished  to  travel.  Sometimes  he  list- 
ened to  their  clamors ;  sometimes  he  sternly  rebuked  them 
for  their  over  ardent  zeal.  Hence  his  perpetual  inconsisten- 
cies. On  the  subject  of  auricular  confession,  he  contradicted 
himself  more  than  once :  at  times  he  i-ecognized  its  divine 
origin,  and  proclaimed  its  great  utility  to  society :  again  he 
would  call  it  the  invention  of  Satan,  and  "  the  executioner  of 
consciences."*  He  betrayed  similar  doubts  and  inconsisten- 
cies as  to  the  number  of  the  sacraments  instituted  by  Christ. 
He  stood  on  the  brink  of  a  precipice,  and  yielded  at  times  to 
dizziness,  ere  he  took  the  fatal  leap  from  the  summit-level  of 
Catholicity,  into  the  yawning  abyss,  the  boiling  and  hissing 
noise  of  whose  troubled  waters  already  grated  harshly  on  his 
ears  1 

But  his  disci]  lies  were  not  so  scrupulous.  They  boldly 
rejected  five  out  of  the  seven  sacraments,  and  even  stripped 
the  two  they  retained — Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper — of 
every  life-giving  principle.  They  did  not  any  longer  view 
them  as  the  channels  of  grace,  through  which  the  waters  of 
life  eternal  flow  into  the  soul  of  the  Christian.  This  principle 
they  rejected  with  horror  as  a  Popish  superstition.  They  de- 
nied that  the  sacraments  had,  from  the  design  and  institution 
of  Christ,  any  intrinsic  efficacy  whatever :  they  were  the  mere 
external  symbols  of  a  grace,  which  they  were  not  the  instru- 
ments of  imparting.  They  were  mere  signs  and  figures,  life- 
less in  themselves,  and  useful  and  available,  only  through  and 
in  proportion  to  the  faith  and  other  acts,  of  the  recipient.  In 
fact  they  were  brought  down,  in  every  respect,  to  a  level  with 

*  Conscientiarum  Carnificina — See  his  Treatise,  De  rati  one  coofitendu 
Tom  vi,  edit.  Altenb.    Tom.  i,  opp.  edit.  .Jena, 

18 


278  INFLUENCE    OF   REFORMATION   ON   WORSHIP. 

the  ancient  Jewish  types  and  figures;  and  like  th(!m,  tliey 
were  mere  "weak  and  needy  elements."*  Thus  the  Reforma- 
tion brought  back  Christianity  into  the  shadowy  region  of 
carnal  Judaism,  under  the  pretext  of  restoring  the  Church  to 
its  primitive  purity 

They  were  even  inferior  to  these,  in  point  of  appropriate- 
ness and  significancy,  as  mere  figures.  Was  not  the  Jewish 
eating  of  the  paschal  lamb  "of  one  year  old  and  without 
stain,"  a  much  more  lively  and  appropriate  type  of  the  death 
of  Christ — "  the  Lamb  of  God  who  takes  away  the  sins  of 
the  world" — than  the  symbols  of  mere  bread  and  wine? 
What  aptitude  is  there,  in  fact,  in  bread  to  be  a  figure  of 
flesh,  or  even  in  wine,  which  is  often  almost  colorless,  to  be  a 
figure  of  blood  ?  Had  Christ  intended  a  mere  figure,  would 
he  not  have  selected  more  appropriate  emblems?  Did  he 
mean  to  bring  back  the  Christian  religion,  which  he  watered 
with  his  own  blood,  to  the  mere  standard  of  Judaism — did 
he  mean  to  lower  it  even  beneath  this  standard  ?  Did  he 
institute  a  religion,  the  distinguishing  ordinances  of  which 
should  contain  nothing  more  substantial  than  the  Jewish 
tropes  and  figures?  Was  it  to  be  still  enveloped  in  that 
dense  mist,  which  had  overhung  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  and 
the  institutions  of  the  Jewish  religion  ?  Or  did  he  not  rise 
on  the  world,  as  "  the  Sun  of  Justice,"  to  chase  away  those 
mists,  which  had  darkened  the  twilight  of  the  Jewish  types, 
and  to  usher  in  the  clear,  cloudless  day  of  living  and  breath- 
ing realities  ? 

Luther  retained,  indeed,  a  belief  in  the  real  presence, 
blended,  however,  with  the  palpable  absurdity  of  consub 
stantiation ;  by  which  he  maintained  the  simultaneous  pres- 
ence of  the  substances  of  the  bread  and  wine  with  the  body 
of  Christ.  But  even  many  among  the  disciples  of  the  re- 
former have  long  since  rejected  this  monstrous  system.  After 
six  different  modifications  of  their  creed  (mi  the  subject,  to 


-*  Galatians,  iv :  9. 


NO    SACRIFICE NO    ALTAR.  279 

suit  the  tastes  or  to  meet  the  objections  of  the  Sacrjimenta- 
riaiis,  they  seem  at  length  to  have  substantially  coalesced  with 
their  former  opponents ;  and  the  doctrine  of  the  real  presence 
has  thus  grown  almost,  if  not  entirely,  obsolete  among  Prot- 
estants.* Thus,  throughout  almost  the  whole  land  of  Prot- 
estantism, this  beautiful  doctrine,  which  gives  a  sublime 
character  to  the  Catholic  worship,  and  is  a  key  to  all  its  mag- 
nificent ceremonial,  has  been  utterly  banished.  The  Protest- 
ant church  and  worship  are  no  longer  ennobled  and  vivified 
by  this  life-giving  presence  of  the  Word  made  flesh.  Christ 
is  banished  from  his  own  holy  temple:  he  is  no  longer  in  the 
midst  "of  the  children  of  men,"  where  He  before  delighted  to 
dwell.  And  the  domain  of  Protestantism  presents,  in  its 
bleak  and  dreary  waste,  a  sad  proof  of  His  absence !  It  is  a 
land  "of  closed  churches  and  hushed  bells,  of  unlighted 
altars  and  unstoled  priests  !"f 

ISTo — its  condition  is  still  more  deplorable.  It  has  not  even 
"  unlighted  altars ;"  it  has  no  altars  at  all !  Its  altars  fell 
under  the  same  Vandalic  stroke  which  annihilated  its  sacri- 
fice :  "  Sacrifice  and  oblation  is  cut  ofi"  from  the  house  of  the 
Lord ;  the  priests,  the  Lord's  ministers,  have  mourned ;  the 
country  is  destroyed ;  the  land  hath  mourned."J — This  land 
of  mourning,  from  whicli  even  "  the  priests,  the  Lord's  minis- 
ters," have  been  banished,  has  been  reposing  for  "  many 
days"  "without  sacrifice,  and  without  altar,  and  without 
ephod,  and  without  therapliim."§ 

Where  is  there  to  be  found,  in  the  land  of  Protestantism, 
that  clean  oblation  foretold  by  God's  holy  prophet :  "  For  from 
the  rising  of  the  sun,  even  to  the  going  down,  my  name  is  great 
among  the  gentiles,  and  in  every  place  there  is  sacrifice,  and 

*  For  a  full  and  well  Ayritten  statement  of  these  variations  of  Lutheran- 
ism  on  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist,  and  for  an  account  of  the  singular 
manner  of  the  coalition  indicated  in  the  text,  see  Moore's  "  Travels  of  an 
Irish  Gentleman,"  etc.,  p.  202  and  p.  193. 

f  W.  Faber,  "  Sights  and  Thoughts  in  Foreign  Churches." 

t  Joel,  i :  9,  10.  5  Osea,  iii :  4. 


280  INFLUENCE    OF   REFOKMATION    ON    WORSHIP. 

there  is  offered  to  ray  name  a  a  clean  oblation;  for  my  name 
18  great  among  the  gentiles,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts?"* — 
Where  that  altar,  which  St.  Paul  assures  us  the  early  Chris- 
tians had :  "  We  have  an  altar  whereof  they  have  no  power 
to  eat  who  serve  the  tabernacle  ?"f  Until  Protestantism 
appeared,  with  its  blighting  influence  on  worship,  who  ever 
heard  of  a  religion,  Christian  or  even  pagan,  the  very  essence 
of  which  did  not  consist  in  an  external  sacrifice?  In  this 
respect  the  Reformation  has  protested  against  the  unanimous 
voice  of  mankind.  And  we  have  already  seen  from  what 
particular  personage  Luther  first  learned  the  reasons  for  this 
protest,  and  how  eagerly  he  seized  and  acted  on  them. J 

With  the  sacrifice,  the  priesthood,  and  the  altar,  fell  also 
the  splendid  worship  with  which  they  were  connected.  Prot- 
estants, even  those  of  Germany,  lately  began  to  appreciate 
and  to  deplore  this  desecration  of  God's  holy  sanctuary,  and 
this  desolation  of  His  once  fruitful  vineyard ;  and  their  voice 
of  wailing  was  re-echoed  by  the  Puseyites  in  England.  We 
will  give  a  few  instances  of  this  splendid  tribute  paid,  by  late 
Protestant  writers  in  Germany,  to  the  substance  and  forms  of 
the  splendid  old  Catholic  worship. 

Isidore,  Count  Von  Loeben,  exclaims  : 

"Admirable  ceremonial,  replete  with  harmony!  It  is  the  diamond  which 
glitters  on  the  crown  of  feith !  Whoever  has  a  poetic  spirit  must  feel  a 
tendency  to  Catholicism '."^ — Elsewhere  he  says:  "The  Catholic  Church, 
with  its  ever  open  door,  with  its  undying  lamps,  its  joyful  or  mournful 
strains,  its  hosannas  or  its  lamentations,  its  hymns,  its  Masses,  its  festivals 
and  reminiscences,  resembles  a  mother,  who  ever  holds  forth  her  arms  to 
receive  the  prodigal  child.  It  is  a  fountain  of  sweet  water,  around  which 
are  assembled  multitudes,  to  imbibe  vigor,  health,  and  ]ife."ll 

Another  German  Protestant  breaks  forth  into  this  exclam- 
ation : 

"  How  beautiful  is  its  music  !  How  it  addresses  both  mind  and  sense ! 
Those  melodious  notes  and  voices,  those  canticles  which  breathe  so  pure  a 

*  Malachy,  i :  2  f  Heb.,  xiii :  10.  X  Supra,  Chapter  L 

5  In  his  Lotosbliitter,  1817.  ||  Ibid.,  p.  1. 


BEAUTY    OF   CATHOLIC    AVORSHIP.  281 

spirituality,  those  clouds  of  incense,  those  chimes  which  a  disdainful  philoso- 
phy condescends  to  despise  :  all  these  please  God.  Architects  and  sculptors ! 
you  have  acted  wisely,  and  ennobled  your  art,  by  raising  churches  to  the 
Divinity."* 

Another,  E,  Spindler,  thus  praises  a  beautiful  custom  pe- 
culiar to  Catholicity: 

"  It  is  not  only  an  ancient,  but  a  beautiful  custom,  to  encircle  the  graves 
of  the  dead  on  the  first  and  second  of  November.  The  peasants  of  the  vil- 
lages hasten  to  the  cemeteries  :  they  kneel  by  a  wooden  cross,  or  other  such 
funeral  ornaments.  They  think  on  the  past,  on  the  shortness  of  human 
life.  Then  the  departed  are  crowned  with  flowers,  to  signify  the  life  that 
will  never  end.  The  lamp  burns  to  remind  us  of  the  light  which  shall 
never  be  obscured  !"f 

Another  relates  the  following  touching  anecdote : 

"  I  saw  also  a  Franciscan  kneeling  before  a  fi-esco  painting  of  Christ  on 
the  walls  of  the  cloister,  which  was  admirable  for  its  truth  and  beauty  of 
expression.  On  hearing  me  approach,  he  rose  up.  '  Father,  that  is  really 
beautiful.' — '  Yes ;  but  the  original  is  still  more  so,'  said  the  monk,  smiling. 
— '  Then  why  make  use  of  a  material  image  in  prayer  ?' — '  I  see,'  said  he, 
'  that  you  are  a  Protestant ;  but  do  you  not  see  that  the  artist  modulates 
and  ennobles  the  fantasies  of  my  own  imagination  ?  Have  you  not  always 
experienced  that  this  faculty  calls  up  a  thousand  different  forms  ?  Permit 
me  to  prefer,  when  there  is  question  of  images,  the  work  of  a  great  master 
to  the  creation  of  my  own  fancy.' — I  was  silent,"  concludes  the  writer.J 

In  one  of  his  works,§  Clausen,  another  Protestant,  pays  the 
following  willing  tribute  to  the  encouragement  of  continual 
prayer  by  the  Catholic  Church : 

"  When  a  poor  pilgrim,  wearied  with  fatigue,  but  light  of  heart,  kneels  on 
the  altar  steps  to  thank  Him  who  has  watched  over  him  during  a  long  and 
perilous  journey  ;  when  a  distracted  mother  comes  into  the  temple  to  pray 
for  the  recovery  of  her  son,  whom  the  physicians  have  given  over ;  whei.  in 
the  evening,  just  as  the  last  rays  of  the  sun  steal  through  the  stained  glass 
on  the  figure  of  a  young  female  engaged  in  prayer,  when  the  flickering 
lights  of  the  tapers  die  away  on  the  pale  lips  of  the  clergy,  as  they  chaunt 
the  praises  of  the  Eternal ; — tell  me,  does  not  Catholicism  teach  us  that  life 

*  Leibnitz,  Syst.  Theol.,  p.  205.  f  Zeitspiegel,  1791. 

X  Ch.  Fr.  D.  Schubart — Leben  und  Gesinnungen — Stuttgart.     1791. 
j  P.  790.     Apud  Audin,  p.  331. 
VOL.  I. — 24 


282-  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON    WORSHIP. 

should  be  one  Ions;  prayer,  that  art  and  science  ought  to  combine  to  gloiifj 
Grod,  and  that  the  Church,  where  so  many  canticles  are  simultaneously 
hymned  forth,  where  devotion  puts  on  all  conceivable  forms,  has  a  right  to 
our  love  and  respect  ?" 

Finally,  another  thus  openly  censures  the  intemperate  Van- 
dalism of  the  reformers  in  destroying  the  most  beautiful  por- 
tions of  Catholic  worship : 

"  How  blind  were  our  reformers  !  While  destroying  the  greater  part  of 
the  allegories  of  the  Catholic  Church,  they  believed  that  they  were  making 
war  on  superstition  !  It  was  the  abuse  they  ought  to  have  proscribed."* 
The  fiimous  Novalis  in  fact  says,  that  "  Luther  was  not  acquainted  with  the 
spirit  of  Christianity."! — Thus  have  the  children  borne  testimony  against 
their  fathers  in  the  faith  !  | 

It  is  related  of  Frederick  IL,  king  of  Prussia,  that  after 
having  assisted  at  a  solemn  high  Mass  celebrated  in  the 
church  of  Breslau  by  Cardinal  Zinzendorf,  he  remarked : 
"The  Calvinists  treat  God  as  an  inferior,  the  Lutherans,  as 
an  equal ;  but  the  Catholics  treat  him  as  God."  And  though 
this  is  perhaps  too  strong  an  expression  of  opinion  as  to  the 
difference  existing  between  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant 
forms  of  worship;  yet  this  difference  is  very  great  and  very 
gtriking,  even  to  the  most  superficial  or  prejudiced  observer. 
Who  has  not  been  impressed  with  the  grandeur,  the  solemni- 
ty, and  the  noble  dignity  of  the  Catholic  ceremonial  ?  Who 
has  not  felt  a  sentiment  of  reverence  and  of  awe  come  over 
him,  when,  at  the  most  solemn  part  of  this  service,  the  peal 
of  the  organ  ceases,  the  voice  of  music  is  hushed,  and,  while 
clouds  of  incense  are  ascending,  the  priests,  the  ministers, 
and  the  people  all  fall  prostrate  in  silent  prayer  before  the 
altar,  on  which  the  Lamb  is  present  "  as  it  were  slain  ?"  Who 
has  not  felt  a  thrill  of  rapturous  emotion,  when,  after  this 
solemn  moment  has  passed,  the  music  again  breaks  forth, 

*  Fessler— Theresia  2,  p.  101. 
f  "  Luther  verkannte  den  geist  des  Christenthums." 
I  For  more  testimonies  of  Protestants  on  this  subject,  see  Jul.  Honing- 
haus  "Das  Resultat  meiner  wanderungen" — AschafFenburg,  1835. 


DAILY    SACRIFICE   AND    PRAYER.  283 

mingling  joyous  with  solemn  notes,  and  pouring  forth  a  stream 
of  delicious  melody  on  the  soul !  Who  has  not  been  struck 
with  the  pathetic  simplicity,  the  unction,  and  noble  grandeur 
of  the  Gregorian  chant,  especially  in  the  Preface  and  the 
Pater  Noster !  And  who  has  not  marked  the  reverent  awe 
with  which  Catholics  are  wont  to  assist  at  the  service,  as  well 
as  the  general  respect  they  pay  to  the  church  of  God ! 

In  Catholic  countries,  the  church  is  ever  open,  inviting  the 
faithful  to  enter  at  all  hours,  and  to  pour  forth  their  joys  or 
their  sorrows  before  the  altar.  And  in  Rome  particularly, 
enter  any  one  of  its  three  hundred  and  fifty  churches  at  what 
hour  you  may,  you  will  always  find  some  persons  kneeling, 
engaged  in  secret  prayer.  The  Catholic  worship  is  not  con- 
fined to  Sundays  :  it  is  the  business  of  every  day,  and  there 
is  accordingly  a  special  service  for  every  day  in  the  year. 
The  constant  round  of  festivals  presents  to  the  minds  of  the 
people,  with  dramatic  efiect,  the  most  interesting  portions  of 
sacred  history,  as  well  as  the  most  stiking  incidents  in  the 
lives  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  of  the  saints  :  and  the  neces- 
sary result  is,  to  keep  these  things  constantly  fresh  in  the 
memory.  Finally,  the  Catholic  is  bound  by  the  law  of  his 
Church  to  assist  at  divine  service,  and  to  hear  Mass  every 
Sunday  and  festival  of  the  year,  and  thus  he  comes  con- 
stantly under  all  the  strong  beneficial  influences  of  his  reli- 
gion. And  if,  notwithstanding  all  these  advantages,  he  is 
still  sometimes  recreant  to  the  voice  of  conscience  and  of  duty, 
it  is  surely  from  no  lack  of  provision  for  his  spiritual  culture 
on  the  part  of  the  Church.  She  shows  herself,  in  every  res- 
pect, the  tender  and  solicitous  mother.  Do  the  multiplied 
forms  of  worship  introduced  by  the  Reformation  possess  these 
advantages  ;  or  do  they  combine  these  happy  influences  ?  To 
begin  with  the  one  last  named :  is  it  not  a  saddening  reflec- 
tion, that  in  Protestant  countries,  no  obligation  is  felt  to  at- 
tend divine  service,  even  on  Sundays?  Take  London  for  an 
example  of  this.  According  to  Colquhoun's  statistical  views 
of  that  Protestant  metropolis,  out  of  nearly  fifteen  hundred 


2S4  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON    WORSHIP. 

thousand  inhabitants,  about  one-third,  or  five  hundred  thous- 
and never  attend  church ;  and  another  third  attend  it  only 
occasionally !  Of  the  remaining  third,  who  attend  regularly, 
probably  more  than  half  are  Roman  Catholics. 

True,  in  our  own  country  the  case  is  somewhat  different : 
but  it  is  only  because  here  Protestantism  has  not  yet  pro- 
duced, at  least  to  the  same  extent,  the  evil  fruits  of  religious 
indiflference  and  of  infidelity,  which  it  has  never  failed  to 
yield  in  countries  where  it  has  been  long  established.  But 
even  heie  it  is  daily  producing  them  more  and  more ;  and 
under  its  influence,  each  succeeding  generation  must  necessa- 
rily deteriorate.  Look  at  Boston  and  New  York,  where  infi- 
delity has  already  boldly  raised  its  standard.  It  is  only  by 
almost  limiting  religious  service  to  the  Sunday — miscalled  the 
Sahhath — and  by  continued  efibrts  through  the  press  and  the 
pulpit  to  keep  up  an  exaggerated  and  nearly  Jewish  feeling 
of  reverence  for  this  day  among  the  people,  that  any  thing 
like  regular  attendance  on  Sunday  service  is  obtained. 

In  fact,  according  to  the  gloomy  ideas  now  generally  at- 
tached by  American  Protestants  of  the  stricter  sects  to  the 
"Sabbath"  day,  the  people  after  having  labored  constantly 
through  the  six  days  of  the  week,  have  no  other  place  of  so- 
cial gathering  but  at  the  meeting-house ;  and  they  have  no 
alternative  but  to  repair  thither,  or  to  sit  down  moodily  or 
inertly  at  home.  And  we  have  no  doubt,  that  it  is  to  this 
cause,  and  to  the  cutting  off  of  all  sources  of  popular  amuse- 
ment, as  much  at  least  as  to  zeal  for  religious  worship,  that 
we  are  to  attribute  the  frequenting  of  the  Protestant  places  of 
public  service  in  the  United  States, 

But  is  the  usual  Protestant  service  in  itself  either  inviting 
or  impressive?  Has  it  any  thing  in  it  to  stir  up  the  deep 
fountains  of  feeling ;  to  call  forth  the  music  and  poetry  of  the 
soul;  to  convey  salutary  instruction,  or  to  awaken  lively  in- 
terest? We  would  not  speak  lightly  or  irreverently  on  a 
subject  so  grave:  but  with  due  deference  to  the  feelings  of 
our  dissentient  brethren,  we  jnust  express  the  conviction,  that 


THE   PROTESTANT   SERVICE.  285 

their  service  is  sadly  deficient  in  solemnity,  as  m'cII  as  in 
feeling ;  and  that  it  possesses  not  one  trait  of  either  grandeur 
or  sublimity.  It  has  certainly  not  one  element  of  poetry  or 
of  pathos.  Generally  cold  and  lifeless,  it  becomes  warm  only 
by  a  violent  efibrt,  and  then  it  runs  into  the  opposite  extreme 
of  intemperate  excitement. 

Can  its  music,  with  its  loud,  multiplied,  and  discordant 
sounds,  compare  for  a  moment  with  the  grave  and  solemn 
melody  of  the  Catholic  worship  ?  Can  its  long  extemporaneous 
prayers,  often  pronounced  by  a  minister  dressed  in  his  every- 
day attire,  and  occasionally,  it  may  be,  interrupted  by  the 
sharp  amens  and  discordant  groans  of  his  hearers,  compare, 
for  solemnity  and  effect,  with  that  which  is  poured  forth  by 
the  priest  at  the  altar,  robed  in  the  venerable  uniform  of 
eighteen  hundred  years'  standing,  and  which  is  accompanied 
by  those  of  the  people  uttered  in  the  hushed  stillness  of 
secret  devotion  ?  For  our  parts,  we  greatly  prefer  calm  com- 
posure and  sanctuary  quietude  in  the  church,  to  noisy  prayer 
and  almost  boisterous  excitement.  The  Lord  does  not  usually 
communicate  himself  to  His  adorers  in  the  whirlwind,  or  in 
the  earthquake,  or  in  the  raging  fire ;  but  in  the  breathing 
of  the  gentle  breeze.* 

Again,  in  Catholic  countries  there  is  no  pew  system.  The 
rich  and  the  poor,  the  prince  and  the  beggar,  the  refined 
princess  and  the  lowly  peasant  girl,  kneel  side  by  side  on  the 
same  pavement,  and  at  the  foot  of  the  same  altar.  There  is 
no  distinction  there  in  the  house  of  God.  Is  it  so  in  Protestant 
countries?  Has  not  the  pew  system,  with  all  its  invidious 
distinctions  of  rank,  with  its  luxurious  and  splendidly  cush- 
ioned seats,  more  suited  for  lolling  than  for  prayers,  obtained 
universally  wherever  Protestantism  has  been  established? 
And  has  not  the  natural  and  necessary  efiect  been,  to  intro- 
duce worldly  notions  even  into  the  house  of  God;  and  to 

*  See  III.  Book  of  Kings,  chap,  xix,  v.  11,  12.  In  Prot.  version,  I.  Book 
Elings. 


28G  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION   O.N    WORSHIP. 

make  chnrch-guing  a  matter  of  fashion  and  respectability  ?  Do 
not  many  people  even  inquire,  before  they  embrace  a  religion 
which  is  the  most  respectable  and  fashionable  church  ? 

True,  in  countries  where  Protestants  are  most  numerous, 
and  where  it  would  be  difficult  to  support  the  Church  other- 
wise, Catholics  likewise  have  often  borrowed  the  invidious 
Bystem  from  their  neighbors:  but  candor  will  allow,  that 
among  them  it  is  not  pushed  to  the  same  extreme  as  among 
Protestants.  It  is,  moreover,  strongly  counteracted  in  its  evil 
tendencies  by  the  spirit  of  their  Church. 

The  Catholic  ceremonial  was  designed  and  planned  on  a 
grand  and  magnificent  scale.  Hence  it  is  exhibited  to  the 
best  advantage  in  the  largest  churches,  and  has  the  most 
impressive  and  sublime  efi'ect  in  such  temples  as  St.  Mary 
Major's  and  St.  Peter's  at  Rome.  The  Protestant  service, 
on  the  contrary,  is  as  contracted  in  its  nature,  as  it  is  meagre 
in  its  details,  and  cold  and  unimpressive  in  its  general  efiect 
It  is  wholly  out  of  place  in  a  very  extensive  church.  In  St 
Paul's  church,  in  London,  it  is  confined  to  one  segment  of  the 
centre  aisle:  the  other  portions  of  the  church  seem  utterly 
useless.  So  it  is  in  the  splendid  old  cathedrals  of  England, 
Ireland,  and  Scotland,  built  by  our  Catholic  forefathers  on 
the  grand  scale  of  the  Catholic  worship,  but  now  occupied 
as  Protestant  meeting-houses.  In  the  Protestant  service, 
almost  every  thing  is  for  the  ear,  and  almost  nothing  for  the 
eye:  in  the  Catholic,  all  the  senses  are  addressed,  and  all  are 
enchained. 

In  nothing  does  the  immense  distinction  between  the  Cath- 
olic and  the  Protestant  forms  of  worship  appear  more  strik- 
ingly, than  in  the  marked  difference  in  the  structure,  beauty, 
and  ornaments  of  the  churches  in  which  they  are  respectively 
performed.  "Where,  for  instance,  in  the  whole  land  of  Prot- 
estantism, will  you  find  one  church  to  compare  in  beauty  and 
sublimity  with  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  ?  It  is  an  architectural 
monument  as  old  as  Protestantism,  and,  as  a  merely  materia 
structure,  much  more  stable  and  permanent  than  Protestant 


ST.  Peter's  church.  287 

ism !  It  has  seen  Inmdreds  of  sects  arise,  create  excitement 
for  a  day,  and  then  die  away;  while  itself  has  continued  in 
unfading  beauty — the  sublime  emblem  of  unchanging  and 
undying  Catholicity !  Not  one  of  its  stones  has  started  from 
its  place :  not  one  of  its  pillars  has  been  shaken  ;  not  one  of 
its  arches  has  been  broken !  It  stands  bravely  erect,  in  all 
the  vigor  and  freshness  of  youth,"  a  suitable  type  of  the  ever- 
blooming  and  virgin  spouse  of  Christ,  "  without  spot,  without 
wrinkle,  without  blemish."*  Enter  its  portals,  and  your  soul 
expands  with  the  noble  building;  and  you  involuntarily  ex- 
claim: "Truly,  this  is  the  house  of  God  and  the  gate  of 
heaven  1"  The  fine  arts  have  here  been  lavish  of  their  trib- 
ute to  religion  and  to  God :  and  they  speak  silently,  but  elo- 
quently, of  Christ,  of  His  Mother,  of  His  apostles,  and  of  His 
saints. — Why  have  these  lovely  arts  been  banished  from  the 
Protestant  churches  ? 

"  0  when  will  the  ages  of  faith  e'er  return, 
To  gladden  the  nations  again  ? 
0  when  shall  the  flame  of  sweet  charity  bum, 
To  warm  the  cold  bosoms  of  men  ? 

"  When  the  angel  of  vengeance  hath  sheathed  his  sword, 
And  his  vials  have  drenched  the  land  : 
When  the  pride  of  the  sophist  hath  bent  to  the  Lord. 
And  trembled  beneath  His  strong  hand." 


Ephesians,  chap.  v. 


288  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    THE    BIBLE. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  THE  BIBLE 
ON  BIBLE  READING,  AND  BIBLICAL  STUDIES. 

"  By  various  texts  we  both  uphold  our  claim, 
Nay,  often  ground  our  titles  on  the  same ; 
After  long  labors  lost  and  time's  expense, 
Both  grant  the  words,  and  quarrel  for  the  sense. 
Thus  all  disputes  forever  must  depend, 
For  no  dumb  rule  can  controversies  end." — Dryden. 

"  Mark  you  this,  Bassanio  : 

The  devil  can  cite  Scripture  for  his  purpose 

In  religion  what  damning  error 

But  some  sober  brow  can  bless  it. 

And  approve  it  with  a  text."— Shakspeabk. 


Protestant  boastings — Theory  of  D'Aubigne — Luther  finds  a  Bible — '!(W 
absurd! — The  "chained  Bible" — Maitland's  triumphant  refutation — Seck- 
endorf  versus  D'Aubigne — Menzel's  testimony — The  Catholic  Church 
and  the  Bible — The  Latin  language — Vernacular  versions  before  Luther's 
— In  Germany — In  Italy — In  France — In  Spain — In  England — In  Flan- 
ders— In  Sclavouia — In  Sweden — In  Iceland — Syriac  and  Armenian  ver- 
sions— Summary  and  inference — Polyglots — Luther's  Mse  assertion — 
Reading  the  Bible — Fourth  rule  of  the  index — A  religious  vertigo  rem- 
edied— More  harm  than  good — Present  discipline — A  common  slander — 
Protestant  versions — Mutual  compliments — Version  of  King  James — 
The  Douay  and  Vulgate  Bibles — Private  interpretation — German  ration- 
alism— Its  blasphemies — Rationalism  in  Geneva. 

OuK  inquiry  into  the  influence  of  the*  Reformation  on  re 
ligion  would  be  incomj^lete,  without  some  examination  into 
the  extent  of  this  influence  on  the  Bible,  and  on  the  general 
diffusion  and  character  of  Biblical  learning.  It  is  one  of  the 
proudest  boasts  of  the  Reformation,  that  it  rescued  the  Bible 
from  the  obscurity  to  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  had 
consigned  it;  that  it  first  translated  the  Bible  into  the  ver- 
nacular tongues ;  and  thereby  opened  its  hitherto  concealed 
treasures  of  heavenly  wisdom  to  the  body  of  the  people. 
These  pretensions  have  been  so  often  and  so  confident;ly  re- 


LUTHER    FINDS    A    BIBLE !  289 

peated,  that  they  have  passed  current  for  the  truth,  even  with 
many  sincere  and  otherwise  well-informed  persons ;  whose 
conviction  on  this  subject  is  so  strong,  that  it  seems  difficult 
to  remove  it  even  by  most  overwhelming  evidence  to  the 
contrary. 

According  to  our  historian  of  the  Keformation,  Luther 
owed  his  first  conversion  to  Christianity  to  an  accidental  dis- 
covery of  the  Bible  in  the  library  of  the  university  at  Erfurth. 
Here  is  his  curious  statement  on  the  subject ; — it  will  be  borne 
in  mind  that  Luther  was  then  twenty  years  of  age,  and  had 
been  a  student  at  the  university  of  Erfurth  for  about  two 
years : 

"  One  day  he  was  opening  the  books  in  the  library  one  after  another,  in 
order  to  read  the  names  of  the  authors.  One  which  he  opened  in  its  turn 
drew  his  attention  :  he  had  not  seen  any  thing  like  it  till  that  hour ;  he  reads 
the  title,  it  is  a  Bible,  a  rare  book,  unknown  at  that  time !  His  interest  is 
strongly  excited ;  he  is  filled  with  astonishment  at  finding  more  in  this  vol- 
ume than  those  fragments  of  the  gospels  and  epistles,  which  the  Church  has 
selected  to  be  read  to  the  people  in  their  places  of  worship  every  Sunday  in 
the  year.  Till  then  he  had  thought  that  they  were  the  whole  word  of  God. 
And  here  are  so  many  pages,  so  many  chapters,  so  many  books,  of  which 
he  had  no  idea  !  His  heart  beats  as  he  holds  in  his  hand  all  the  Scripture 
divinely  inspired.  With  eagerness  and  indescribable  feelings  he  turns  over 
those  leaves  of  the  word  of  God.  The  first  page  that  arrests  his  attention, 
relates  the  history  of  Hannah  and  the  young  Samuel."* 

He  then  relates  how  the  young  Luther  piously  resolved  to 
imitate  the  devotedness  of  the  young  Samuel ;  and  he  con- 
tinues : 

"  The  Bible  that  had  filled  him  with  such  transport  was  in  Latin.  He 
soon  returned  to  the  library  to  find  his  treasure  again.  He  read  and  re- 
read, and  then  in  his  surprise  and  joy  went  back  to  read  again.  The  first 
gleams  of  a  new  truth  then  arose  in  his  mind.  Thus  has  God  caused  him 
to  find  his  holy  word !  He  has  now  discovered  the  book  of  which  he  is  one 
day  to  give  to  his  countrymen  that  admirable  translation,  in  which  the  Ger- 
mans for  three  centuries  have  read  the  oracles  of  God.  For  the  first  time, 
perhaps,  this  precious  volume  has  been  removed  from  the  place  that  it  occu- 
pied in  the  library  of   Eifurth.     This  book,  deposited   on  the  unknown 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  131. 
VOL.   I. — 25 


290  INFLUENCE    OF   REFORMATION    ON    THE   BIBLE. 

shelves  of  a  dark  room,  is  soon  to  become  the  book  of  hfe  /or  a  whole  ia^ 
tion.     The  Reformation  lay  hid  in  that  Bible."* 

This  was  not,  however,  the  only  Bible  he  had  the  good 
fortune  to  find :  for  after  he  had  entered  the  convent  of  the 
Augustinians  at  Erfurth,  "he  found  another  Bible  fastened 
by  a  chain ."f 

D'Aubigne  professes  to  borrow  all  this  fine  history  from 
Mathesius,  a  disciple  and  an  ardent  and  credulous  admirer 
of  Luther,  and  from  Adam,  another  partial  biographer  of  the 
reformer.  The  story  is  too  absurd,  and  too  clumsily  con- 
trived even  for  a  well-digested  romance.  What  ?  Are  we  to 
believe  that  Luther,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  did  not  know  that 
there  was  a  Bible,  until  he  chanced  to  discover  one  in  the 
library  at  Erfurth  ?  And  that  until  then  he  piously  believed, 
that  the  whole  Scriptures  were  comprised  in  that  choice  selec- 
tion of  gospels  and  epistles  which  were  read  on  Sundays  in 
the  Church  service  ?  He,  too,  a  young  man  of  great  talent 
and  promise,  who  had  successively  attended  the  schools  of 
Mansfeld,  Eisenach,  and  Magdeburg,  and  had  already  been 
two  years  at  the  university  of  Erfurth !  The  thing  is  utterly 
incredible,  and  is  stamped  with  palpable  absurdity  on  its 
very  face.  Luther  must  have  been  singularly  stupid  indeed, 
had  he  remained  thus  ignorant.  And  then  the  idea  intended 
to  be  conveyed  by  the  chained  Bible!  Would  the  good 
monks  have  enchained  it,  unless  it  was  in  such  demand  with 
the  people  as  to  endanger  its  safety  ?  In  that  early  period  of 
the  art  of  printing,  books  were  much  more  scarce  and  more 
highly  prized  than  at  present;  and  perhaps  then,  as  now, 
borrowed  books  were  seldom  returned  to  the  owner. 

Dr.  Maitland,  a  learned  English  Protestant  writer,  triumpl> 
antly  refutes,  and  merrily  laughs  at  the  absurd  and  glaringly 
mendacious  assertion  of  D'Aubigne,  that  the  Bible  was  "  an 
unknown  book"  before  the  days  of  Luther.  We  give  an  ex- 
tract from  his  refutation,  which  will  be  found  both  interesting 
and  instructive,  as  well  as  amusing: 

*  D'Aubigne,  voL  i,  p.  132.  f  Ibid.,  p.  141. 


maitland's  refutation.  291 

"  Is  it  not  odd  that  Luther  had  not  by  some  chance  or  other  heard  of  the 
Psalms? — But  there  is  no  use  in  criticising  such  nonsense.  Such  it  must 
appear  to  every  moderately  informed  reader  ;  but  he  will  not  appreciate  its 
absurdity  until  he  is  informed  that,  on  the  same  page,  this  precious  historian 
has  informed  his  readers,  that,  in  the  course  of  the  two  preceding  years, 
Luther  had  '  applied  himself  to  learn  the  philosophy  of  the  middle  ages,  in 
the  writings  of  Occam,  Scot  (Scotus),  Bonaventure,  and  Thomas  Aquinas ;' 
--of  course  none  of  those  poor  creatures  knew  anything  about  the  Bible  ! 

"The  fact,  however,  to  which  I  have  so  repeatedly  alluded  is  simply 
this — the  writings  of  the  Dark  Ages  are,  if  I  may  use  the  expression,  made 
of  the  Scriptures.  I  do  not  merely  mean  that  the  writers  constantly  quoted 
the  Scriptures,  and  appealed  to  them  as  authority  on  all  occasions,  as  other 
writers  have  done  since  their  day — though  they  did  this,  and  it  is  a  strong 
proof  of  their  familiarity  with  them — but  I  mean  that  they  thought  and 
spoke  and  wrote  the  thoughts  and  words  and  phrases  of  the  Bible,  and  that 
they  did  this  constantly  and  habitually  as  the  natural  mode  of  expressing 
themselves.  They  did  it,  too,  not  exclusively  in  theological  or  ecclesiastical 
matters,  but  in  histories,  biographies,  familiar  letters,  legal  instruments,  and 
documents  of  every  description."* 

The  English  church  historian,  Mihier,  has  strangely  enough 
fallen  into  the  same  absuid  error  as  D'Aubigne.  In  the 
fourth  volume  of  his  work,  p.  324,  he  thus  relates  the  won- 
derful discovery  of  a  Bible  by  Luther :  "  In  the  second  year 
after  Luther  had  entered  into  the  monastery,  he  accidentally 
met  with  a  Latin  Bible  in  the  library.  It  proved  to  him  a 
treasure.  Then  he  first  discovered  that  there  were  moke 
Scripture  passages  extant  than  those  which  were  read  to 
the  people:  for  the  Scriptures  were  at  that  time  very  little 
known  in  the  world."  Whereupon  Dr.  Maitland  comments 
as  follows : 

"  Really  one  hardly  knows  how  to  meet  such  statements ;  but  will  the 
reader  be  so  good  as  to  remember  that  we  are  not  now  talking  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  but  of  a  period  when  the  jjress  had  been  half  a  century  in  operation  ; 
and  will  he  give  a  moment's  reflection  to  the  following  statement,  which  I 

*  The  Dark  Ages ;  a  Series  of  Essays  intended  to  illustrate  the  state  of 
Religion  and  Literature  in  the  ninth,  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  centurieb. 
By  Rev.  S.  R.  Maitland,  D.  D.,  F.  R.  S.  and  F.  S.  A ,  sometime  Librarian  tc 
the  late  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  Keeper  of  the  MSS.  at  Lambeth 
Third  edition.     London,  1823.     8vo.     P.  468,  seq. 


292  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON    THE   BIBLE. 

believe  to  1x3  con-ect,  and  which  can  not,  I  think,  be  so  far  inaccurate  as  to 
affect  the  argument.  To  say  nothing  of  parts  of  the  Bible,  or  of  lx)oks 
whose  place  is  uncertain,  we  know  of  at  least  twentij  different  editions  of  the 
wJiole  Latin  Bible  printed  in  Qermany  only  before  Luther  wiis  horn.  These 
had  issued  from  Augsburg,  Strasburg,  Cologne,  Ulm,  Mentz  (two),  Basle 
(four),  Nurenberg  (ten) ;  and  were  dispersed  through  German}-,  I  repeat, 
before  Luther  was  born ;  and  I  may  remark  that  before  that  event  there 
was  a  printing  press  at  work  in  this  very  town  of  Erfurth,  where  more  than 
twenty  years  after  he  is  said  to  have  made  his  'discovery.'  Some  may  ask 
what  the  Pope  was  about  all  this  time  ?  Truly,  one  would  think  he  must 
have  been  off  his  guard ;  but  as  to  these  German  performances,  he  might 
have  found  employment  nearer  home,  if  he  had  looked  for  it.  Before  Luther 
was  born,  the  Bible  was  printed  in  Rome,  and  the  printers  had  had  the 
assurance  to  memorialize  his  Holiness,  praying  that  he  would  help  them  off 
with  some  copies.  It  had  been  printed,  too,  at  Naples,  Florence,  and 
Placenza ;  and  Venice  alone  had  furnished  eleven  editions.  No  doubt  we 
should  be  within  the  truth,  if  we  were  to  say  that,  besides  the  multitude  of 
manuscript  copies,  not  yet  fallen  into  disuse,  the  press  had  issued  fifty  dif- 
ferent editions  of  the  whole  Latin  Bible ;  to  say  nothing  of  Psalters,  New  Tes- 
taments, or  other  parts.  And  yet,  more  than  twenty  j^ears  after,  we  find  a 
young  man  who  had  received  'a  very  liberal  education,'  who  'had  made 
great  proficiency  in  his  studies  at  Magdeburg,  Eisenach,  and  Erfurth,'  and 
who,  nevertheless,  did  not  know  what  a  Bible  was,  simply  because  'the 
Bible  was  unknown  in  those  days ! '  "* 

D'Aiibigne  in  the  course  of  his  history  repeatedly  quotes 
Seckendorf,  the  biographer  and  great  admirer  of  Luther. 
Did  he  never  chance  to  read  in  the  first  book  of  this  writer's 
"Commentaries  on  Lutheranism,"  a  passage  in  which  he 
states,  that  three  distinct  editions  of  the  Bible,  translated 
into  German,  were  published  at  Wittenberg,  in  1470,  1488, 
and  1490 :  one  of  them  thirteen  years  before  the  birth  of 
Luther,  another  in  the  very  year  of  his  birth,  and  a  third 
seven  years  thereafter  ?t  And  all  these  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  Luther's  birth  place ;  not  to  mention  another  edi- 
tion, which  the  same  author  assures  us, J  was  published  not 
far  distant, — at  Augsburg,  in  1518,  just  one  year  after  Luther 

*  The  Dark  Ages,  etc.     Maitland.     P.  469,  note. 

■}•  Commentarii  in  Luther.  Lib.  1,  sec.  51.  \  cxxv,  p.  204  Quoted  by 
Audin,  p.  216.  X  Ibid. 


CATHOLIC    CHURCH    AND    THE   BIBLE.  293 

!iad  turned  reformer,  and  twelve  years  before  he  published 
the  last  portion  of  his  own  German  version  of  the  Bible ! 
How  could  D'Aubigne  avoid  seeing  this  passage  in  his  own 
favorite  historian :  and  if  he  saw  it,  what  are  we  to  think  of 
his  honesty  in  wholly  concealing  the  fact,  and  even  in  stating 
what  is  plainly  contradicted  by  it — that  "  the  Bible  was  then 
an  unknown  book,''  and  that  Luther  never  saw  it  till  his 
twentieth  year?  Mt..  zel,  far  more  honest  than  D'Aubigne, 
tells  us  expressly  that  "  before  the  time  of  Luther  the  Bible 
had  already  been  translated  and  printed  in  both  High  and 
Low  Dutch."* 

The  Bible  then  an  unknown  book !  Who  preserved  this 
book  during  the  previous  fifteen  hundred  years?  From 
whom  did  the  reformers  receive  it  ?  Who  kept  it  safe  through 
all  dangers;  in  the  midst  of  conflagrations,  wars,^  and  the 
destructive  torrents  of  barbarian  incursion  ?  Who  copied  it 
over  and  again,  before  the  art  of  printing?  The  Roman 
Catholic  Church  did  all  this :  and  yet  flippant  or  dishonest 
writers  still  accuse  her  of  having  concealed  this  book  of  life 
from  the  people !  But  for  her  patient  labor,  vigilant  \ratch- 
fulness,  and  maternal  solicitude,  the  Bible  might  have  perisi:ed 
with  thousands  of  other  books :  and  still  she  was  an  enemy  oi" 
this  good  book,  and  wished  to  keep  it  hidden  under  a  bushel ! 
She  had  choice  selections  from  it  read  to  her  people  on  every 
Sunday  and  festival  of  the  year,  even  according  to  the  enforced 
avowal  of  our  unscrupulous  and  romantic  historian  of  the  Ref- 
ormation ;  still  she  wished  to  conceal  this  treasure  from  the 
people !     A  curious  way  of  concealing  it,  truly  ! 

But,  perhaps,  she  preserved  it  in  the  Latin  tongue  only,  and 
was  opposed  to  its  general  circulation  in  the  living  languages 
of  Europe.  She  did  no  such  thing,  as  we  shall  presently  see ; 
though  even  had  she  done  this,  she  would  not  have  concealed 
the  Bible  from  the  people.  The  Latin  language  continued  to 
he   that  which   was   most   generally   understood,  and   even 


*  History  of  Germany,  vol.  ii,  p.  223. 
19 


294  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON   THE    BIBLE. 

spoken  in  Europe,  until  the  reign  of  Charlemagne,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  ninth  century:  and  even  for  several  centu- 
ries afterwards,  while  the  modern  languages  were  struggling 
into  form,  it  was  more  or  less  generally  known,  and  was  not, 
properly  speaking,  a  dead  language.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  for  a  long  time  afterwards,  it  was  the 
only  language  of  literature,  of  theology,  of  medicine,  and  of 
legislation.  Most  of  the  modern  languages  of  Europe  were 
formed  from  it,  and  were  so  similar  to  it  both  in  words  and 
in  general  structure,  that  the  common  people  of  Italy,  Spain, 
Portugal,  and  even  France,  could  understand  the  mother 
tongue  without  great  difficulty.  In  Hungary,  it  had  been  the 
common  language  of  the  people  since  the  days  of  king 
Stephen,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  tenth  century.  It  was, 
moreover,  taught  and  studied  in  every  school  and  college  of 
Christendom,  and  it  was  the  medium  through  which  most 
other  branches  were  taught.  It  was,  then,  at  the  time  of  the 
Reformation,  a  language  which  was  very  commonly  under- 
stood in  Europe.  Therefore,  even  if  the  Catholic  Church  had 
given  the  Bible  to  the  people  only  in  the  Latin  Vulgate,  she 
would  not  have  concealed  it :  nor  would  it  have  remained 
"  an  unknown  book."  It  is  a  notorious  fact,  that  one  of  the 
first  books  published  after  the  invention  of  the  art  of  printing, 
was  the  Latin  Bible.* 

The  learned  Protestant  bibliographer,  Dibdin,  thus  speaks 
of  the  earlier  printed  editions  of  the  Latin  Bible: 

"From  the  year  1462,  to  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  editions  of 
the  Lat'n  BH>le  nia}^  be  considered  hterally  innumerable;  and  generally 
speaking  only  repetitions  of  the  same  text."f 

*  Hallam  proves,  or  believes  that  he  proves,  that  it  was  the  first  book 
printed,  probably  in  the  year  1455.  — "  History  of  Literature,"  sup.  cit. 
vol.  i,  p.  96. 

f  The  Library  Companion,  or  the  young  man's  Guide  and  the  old  man's 
Comfort  in  the  choice  of  a  Library.  By  Rev.  T.  F.  Dib  lin,  M.  A.,  F.  R.  S., 
Meml)er  of  the  Academy  of  Rouen  and  Utro^ht.  Second  edition,  London, 
1825.     Octavo,  pages  899.     P.  15. 


GERMAN    VERSIONS.  295 

Among  the  more  ancient  and  valuable  editions  of  the  Latin 
version,  he  enumerates  the  following  : 

"As  thus  ;  at  Mentz,  in  1455 ;  at  Bamberg,  1461 ;  at  Rome,  1471 ;  Venice, 
1476 ;  Naples,  1476 ;  in  Bohemia,  1488 ;  in  Poland,  1563 ;  in  Iceland,  1551 ; 
in  Russia,  1581 ;  in  France,  1475 ;  in  Holland,  1477 ;  in  England,  1535 ;  in 
Spain,  1477."* 

But  it  is  a  well  ascertained  fact,  that  long  before  the  Refor- 
mation of  Luther,  the  people  of  almost  every  country  in 
Europe  had  the  Bible  already  translated  into  their  own  ver- 
nacular tongues.  Li  most  nations,  there  was  not  only  one, 
but  there  were  even  many  different  versions. 

We  begin  with  Germany,  the  theater  of  the  Reformation. 
We  have  already  seen  the  testimony  of  Seckendorf  and  of. 
Menzel  on  this  subject.  The  Germans  had  no  less  than  Jive 
different  translations  of  the  Scriptures  into  their  own  lan- 
guage ;  of  which  three  were  previous  to  that  of  Luther  in 
1530  ;f  and  two  were  contemporary  with,  or  immediately  sub- 
sequent to  it.  The  oldest  was  that  made  by  Ulphilas,  Bishop 
of  the  Mseso-Goths  (now  Wallachians),  as  early  as  the  middle 
of  the  fourth  century.J  This  version  seems  to  have  been 
used  for  several  centuries  by  many  of  the  older  Gothic  and 
German  Christians.  The  second  version  was  that  ascribed 
to  Charlemagne  (beginning  of  ninth  century) — probably  be- 
cause it  was  made  by  some  learned  man  under  his  direction. 
It  was  in  the  old  German,  or  Teutonic  dialect.  Besides,  there 
was  a  very  old  rhythmical  paraphrase  of  the  four  gospels, 
much  used  in  Germany  from  the  time  of  the  first  emperor 
Louis  .§ 

The  third  German  version  was  a  translation  from  the  Latin 

*  The  Library  Companion,  etc.,  Dibdin,  sup.  cit.  P.  16,  note.  This  work 
is  found  in  the  valuable  collection  of  Very  Rev.  E.  T.  Collins,  of  Cincinnati. 
to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  several  authorities  alleged  in  these  pages. 

f  Luther's  translation  was  completed  in  this  year;  it  was  commenced 
about  eight  years  previously. — See  for  all  the  fiicts  and  dates,  Audin,  215-6, 
note.  I  See  Home's  Litroduction,  vol.  ii,  p.  240-5. 

\  This  was  as  early  as  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century. 


296  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    THE   BIBLE. 

Vulgate  by  some  person  unknown,  an  edition  of  which  wa8 
printed  as  early  as  the  year  14G6 :  two  copies  of  this  edition 
are  still  preserved  in  the  senatorial  library  at  Leipsic.  Be- 
fore the  appearance  of  the  German  Bible  of  Luther,  the  ver- 
sion last  named  had  been  republished  in  Germany  at  least 
sixteen  times :  once  at  Strasburg,  five  times  at  Nurenberg,  and 
ten  times  at  Augsburg.  These  various  editions  often  claimed 
to  be  new  versions,  in  consequence  of  the  improvements  they 
professed  to  have  introduced  into  the  original  version  of  1466. 
This  was  particularly  the  case  with  the  edition  published  at 
Augsburg  in  1477,  and  also  with  that  of  Nurenberg  in  1483, 
wliich  latter  was  embellished  with  numerous  wood-cuts. 

Thus,  before  the  publication  of  Luther's  translation,  there 
had  already  appeared  in  Germany  no  less  than  three  distinct 
versions  of  the  whole  Bible,  the  last  of  which  had  passed 
through  at  least  seventeen  different  editions.  Add  to  these 
the  three  editions  of  Wittenberg,  mentioned  by  Seckendorf 
above,  and  not  included  in  this  estimate,  and  we  ascertain 
that  the  Bible  had  already  been  reprinted  in  the  German  lan- 
guage no  less  than  twenty  times,  before  Luther's  appeared.* 

In  1534,  John  Dietemberg  published  his  new  German 
translation  from  the  Latin  Vulgate  at  Mayence,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  archbishop  and  elector,  Albert.  It  passed 
through  upwards  of  twenty  editions  in  the  course  of  a  hun- 
dred years,  four  of  which  appeared  at  Mayence,  and  seven- 

*  See  Le  Long,  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  I,  354,  seqq.  Edit.  Paris,  1723 ;  also, 
David  Clement,  the  Calviiiist  Librarian  of  Prussia,  Bibliotheque  Curieuse, 
9  vols.  4to,  Gottingen,  1750;  and  second  No.  of  the  Dublin  Review. 

Besides  the  German  Editions  indicated  in  the  text,  we  have  .since  dis- 
covered at  least  seven  more,  mentioned  by  Joseph  Kehrein,  in  his  Zur 
Geschichte,  or  Supplementary  Histoiy  of  the  German  Translations  of  the 
Bible  Iwfore  Luther's:  he  quotes  Panzer,  an  unquestionable  authoi-ity.  These 
editions  are  as  follows  :  two  at  Oologne,  in  1470,  and  1480;  one  at  Lubeck, 
14'J4  ;  one  at  llaberstadt,  1522  ;  one  at  Mayence,  1517  :  one  (adtlitional)  at 
Strasbourg;  and  one  at  Basle,  in  1517.  Two  of  tliese  old  Editions  may  be 
seen  in  the  West :  one  in  the  library  of  Bishop  Luers,  Fort  Wayne — that 
o(  Nurenborg,  1470 ;  and  the  other  in  that  of  Fatlier  Collins,  Cincinnati — 
©i  Cologne,  1470.     They  are  l)Otli  beautiful  specimens,  and  I'iehly  illustrated 

See  al.so,  the  61st  Catalogue  of  C.  H.  Beschen,  Noordliiigen,  1860. 


ITALIAN    VERSIONS.  297 

teen  at  Cologne.  The  style  of  it  was  somewhat  unpolished, 
but  it  was  generally  esteemed  as  a  faithful  translation.  In 
1537,  another  Catholic  version  appeared  under  the  supervis- 
ion of  Doctors  Emser  and  Eck,  the  two  learned  champions  of 
Catholicity  against  Luther.  This  version  likewise  passed 
through  many  editions. 

While  on  the  subject  of  German  Bibles,  we  may  here  re- 
mark, though  it  does  not  come  exactly  within  our  present 
plan,  that  Caspar  Ulenberg  published  a  new  version  in  1630 ; 
and  that  during  the  last  forty  years,  several  other  new  ver- 
sions have  appeared  in  Catholic  Germany,  of  which  those  of 
Schwartzel  and  Brentano  are  the  most  popular. 

The  facts  already  stated  clearly  prove  how  uttej-ly  un- 
founded, and  how  recklessly  false  is  the  statement  of  D'Au- 
bigne,  that  before  the  Reformation  "  the  Bible  was  an  unknown 
book !"  They  demonstrate  triumphantly,  that  the  Catholics 
of  Germany  were  even  more  zealous  in  the  circulation  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  than  were  the  self-styled  reformers,  notwith- 
standing all  the  loud  boastings  of  the  latter  and  of  their 
friends  on  the  subject. 

But  we  will  pursue  this  line  of  argument  still  further,  and 
prove,  on  the  unquestionable  authorities  referred  to  above, 
that  other  Catholic  countries  were  not  behind  Germany  in 
the  sincere  will  to  translate  the  Scriptures  into  the  vernacular 
tongues,  and  to  circulate  them  among  the  people.  In  fact, 
there  is  not  a  country  in  Europe  in  which  the  Bible  had  not 
been  repeatedly  translated  and  published  long  before  the 
Reformation. 

In  Italy,  there  were  two  versions  anterior  to  that  of  Luther: 
that  by  the  Dominican,  Jacobus  a  Voragine,  archbishop  of 
Genoa,  which  version,  according  to  the  testimony  of  Sixtus 
Senensis,*  was  completed  as  early  as  1290 ;  and  that  by 
Nicholas  Malermi,  a  Camaldolese  monk,  which  was  first 
printed   simultaneously  at  Rome  and    Venice,   in  the  year 


*  Biblotheca  sacra,  torn,  i,  p.  397. 


298  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON   THE    BIBLE. 

1471,  and  which  had  passed  through  as  iiiaiiy  as  thirteen  dif 
ferent  editions  before  tlie  year  1525.  This  transhition  wag 
afterwards  reprinted  eigJU  times  before  the  year  15G7,  with 
the  express  permission  of  the  Santo  Uffizio^  or  Holy  Office  at 
Rome.  Almost  simultaneously  with  that  of  Luther,  there 
likewise  appeared  two  other  Italian  translations  of  the  Bible: 
that  by  Antonio  Bruccioli*  in  1532,  which  in  twenty  years 
passed  through  ten  editions ;  and  that  by  Santes  Marmochino, 
which  was  successively  printed  at  Venice  in  1538,  1546, 
and  1547. 

The  oldest  French  version  of  the  Bible  was  that  by  Des 
Moulins  whose  Bible  Historyal — almost  a  complete  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible — appeared,  according  to  Usher,  about  the 
year  1478.  A  new  edition  of  it,  corrected  by  Rely,  bishop 
of  Angers,  was  published  in  1487,  and  was  successively  re- 
printed sixteen  different  times  before  the  year  1546  :  four  of 
these  editions  appearing  at  Lyons,  and  twelve  at  Paris.  In 
1512,  Le  Fevre  published  a  new  French  translation,  which 
passed  through  many  editions.  A  revision  of  this  version 
was  made  by  the  divines  of  Louvain,  in  1550,  and  was  sub- 
sequently reprinted  in  France  and  Flanders,  thirty-nine 
times  before  the  year  1700, f  More  recently,  a  great  variety 
of  new  Catholic  versions  have  appeared  in  France  ;  of  which 
those  by  De  Sacy,  Corbin,  Amelotte,  Maralles,  Godeau,  and 
Hure,  are  the  most  celebrated. 

According  to  Mariana,  the  great  Spanish  historian,  the 
Scriptures  were  translated  into  Castilian  by  order  of  Al- 
phonso,  the  "Wise.  The  whole  Bible  was  translated  into  the 
Valencian  dialect  of  the  S]>anish,  in  the  year  1405,  by  Boni- 
face Ferrer,  brother  of  St.  Vincent  Ferrei-.  This  vereion  was 
printed  in  1478,  and  reprinted  in  1515,  lolth  the  formal  con- 

*  It  is  but  fair  to  say,  that  this  version  was  deemed  inaccurate,  and  was 
subsequently  suppressed  by  the  competent  authorities,  witl>  the  consiMit  of 
the  autlior.     Marmochino  corrected  its  faults. 

\  It  is  thus  a  mistake  to  suppose,  as  Ranke  and  others  seem  to  do,  that 
^jH  Fevre  was  the  author  of  the  first  French  translation  of  the  Bible. 


FRENCH    AND    OTHER    VERSIONS.  299 

sent  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  In  1512,  the  Epistles  and 
Gospels  were  translated  into  Spanish  by  Anibrosio  de  Mon- 
tesma.  This  work  was  republished  at  Antwerp  in  1544,  at 
Barcelona  in  1601  and  1608,  and  at  Madrid  in  1603  and  1615. 

In  England,  besides  the  translation  made  by  the  venerable 
Bede  in  the  eighth  century,  and  that  of  the  Psalms  ascribed 
to  Alfred  the  Great,*  in  the  ninth,  there  was  also  another 
translation  of  the  whole  Bible  into  the  English  of  that  early 
period,  which  was  completed  about  the  year  1290 — long  be- 
fore the  version  of  Wickliffe  in  the  fifteenth  century. 

In  the  year  706,  Adhelm,  first  bishop  of  Salisbury,  accord- 
ing to  the  testimony  of  the  Protestant  biblicist  Horn,  trans- 
lated the  Psalter  into  Saxon.  At  his  persuasion,  Egbert, 
bishop  of  Lindisfarne,  also  translated  the  four  gospels.  In 
the  fourteenth  century,  a  new  English  version  of  the  whole 
Bible  was  made  by  John  de  Trevisa.  In  the  year  905,  Elfric, 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  translated  into  English  the  Penta- 
teuch, Joshua,  Job,  the  Judges,  Ruth,  part  of  the  books  of 
Kings,  Esther,  and  the  Maccabees.f 

The  Bible  was  translated  into  Flemish,  as  Usher  J  admits, 
by  Jacobus  Merland,  before  the  year  1210.  This  version  was 
printed  at  Cologne  in  1475,  and  it  passed  through  seven  new 
editions  before  the  appearance  of  Luther's  Bible  in  1530. 
The  Antwerp  edition  was  republished  eight  times  in  the  short 
space  of  seventeen  years.  Within  thirty  years  there  were 
also  published,  at  Antwerp  alone,  no  less  than  ieii  editions  of 
the  New  Testament  translated  by  Cornelius  Kendrick  in 
1524,  In  the  course  of  the  seventeenth  century,  there  also 
appeared  in  Flanders  several  new  Catholic  versions  by  De 
Wit,  Laemput,  Schum,  and  others.  All  these  were  repeatedly 
republished. 

1  The  venerable  Bede  died  in  735,  immediately  after  having  finished  his 
translation  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  which  seems  to  have  completed  his  versiot 
of  the  Scriptures. 

f  Cf  Archbishop  Kenrick's  Theologia  Dogmatica,  vol.  i,  p.  426. 

t  A  learned  Protestant  historian,  especially  in  regard  to  dates. 


300  INFLUENCE   OF    REFORMATION    ON    THE   BIBLE. 

A  Sclavonian  version  of  the  Bible  was  published  at  '>a- 
cow,  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  As  early  as 
the  fourteenth  (;entury  the  Bible  had  been  translated  into 
Swedish,  by  the  direction  of  St.  Bridget.  According  to  the 
testimony  of  Jonas  Arnagriraus,  a  disciple  of  the  distin- 
guished Tycho  Brahe,  a  translation  of  the  Bible  was  made  in 
Tfeknd,  as  early  as  1279.  A  Bohemian  Bible  appeared  at 
Prague  in  1 488,  and  passed  through  three  other  different  edi- 
tions; at  Cutna  in  1498,  and  at  Venice  in  1506  and  1511. 

Finally,  to  complete  this  hasty  summary  of  bibliographical 
facts,  we  may  here  state,  as  an  evidence  of  the  solicitude  of 
Rome  for  the  dissemination  of  the  Bible,  that  many  editions 
of  Syriac  and  Arabic  Bibles  have  been  printed  at  Kome  and 
Venice  for  the  use  of  the  oriental  churches  in  communion 
with  the  Holy  See.  A  translation  of  the  Bible  into  Ethiopic 
was  published  at  Rome,  as  early  as  1548.  The  famous  con- 
vent of  Armenian  monks,  called  Mechiteristi^  at  Venice,  so 
often  visited  by  travelers,  has  more  recently  published  exquis- 
itely beautiful  versions  of  the  Bible  translated  into  Armenian. 

From  this  mass  of  facts — and  we  have  not  given  all  which 
might  be  alleged  on  the  subject — it  clearly  appears  that  the 
Catholic  Church  had  exhibited  a  most  commendable  zeal  for 
the  dissemination  of  the  Scriptures  among  the  people,  long 
before  the  Reformation  had  been  so  much  as  heard  of.  This 
evidence  of  stubborn  facts  demonstrates  how  very  silly  are 
the  assertions  of  those  Protestant  writers  who,  with  D'Aubign^, 
would  fain  persuade  the  world  that  we  are  indebted  to  the 
Reformation  for  the  knowledge  and  general  circulation  of  the 
Scriptures.  And  yet  prejudice  or  drivelling  ignorance  will 
probably  still  continue  to  re-echo  this  unfounded  assertion. 
So  tenaciously  do  men  cling  to  the  tales  of  the  nursery,  and 
persist  in  obstinately  believing,  against  all  evidence,  wha^ 
ever  is  flattering  to  pride  or  prejudice ! 

Thus,  before  the  appearance  of  Luther's  version,  in  1530, 
there  had  existed  in  the  different  countries  of  Europe  at  least 
twenty-two  different  Catholic  versions,  which,  during  the  sev- 


POLYGLOTS.  30  J 

enty  years  intervening  between  1460  and  1530,  had  passed 
through  at  least  seventy  editions : — or  one  for  each  year ! 
And,  simultaneously  with  Luther's  German  Bible,  there  ap- 
peared a  great  number  of  Catholic  versions,  all  of  which,  as 
well  as  those  previously  in  existence,  were  frequently  re- 
printed. And  yet,  in  the  face  of  all  these  facts,  we  are  still 
to  be  told  that  the  Catholic  Church  concealed  the  Bible  from 
the  people ! 

While  on  this  subject,  we  may  as  well  also  remark  that, 
of  the  four  famous  Polyglot  Bibles,  the  three  most  ancient 
were  published  by  Catholics.  That  by  Cardinal  Ximenes 
was  published  at  Alcala  in  Spain,  in  six  volumes,  folio,  in 
the  year  1515 — two  years  before  the  commencement  of  the 
Reformation.  That  of  Antwerp  was  published  in  1572,  and 
that  of  Paris  in  1645 ;  while  the  latest  of  all,  and  the  only 
Protestant  one,  was  published  by  Walton,  in  London,  only  in 
the  year  1658 ! 

We  say  nothing  of  another  Polyglot  edition  of  the  Psalms, 
by  Giustiniani,  an  Italian,  who  seems  to  have  been  the  first 
to  conceive  this  splendid  idea  of  illustrating  the  Scriptures 
by  exhibiting,  in  parallel  columns,  the  original  Hebrew  and 
Greek,  with  the  most  ancient  and  esteemed  versions.  His 
labor  was,  however,  never  destined  to  see  the  light;  his 
manuscripts  were  lost  in  a  shipwreck  near  Leghorn;  and  it 
was  reserved  to  the  magnificent  Ximenes  to  be  the  first  to 
carry  out  this  great  conception.  He  devoted  many  of  the 
last  years  of  his  brilliant  life  to  this  great  work.  Valuable 
manuscripts  in  Greek  and  Hebrew  were  procured  in  remote 
places,  and  at  immense  expense:  Ximenes  himself  collated 
these  precious  documents  with  the  assistance  of  a  body  of 
learned  men ;  and  he  finally  put  the  finishing  hand  to  his 
herculean  labor.  To  him  are  we  indebted  for  the  first  great 
impulse  thus  given  to  biblical  criticism  and  literature. 

It  is  also  worthy  of  remark,  that  a  learned  Italian,  Bernardo 
di  Rossi,  towards  the  close  of  the  last  century,  by  his  single, 
unaided    eflbr*;s.   collected    together    more   valuable    ancient 


302  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON    THE   BIBLE. 

Greek,  and  especially  Hebrew,  manuscripts  of  the  Bible, 
than  Walton  had  been  able  to  do,  with  his  immense  resources 
and  the  co-operation  of  the  British  and  of  other  governments.* 

It  is  also  proper  to  state  that,  besides  the  version  of  the 
Bible  into  the  vernacular  tongues  of  Europe,  referred  to 
above,  there  were,  about  the  time  of  the  Ilefurmation,  variou.? 
Latin  versions  made  by  Catholics  immediately  from  the 
original  Hebi'ew  and  Greek  texts.  Tlie^e  were  entirely  dis- 
tinct from  the  Latin  Vulgate  of  St.  Jerome.  The  most  famous 
were : — that  by  Santes  Pagninus,  published  at  Florence  and 
Lyons  in  1528,  which  was  a  translation  from  the  Hebrew; 
awd  that  of  the  Old  Testament  by  Cardinal  Cajetan,  which 
was  a  literal  translation  from  the  Septuagint.f  It  is  also 
well  known  that  Leo  X.,  in  order  to  promote  biblical  learn 
ing,  encouraged  the  study  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  at  the  very 
dawn  of  the  Reformation,  and  before  the  reformers  had  done 
any  thing  of  the  kind. J 

Thus  every  department  of  biblical  study  was  fully  and 
extensively  cultivated  by  the  Catholic  Church,  both  before 
and  after  the  commencement  of  the  Reformation.  Catholic 
divines  labored  at  least  as  much,  and  as  successfully,  in  these 
studies,  as  did  the  reformers,  and  at  a  much  more  early 
period.  Europe  was  filled  with  Bibles  in  almost  every 
language,  and  especially  in  the  Latin  Vulgate  and  in  the 
vernacular  tongues. 

With  all  these  undoubted  facts  before  us,  we  will  now 
be  better  able  to  form  a  correct  judgment  on  the  truth  of 
the  statement  made  by  Martin  Luther  himself  in  his  Table 
Talk. 

"  Thirty  years  ago  the  Bible  was  an  unknown  book :  the  Prophets  were 
not  understood ;  it  was  thought  that  they  could  not  be  transhited.     I  was 

*  See  Geddes'  "Prospectus  for  a  new  Translation,"  etc.,  4to.  Also  the 
works  of  Bernardo  di  Piossi,  who  died  a  few  years  ago. 

+  Geddes,  ibid. 

I  This  was  but  one  of  the  many  acts  of  the  brilliant  Pontiff,  who  ushered 
in  tlie  second  Augustan  age  of  literature. — See  Roscoe. 


FOURTH    RULE    OF   INDEX.  303 

twenty  years  old  before  I  saw  the  Scriptures :  I  thought  that  there  was  no 
other  Gospel,  no  other  Epistles  than  those  contained  in  the  Postilla."* 

The  arch-reformer  must  either  have  been  wondrously  igno- 
rant of  what  was  everywhere  passing  around  him  in  the 
world,  or  he  must  have  wilfully  misstated  the  facts  of  the 
case.  His  character  for  knowledge,  or  for  veracity,  must 
suffer  terribly;  there  is  no  alternative.  We  suspect,  how- 
ever, that,  like  his  admirer  D'Aubigne,  he  was  not  very 
particular  about  the  truth,  when  a  misstatement  would  better 
serve  his  purpose. 

But  we  are  still  told  that  Catholics  did  not  read  the  Bible, 
-that  they  were  even  prohibited  to  do  so,  before  the  Reforma- 
tion.— Who  then,  we  would  ask,  purchased  and  read  those 
SEVENTY  EDITIONS  of  tlic  Bible  in  the  vernacular  tongues, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  were  published  before  Luther  had 
circulated  one  copy  of  his  German  Bible?  Were  they  read 
only  by  the  priests? — But  these  all  knew  Latin,  and  had  their 
Latin  Bibles.  Think  you  that  booksellers  would  have  pub- 
lished so  many  editions  of  a  book,  which  was  not  readily 
sold  and  extensively  read  ?  Would  a  new  edition  have  been 
necessary  each  successive  year,  during  the  seventy  which 
preceded  the  appearance  of  Luther's  Bible,  unless  each  edition, 
IS  it  appeared,  had  been  eagerly  sought  and  rapidly  bought 
lip?  Would  any  of  our  modern  book  publishers  reprint 
seventy  successive  yearly  editions  of  a  work,  which  was  not 
generally  read  ? 

But  there  was  a  prohibition  by  the  Church  to  read  the 
Bible. — When,  where,  and  by  whom  was  that  prohibition 
made?  The  annals  of  history  are  wholly  silent  as  to  any  re- 
striction of  the  kind  having  been  made,  before  the  flagrant 
abuses  of  the  Bible  by  the  reformers  and  their  disciples 
seemed  to  require  some  such  regulation,  llie  Church  had, 
indeed,  carefully  guarded  against  the  circulation  of  erroneous 
or  inaccurate  editions ;  and  the  suppression  of  the  Italian 

*  Tisch-Redea,  or  Table  Talk,  p.  352,  edit.  Eisleben.  Apud  Audin,  p. 
390,  391, 


304  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION   ON    THE   BIBLE. 

^■er8ion  by  Bruccioli  is  an  evidence  of  this  wise  solicitude. 
But  we  nowhere  find  evidence  of  any  restrictive  law  as  to 
the  reading  of  the  Bible  in  the  vernacular  versions,  until  after 
the  council  of  Trent  had  closed  its  sessions  in  1563. 

A  committee  of  learned  divines,  named  by  the  council, 
then  drew  up  a  list,  or  Index,  of  prohibited  books,  prefaced 
by  ten  general  regulations  on  the  reading  of  them.  The 
fourth  rule  of  the  Index  permits  the  reading  '^  of  the  Bible 
translated  into  the  vulgar  tongues  by  Catholic  authors,  to 
those  only  to  whom  the  bishop  or  the  inquisitor,  with  the  ad- 
vice of  the  parish  priests  or  confessors,  shall  judge  that  such 
reading  will  prove  more  profitable  unto  an  increase  of  faith 
and  piety,  than  injurious  :"  and  it  assigns,  as  a  reason  for  this 
restriction,  "  that  experience  had  made  it  manifest,  that  the 
permission  to  read  the  Bible  indiscriminately  in  the  vulgar 
tongues  had,  from  the  rashness  of  men ^  done  more  harm  than 
good."* 

Some  such  regulation  of  discipline  was  deemed  salutary 
and  even  necessary,  at  a  time  when,  the  landmarks  of  the 
ancient  faith  having  been  recklessly  removed,  the  Bible  was 
wantonly  perverted  to  support  a  hundred  contradictory  sys- 
tems. In  that  period  of  religious  vertigo,  men,  "  having  an 
appearance*  indeed  of  piety,  but  denying  the  power  thereof," 
were  "always  learning,  and  never  attaining  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  truth  :"f  "  according  to  their  own  devices,  they  heaped 
up  to  themselves  teachers,  having  itching  ears;  and  they 
turned  away  their  hearing  from  the  truth,  and  were  turned 
to  fables  :"J  they  "  were  like  children,  tossed  to  and  fro,  and 
carried  about  by  every  wind  of  doctrine,  in  the  wickedness 
of  men,  in  craftiness,  by  which  they  lie  in  wait  to  deceive  :"§ 
and  not  understanding  that  in  the  Scriptures  "are  some  things 
hard  to  be  understood,"  they  "  wrested  them  to  their  own  per- 

*  "Cum  experimento  manifestum  sit,  si  sacra  biblia  vulgari  lingu'i  passim 
sine  discriminc  permittantiir,  plus  inrle,  ob  hominum  temeritatem  detri- 
menti  quam  utilitatis  oriri."     Reo;uLa  IV. 

•f  2  Tim.,  iii :  5-7.  t  Ibid.,  iv  :  3,  4.  {  Ephes..  iv  :  14. 


MODERN    DISCIPLINE.  305 

dition."*  In  this  emergency,  when  the  very  substance  of  the 
faith  was  endangered,  did  it  not  behoove  the  Church,  "  which 
is  the  Church  of  the  living  God,  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the 
truth,"f  to  raise  her  warning  voice,  and  to  proclaim  from  the 
chair  of  Peter,  with  St.  Peter  himself,  that  all  should  "under- 
stand this  Jlrst,  that  no  prophecy  of  the  Scripture  is  made  by 
pi'ivate  interpretation  fX  and  to  re-echo  through  the  relig- 
ious world,  thus  shaken  to  its  very  base,  the  solemn  command 
of  Christ  "  to  hear  the  Church,"  under  the  penalty  of  being 
reckoned  "with  heathens  and  publicans ?"§ 

This  is  precisely  what  the  Church  did ;  and  she  thought 
that  she  was  compelled  to  adopt  this  course  by  the  glaring 
evils  wrought  through  the  working  of  the  newly  broached 
principle  of  private  interpretation.  The  "rashness  of  men" 
perverting  tlie  Scriptures  of  God  to  their  own  perdition,  was 
the  cause  of  her  enactment,  restricting  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  in  the  vulgar  tongues.  The  principle  of  private 
interpretation,  applied  to  the  Scriptures,  had  evidently  "  done 
more  harm  than  good ;"  for,  whereas  the  Bible  manifestly 
contains  and  teaches  but  one  religion,  this  principle  had  al- 
ready extracted  from  it  a  hundred  contradictory  religions. 
So  that  the  Reformation  is  alone  to  be  blamed  for  this  restrict- 
ive policy  on  the  part  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  and  Protest- 
ants should  be  the  last  persons  in  the  world  to  reproach  to 
her  as  a  fault,  what  the  "rashness"  alone  of  their  fathers  in 
the  faith  occasioned,  and  even  rendered  necessary. 

But  the  enactment  in  question,  besides  not  emanating 
directly  from  the  council  itself — having  been  made  after  the 
council  had  closed  its  sessions — contained  a  merely  disciplin- 
ary regulation  of  a  temporary  character,  which  was  not  every- 
where received  in  practice, ||  and  which  has  long  since  ceased 

*  2  Peter,  iii :  6.  f  1  Timothy,  iii :  15. 

X  2  Peter,  i  :   20.  \  St.  Matthew,  xviii  :  17. 

II   "  Sed  ea  disciplina  noii  ubique  obtinuit." — Archbishop  Kcnrick,  Theol. 
Dogmatica,  vol.  i,  p.  429.     In  this  learned  and  excellent  work  will  be  found 
many  valuable  facts,  of  which  we  have  already  availed  ourselves,  and  od 
which  we  shall  occasionally  draw  in  the  .sequel. 
VOL.  I. — 2H 


306  INFLUENCE   OF    REFORMATION    ON   THE    BIBLE. 

to  be  of  binding  force  in  any  part  of  the  Catholic  Church 
The  present  discipline  requires  only,  "  that  the  version  be 
approved,  and  illustrated  by  commentaries  from  the  fathers 
and  other  Catholic  writers."*  Pope  Pius  VL,  in  a  letterf  to 
Anthony  Martini,  the  translator  of  the  Italian  version,  now 
generally  used  in  Italy,  praises  him  for  his  undertaking,  and 
adds: 

"For  these  (the  Scriptures)  are  the  most  abundant  sources,  which 
ougJit  to  he  left  open  to  every  one,  to  draw  from  them  purity  of  morals  and 
of  doctrine."! 

It  is,  then,  plainly  a  slander  to  assert  that  the  Catholic 
Church  forbids  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures.  In  the  United 
States,  Catholics  have  published  at  least  as  many  editions  of 
the  Bible  as  any  Protestant  sect.  These  have  appeared  in 
every  form,  from  Haydock's  splendid  folio  Bible,  in  two  vol- 
umes— an  edition  unequaled  by  any  Protestant  Bible  in  the 
country — down  to  the  octavo  and  duodecimo  editions.§  Sev- 
eral of  these  have  been  stereotyped :  and  they  may  be  had  in 
every  Catholic  book  store  in  the  country,  and  may  be  found 
in  most  Catholic  families.  In  France,  the  great  Bossuet  dis- 
tributed himself  no  less  than  fifty  thousand  copies  of  the 
New  Testament  translated  into  French  by  Amelotte.|| 

In  speaking  of  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  on  biblical 
learning,  we  must  say  a  few  words  on  the  diiierent  Protestant 
versions.  These  are  as  numerous,  and  almost  as  various,  as 
the  sects  from  which  they  have  respectively  emanated.  The 
oldest  is  that  of  Luther,  in  which,  as  soon  as  it  successively 
appeared,  the  learned  Emser  detected  no  less  than  a  thousand 
glaring  faults !     Luther  became  angry,  and  raged  at  this  ex- 

*  Archbishop  Kenrick,  Tiieol.  Dogmatica,  vol.  i,  p.  429. 

f  Written  April  1,  1778.  |  Inserted  in  frontispiece  of  the  Douay  Bible 

5  We  here  refer  to  the  old  edition  of  Haydock.  The  new  one  recently 
published  by  Dunigan  of  New  York,  in  one  large  volume,  is  the  most  com- 
plete and  beautiful  Bible  we  have  ever  seen  in  English.  It  is,  in  every  i-e- 
spect,  superior  to  the  illustrated  edition  of  the  Harpers. 

[)  Robelot,  Influence,  etc.,  p.  389. 


EARLY    PROTESTANT    VERSIONS.  307 

posiire  of  his  work  hy  bis  learned  antagonist,  on  whom  he 
exhausted  his  usual  vocabulary  of  abusive  epithets.  He  said, 
among  other  pretty  things,  that  "  these  Popish  asses  were  not 
able  to  appreciate  his  labors."*  Yet  even  Seckendorf  gives  ua 
to  understand  that,  in  his  cooler  moments,  the  reformer  availed 
himself  of  Emser's  corrections,  and  made  many  changes  in 
his  version.f 

Still,  however,  Martin  Bucer,  a  brother  reformer,  says  that 
"  his  falls  in  translating  and  explaining  the  Scriptures  were 
manifest  and  not  a  few."J  Zuingle,  another  leading  reformer, 
after  having  examined  his  translation,  openly  pronounced  it 
a  corruption  of  the  word  of  God,§  It  has  now  grown  almost 
obsolete,  even  in  Germany  itself.  It  is  viewed  as  faulty  and 
insufficient  in  many  respects.  In  183G,  many  Lutheran  con- 
sistories called  for  its  entire  revision. || 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  translations  made 
by  the  other  leading  reformers  were  not  more  unexception- 
able. Luther  returned  with  interest  the  compliment  which 
Zuingle  had  paid  to  his  Bible. 

"  QEcolampadius  and  the  theologians  of  Basle  made  another  version ;  but, 
according  to  the  famous  Beza,  it  was  impious  in  many  parts  :  the  divines  of 
Basle  said  the  same  of  Beza's  version.  In  flict,  adds  Dumoulin,  another 
learned  minister,  '  he  changes  in  it  the  text  of  Scripture ;'  and  speaking 

*  Seckendorf,  Comm.,  1.  i,  sect.  52,  ^  cxxvii,  p.  210.  f  Ibid.,  ^  cxxii. 

J  "  Lutheri  lapsus  in  vertendis  et  explanandis  Scripturis  manifestos  esse 
et  non  paucos." — Bucer,  Dial,  contra  Melancthon. 

5  See  Amicable  Discussion,  by  Bishop  Trevern,  i,  129,  note. 

II  See  Audin,  p.  215,  for  many  authorities  on  this  subject.  Of  Luther's 
version,  Mr.  Ilallam  says :  "  The  translation  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament 
by  Luther  is  more  renowned  for  the  purity  of  its  German  idiom,  than  for  its 
adherence  to  the  original  text.  Simon  has  charged  him  with  ignorance  of 
Hebrew ;  and  when  we  consider  how  late  he  came  to  the  knowledge  of  that 
or  the  Greek  language,  and  the  multiplicity  of  his  employments,  it  may  be 
believed  that  his  knowledge  of  them  was  far  from  extensive." — Hist.  Liter- 
at.,  i,  201.  And  in  a  note  (ibid.)  he  says :  "  It  has  been  as  ill  spoken  of 
among  (^alvinists  as  by  the  Catholics  themselves.  St.  Aldegonde  says  it  m 
fin-ther  from  the  Hebrew  than  any  he  knows." — See  Gerdes  Hist.  Ret 
Evang.,  iii,  60. 

1 


308  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    THE    BIBLE. 

of  Calvin's  translation,  he  says  that  'Calvin  does  violence  to  the  letter  of  the 
gospel,  which  he  has  changed,  making  also  additions  of  his  own.'  The 
ministers  of  Geneva  believed  themselves  obliged  to  make  an  exact  version ; 
but  James  I.,  king  of  England,  in  his  conference  at  Hampton  Court,  declared 
that,  of  all  the  versions,  it  was  the  most  wicked  and  unfaithful."* 

It  is  very  difficult  for  men  who  have  their  own  peculiar 
religious  notions  to  subserve,  to  translate  fairly  the  sacred 
text.  An  example  of  this  is  found  in  the  manifestly  sectarian 
rendering  of  the  words  haptism  and  baptize^  by  immersion 
and  immerse^  in  the  New  Testament  translated  by  George 
Campbell,  James  McKnight,  and  Philip  Doddridge,  and  now 
more  or  less  extensively  used  by  the  Reformers  or  Campbell- 
ites.  We  say  nothing  here  of  the  gross  perversion  of  the  last 
verse  of  St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  in  this  version.f 

The  version  of  King  James,  on  its  first  appearance  in  En- 
gland, was  openly  decried  by  the  Protestant  ministers,  as 
abounding  in  gross  perversions  of  the  original  text.J  The 
necessity  of  this  new  translation  was  predicated  on  the  noto- 

*  Bishop  Trevern.     Amic.  Discussion,  i,  127,  note. 

f  Even  this  version  does  not,  however,  seem  to  satisfy  the  prurient  taste 
for  change  nourished  by  these  new  religionists,  who  in  conjunction  with  the 
Baptists  are  now  busily  engaged  in  what  is  called  the  revision  movement. 
An  animated  and  interesting  controversy  has  thence  arisen  between  them  and 
the  other  Protestant  sects  in  regard  to  the  fidelity  of  the  received  version  of  King 
James,  the  numerous  faults  of  which  are  imsparingly  censured  by  the  advo- 
cates of  the  new  version.  Thus,  after  boasting  of  the  Bible  as  their  only 
rule  of  faith  for  three  centuries,  the  Protestants  of  the  United  States  are  not 
yet  satisfied  on  the  great  question,  whether  they  really  have  a  faithful  ver- 
sion of  the  written  word !  This  would  be  comical  enough,  were  it  not  so 
very  sad.  Alas !  they  are,  "  like  little  children,  tossed  to  and  fro  by  every 
wind  of  doctrine."  Oh  !  that  they  would  return  to  the  bosom  of  the  loving 
mothei-  against  whom  their  fathers  so  unhappily  rebelled  !  She  would  re- 
ceive them,  and  all  dissension  would  cease  in  her  harmonious  household. 

t  After  speaking  rather  disparagingly  of  the  English  style  of  King  James' 
version,  Mr.  Hallam  very  cautiously  abstains  from  venturing  an  opinion  on 
its  fidelity : 

"On  the  more  important  question,  whether  this  translation  L:  entirely,  or 
with  verj'  trifling  exceptions,  conformable  to  the  original  text,  it  seems  unfit 


THE  DOUAY  AND  VULGATE.  309 

nous  corruptions  of  the  sacred  text  by  all  the  Protestant  ver- 
sions in  England  during  the  previous  seventy  years.  The 
chief  of  these  were :  Tyndale's,  Mathews',  Cranmer's,  and  the 
bishops'  Bible.*  Here,  then,  is  an  open  avowal,  that  during 
all  this  time,  when  Protestantism  was  in  its  palmiest  days  in 
England,  it  had  not  yet  ofiered  to  the  people  the  pure  word 
of  God! 

And,  as  we  bave  just  seen,  King  James'  version  did  not 
much  mend  the  matter.  It  was  however  repeatedly  corrected : 
but  even  in  its  amended  form,  as  now  used  by  most  English 
and  American  Protestants,  it  still  abounds  with  grievous 
faults.  Mr.  Ward,  in  his  Errata^  has  pointed  out  a  great 
number  of  these : — though  candor  compels  us  to  avow,  that 
this  writer  is  not  always  judicious  in  his  criticism,  and  that  he 
frequently  insists  too  much  on  mere  trifles.  Archbishop  Ken- 
rick,  in  his  Theology,  proves  by  a  reference  to  the  original 
text,  as  edited  even  by  Protestants,  that  tlie  modern  English 
version  still  retains  at  least  five  or  six  grievous  perversions  of 
the  text,  in  matters  too,  afiecting  doctrine. f 

The  English  Douay  version,  which  is  in  general  use  among 
English  and  American  Catholics,  is  a  translation  from  the 
Latin  Vulgate,  which  was  rendered  from  the  original  Hebrew 
and  revised  from  the  original  Greek  by  St.  Jerome,  towards 

to  enter.  It  is  one  which  is  seldom  discussed  with  all  the  temper  and  fi-ee- 
dom  from  oblique  views  which  the  subject  demands,  and  upon  which,  for 
this  reason,  it  is  not  safe  for  those  who  have  not  had  leisure  or  means  to  ex- 
amine for  themselves,  to  take  upon  trust  the  testimony  of  the  learned." — 
Hist.  Literat.,  sup.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  p.  59.  This  silence  is  ominous  in  so  learned 
an    English   Protestant. 

*  For  an  account  of  these  see  Hallam. — Hist.  Lit.,  vol.  i,  p.  201. 

f  Theologia  Dogmatica,  vol.  i,  p.  427,  seqq.  Among  these  perversions,  the 
most  glaring  are  these  ;  Matth.,  xix  :  11th,  "All  men  can  not  receive,  this  say- 
ing," for  "  receive  voV — Greek.  \(..>novai :  1  Corinth.,  vii :  9.  "  If  they  can  not 
contain,"  for  do  not  contain — Gr.,  b.KpaTivnvrai;  1  Cor.,  ix :  5.  "Have  we 
not  power  to  lead  about  a  sister,  a  wife"  for  a  woman,  a  sister — Gr..  ade?.p)v 
ym'alm ;  1  Cor.,  xi :  27.  "  Eat  this  bread  and  drink,"  etc.,  for  or  drink — 
Gr.,  V,  etc,  etc. 
20 


310  INFLUENCE   OF    REFORMATION    ON    Tlir:    lUBLK. 

the  close  of  the  fourth  century.  Dating  from  u  time  preced 
ing  by  centuries  the  religious  prejudices  which  have  influ- 
enced Christians  for  the  last  three  hundred  years,  the  Vulgate 
is  deservedly  esteemed  for  its  accuracy  and  impartiality,  even 
by  learned  and  intelligent  Protestant  writers.  St.  Jerome, 
moreover,  had  access  to  many  valuable  manuscripts  which 
have  since  perished.  Since  his  time  the  Hebrew  has  under- 
gone a  revolution,  by  the  introduction  of  the  Massoretic 
points  to  supply  the  place  of  vowels,  which  were  wanting  in 
the  original  Hebrew  language. 

The  distinguished  Protestant  biblical  critic,  George  Camp- 
bell, states  these  advantages  of  St.  Jerome's  position,  and 
fully  admits  their  force.*  He  also  says  of  this  ancient  ver- 
sion :  "  The  Vulgate  may  be  pronounced  on  the  whole  a  good 
and  faithful  version."!  Another  famous  modern  Protestant 
writer  on  biblical  studies,  says  of  it :  "  It  is  allowed  to  be  in 
general  a  faithful  translation,  and  sometimes  exhibits  the 
sense  of  Scripture  with  greater  accuracy  than  the  more  mod- 
ern versions The  Latin  Vulgate  preserves  many  true 

readings,  where  the  modern  Hebrew  copies  are  corrupted.''^ 
A  writer,  whose  biblical  "Institutes"  are  often  used  as  a  text 
book  in  this  country,  says:  "It  is  in  genei-al  skillful  and 
faithful,  and  often  gives  the  sense  of  Scripture  better  than 
modern  versions."§ 

Thus  Protestants  did  not  after  all,  even  according  to  theii 
own  showing,  make  much  of  a  reformation  in  the  Bible, 
when  they  departed  from  that  "faithful "  translation, — the  old 
Latin  Vulgate,  and  gave  us  in  its  place  their  many  crude  or 
grossly  faulty  versions  of  the  Bible.  But  did  they  succeed 
better  in  expounding,  than  they  had  succeeded  in  translating  the 
Bible  ?     They  have  been  at  least  prolific  enough  in  this  depart- 

*  Dissert.,  torn,  x,  p.  354,  Amer.  edit.,  apud  Arclibisliop  Kenrick. — Theol. 
Dog.,  1,  p.  424.  f  Ibid.,  p.  358,  apud  eundera. 

I  Home's  Introduction,  vol.  ii,  part  i,  ch.  v,  J  1,  P-  281,  202.  Apud  Arch- 
bishop Kenrick,  ibid.,  p.  423. 

}  G(?rard,  Institutes  of  Biblical  Criticism.   ^  iv,  p.  269-70.  A  pud  t  und.,  ibid 


EXTRAVAGAISCE    IN    INTERPRETATION.  311 

ment,  having  given  us  almost  as  many  interpretations  as  tliej 
have  heads.     We  could  scarcely  have  asked  for  more  variety ! 

Nor  is  the  work  of  improvement  on  the  previously  ascer- 
tained meanings  of  the  Bible  yet  completed:  almost  every 
day  we  hear  of  learned  and  intelligent  preachers  among  Prot- 
estants striking  new  systems  out  of  this  good  book  !*  One.f 
by  a  new  method  calculates  to  a  nicety  the  very  year  and 
day  when  all  prophecy  is  to  be  fulfilled,  and  the  world  is  to 
come  to  a  final  end :  another,  J  pretending  that  all  Protestant 
sects  have  hitherto  been  in  the  dark  as  to  the  real  meaning 
of  the  Bible,  proposes  that  all  creeds  and  commentaries  be 
cast  to  the  winds,  and  that  every  one  hereafter  explain  it  sim- 
ply as  it  reads : — that  is,  as  he  thinks  it  reads !  This  last 
system,  though  it  is  clearly  based  on  the  original  Protestant 
principle  of  private  interpretation,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  church 
authority,  is,  for  this  very  reason,  one  eminently  calculated  to 
multiply  sects,  and  to  render  confusion  even  worse  confounded. 

Let  us  see,  in  conclusion,  what  has  been  the  practical  ope- 
ration of  this  principle  of  private  interj)retation,  and  what 
the  general  influence  of  the  Reformation  on  biblical  studies 
in  Germany,  the  father-land,  and  first  theater  ot  Protestantism. 
Has  it  been  salutary  or  injurious  ?  It  requires  but  little  ac- 
quaintance with  the  present  condition  of  German  Protestant- 
ism, to  be  able  to  pronounce  on  its  true  character  and  real 
tendency.  Rationalism  is  there  in  the  ascendant.  This  s.ys- 
tem,  which  is  little  better  than  downright  Deism,  has  frittered 
away  the  very  substance  of  Christianity.  The  inspiration  of 
the  Bible  itself,  the  integrity  of  its  canon,  the  truth  of  its 
numerous  and  clearly  attested  miracles,  the  divinity  and  even 
the  resurrection  of  (Jlirist,  and  the  existence  of  grace,  and  of 
everything  supernatural  in  religion ;  have  all  fallen  before 
the  Juggernaut-car  like  of  modern  German  Protestant  exege- 
sis— or  system  of  interpretation !     The  Rationalists  of  Ger- 

*  These  new  syslems  are  certainly  out  of  the  Bible. 
+  Miller.  |  Alexander  Campbell. 


312  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    THE    BIBLE. 

many  have  left  nothing  of  Christianity,  scarcely  even  its  lile- 
less  skeleton  !  They  boldly  and  unblushingly  proclaim  their 
infidel  principles,  through  the  press,  from  the  professor's 
chair,  and  from  the  pulpit.  And  the  most  learned  and  dis- 
tinguished among  the  present  German  Protestant  clergy  have 
openly  embraced  this  infidel  system.  Whoever  doubts  the 
entire  accuracy  of  this  picture  of  modei'n  German  Protest- 
antism, needs  only  open  the  works  of  Semmler,  Damon, 
Paulus,  Strauss,  Eichorn,  Michaelis,  Teuerbach,  Bretschnei- 
der,  "Woltman,  and  others. 

The  following  extract  from  the  sermons  of  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Rose,  a  learned  divine  of  the  church  of  England,  and  "  Chris- 
tian advocate  of  the  university  of  Cambridge,"  presents  a 
graphic  sketch  of  these  German  Rationalists : 

"  They  are  bound  by  no  law,  but  their  own  fancies  ;  some  are  more  and 
some  are  less  extravagant;  but  I  do  them  no  injustice  after  this  declaration 
in  saying,  that  the  general  inclination  and  tendency  of  their  opinions  (more 
or  less  forcibly  acted  on)  is  this : — that  in  the  New  Testament,  we  shall  find 
only  the  opinions  of  Christ  and  the  apostles  adapted  to  the  age  in  which 
they  lived,  and  not  eternal  truths ;  that  Christ  himself  had  neither  the 
design  nor  the  power  of  teaching  any  system  which  was  to  endure ;  that, 
when  He  taught  any  enduring  truth,  as  He  occasionally  did,  it  was  without 
being  aware  of  its  nature ;  that  the  apostles  understood  still  less  of  real 
religion  ;  that  the  whole  doctrine  both  of  Christ  and  the  apostles,  as  it  was 
directed  to  the  Jews  alone,  so  it  was  gathered  from  no  other  source  than  the 
Jewish  philosophy ;  that  Christ  himself  erred  (!),  and  His  apostles  spread  His 
err6rs,  and  that  consequently  no  one  of  His  doctrines  is  to  be  received  on 
their  authority ;  but  that,  without  regard  to  the  authority  of  the  books  of 
Scripture,  and  their  asserted  divine  origin,  each  doctrine  is  to  be  examined 
according  to  the  principles  of  right  reason,  before  it  is  allowed  to  be  divine." 

We  should  be  endless  were  we  to  attempt  to  give  all  the 
extravagances  into  which  these  German  Protestant  divines 
have  indulged :  yet  we  must  give  a  few  of  the  most  glaring. 
Doctor  Paulus,  in  his  Scripture  C(_)mnientaries,  enters  into  a 
labored  argument  to  prove  that  Christ  was  not  really  dead, 
but  that  he  had  merely  suffered  a  fainting  fit,  from  which  he 
was  recovered  by  the  admission  of  fresh  air  into  his  sepulchre ! 
jde  moves  heaven  and  earth  to  prove,  that  no  instance  \s  on 


GERMAN    RATIONALISM.  313 

record  of  a  man  dying  on  a  cross  in  three  hours ! !  He  indulgea 
in  similar  absurdities  about  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus  ! 

When  Christ  is  said  to  have  walked  on  the  sea,  it  is  no 
miracle  at  all,  says  Doctor  Paulus :  for  the  Greek  word  may 
mean  only  that  he  walked  hy  the  sea,  or  simply  that  he 
swam:  and  St.  Peter's  having  been  on  the  point  of  drown- 
ing, resulted  merely  from  the  not  extraordinary  circumstance 
that  he  was  not  so  expert  a  swimmer  as  Christ !  Most  of  the 
cures  spoken  of  in  the  Gospel,  the  Rationalists  explain  by  the 
superior  skill  in  medicine,  which,  they  have  ascertained,  our 
Saviour  learned  during  His  infancy,  while  an  exile  in  Egypt ; 
or  they  account  for  them  by  Dr.  Mesmer's  wonderful  system 
of  animal  magnetism! 

According*  to  them,  St.  John  did  not  really  write  the  Gospel 
ascribed  to  him ;  and  as  for  the  other  three  Gospels,  they  are 
merely  a  clumsy  compilation  from  a  previous  common  record, 
the  existence  of  which  they  have  detected,  and  which  they 
assert  was  written  in  the  Aramaic  language !  This  astonish- 
ing discovery,  first  made  by  the  learned  Michaelis,  was  im- 
proved on  by  Berthold  and  others,  who  maintained  that  not 
only  the  Gospels,  but  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  and  the  other 
Epistles  also,  are  mere  faulty  translations  from  the  original 
Aramaic!  Thus,  "instead  of  the  good  old-fashioned  notion, 
that  the  New  Testament  is  a  collection  of  works  composed 
by  the  persons  whose  names  they  bear,  and  who  wrote  under 
the  immediate  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  we  must  now 
believe,  that  the  original  narrator  of  the  Gospel  History  was 
an  unknown  person ;  and  that  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  are 
merely  translations  made  by  some  persons  whose  names  are 
lost,  and  who  betray  themselves  by  several  blunders  in  the 
work  which  they  undertook."* — At  least  all  these  explana- 
tions are  natural  enough :  and  those  who  maintain  them,  accord- 
ingly style  themselves  naturalists^  as  well  as  Rationalists. f 

*  British  Critic,  July,  1828.  See  also  Dr.  Puse^^'s  "Historical  Inquiry  ;" 
and  also  Moore's  "  Travels  of  an  Irish  Gentleman,"  etc.,  p.  ISfi,  seqq.,  where 
this  whole  subject  is  ably  and  fully  elucidated. 

f  In  viewing  these  extraordinary  and  almost  incredible  developments  of 
VOL.   I. — 27 


314  INFLUENCE   OF   REFORMATION    ON   THE   BIBLE. 

Such  then  are  the  effects,  present  and  palpable,  of  the 
Lleforination  on  the  biblical  literature  of  Germany !  The 
Reformation  began  by  vaunting  its  zeal  for  the  Bible :  it  has 
ended,  in  the  very  place  of  its  birth,  by  rejecting  the  Bible, 
and  by  blaspheming  Christ  and  His  holy  religion. 

Its  results  have  not  been  more  favorable  to  Christianity  in 
Geneva,  another  great  center  of  the  Reformation,  and  another 
radiating  point  of  the  new  gospel.  Hear  what  the  Protest- 
ant writer  Grenus  says  on  this  subject: 

"  The  ministers  of  Geneva  have  already  passed  the  unchangeable  barrier. 
They  have  held  out  the  hand  of  fellowship  to  deists  and  to  the  enemies  of 
the  faith.  They  even  blush  to  make  mention,  in  their  catechisms,  of  origi- 
nal sin,  without  which  the  incarnation  of  the  Eternal  Word  is  no  longer  ne- 
cessary. 'When  asked,'  says  Rousseau,  'if  Jesus  Christ  is  God,  they  do 
not  dare  to  answer.     When  asked,  what  mysteries  they  admit,  they  still  do 

not  dare  to  answer A  philosoi)her  casts  on  them  a  rapid  glance,  and 

penetrates  them  at  once — he  sees  they  are  Arians,  Socinians.'  "f 

He  wrote  from  personal  observation,  made  during  a  residence 
in  Geneva.     Recent  travelers  have  confirmed  his  statement. 

The  following  epigram  would  seem  to  express  pretty  accurately 
the  confession  of  faith  adopted  by  modern  German  Protestants. 

"We  now  reject  each  mystic  creed, 

To  common  sense  a  scandal ; 
We're  more  enlightened — yes  indeed, 

The  devil  holds  the  candle  !" 

If  Luther  may  be  credited,  Satan  "held  the  candle"  at 
the  very  birth  of  the  Reformation ;  and  we  see  no  reason  why 
he  should  not  hold  it  at  the  funeral  of  German  Protestantism ! 
If  he  presided  at  the  baptism  of  the  mother,  why  should  he 
not  assist  at  the  funeral  of  the  daughter  ? 

the  principle  of  private  judgment,  we  are  forcibly  reminded  of  what  St.  Paul 
writes  of  the  anciisnt  philosophers,  that  they  "became  vain  in  their  thoughts," 
and  "thinking  themselves  wise,  became  fools."  The  sad  aberrations  of  these 
learned  German  bibliomaniacs  furnish  palpable  evidence  of  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  a  divinely  appointed  guide  in  religious  matters. 
i  "Lettres  de  hi  Montague." 


PAKT  IV. 


INFLUENCE 

OP  THE 

REFORMATION  ON  SOCIETY. 

CHAPTER     XII. 

INFLUENCE     OF      THE      REFORMATION    ON     RELIGIOUS 

LIBERTY. 

Stating  the  question — Two  aspects — Professions — D'Aubigne's  theory — 
"Combating"  ad  libitum — Diversities  and  sects — Inconsistency — Early 
Protestant  intolerance — The  mother  and  her  recreant  daughter — Facts  on 
persecution  of  each  other  by  early  Protestants — Of  Karlstadt — Luther 
the  cause  of  it — Persecution  of  Anabaptists — Synod  at  Homburg — Lu- 
;her's  letter — Zuingle — The  drowned  Jew — Calvinistic  intolerance — Per- 
secution of  Catholics — Diet  of  Spires — Name  of  Protestant — A  stubborn 
truth — Strange  casuistry — Convention  at  Smalkalde — Testimony  of  Men- 
zel — Cujus  Regio,  ejus  Eehgio — Union  of  church  and  state — A  bear's 
embrace — Hallam's  testimony — Parallel  between  Catholic  and  Protestant 
countries. 

We  have  seen  what  was  the  influence  of  the  boasted  Ref- 
ormation on  religion :  we  are  now  to  examine  how  it  afiected 
the  less  important  interests  of  this  world. 

Among  these,  liberty  is  the  one  which  is,  perhaps,  the 
dearest  to  the  human  heart.  The  very  name  excites  a  thrill, 
and  stirs  the  deepest  feelings  of  the  soul.  Did  the  Reforma- 
tion really  promote  liberty  ?  Did  it  break  the  fetters  of  politi- 
cal bondage,  and  especially  did  it  favor  freedom  of  conscience  ? 
Were  those  who  came  within  the  range  of  its  influence  ren 
dered  more  free,  either  religiously  or  politically,  than  they 
had  been  before?  This  is  the  important  question  which  we 
now  pi\)ceed  to  discuss.  The  question  naturally  presents 
two  aspects ;  and  we  begin  with  that  which  is  religious,  both 
because  this  involves  higher  interests,  and  because  it  forma 
the  natural  point  of  transition  from  the  merely  religious  and 

(  315  ; 


316       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LffiERTY. 

Bpiritual,  to  the  merely  secular  and  temporal  influence  of  the 
Reformation. 

Religious  liberty  guaranties  to  every  man  the  right  to  wor 
ship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  conscience,  without 
thereby  incurring  any  civil  penalties  or  disabilites  whatever. 
Did  the  Reformation  secure  this  boon,  even  to  its  own  vota- 
ries ?  We  shall  see,  A  summary  collection  of  the  facts  of  his- 
tory bearing  on  this  important  subject  will  settle  the  question. 

The  Reformation  indeed  boasted  much  in  this  particular 
respect.  It  professed  to  free  mankind  from  the  degrading  yoke 
of  the  Papacy,  and  thereby  to  restore  to  them  their  Chris 
tian  liberty.  Men  were  told  that  those  who  professed  the  old 
religion  were  groaning  under  a  worse  than  Babylonian  captiv- 
ity, and  that  they  who  would  rally  under  the  banner  of  re- 
form would  be  brought  back  from  exile  into  the  beautiful 
land  of  Israel,  there  to  worship  in  freedom  and  in  peace  near 
the  Sion  of  God!  The  Pope  was  Antichrist;  the  Church 
was  ruthlessly  trampled  under  foot  by  his  followers  and  espe- 
cially by  his  ministers ;  the  liberties  of  the  world  were  entirely 
crushed.  All  men  were  invited  to  arise  in  their  strength,  to 
break  their  chains,  and  to  be  free !  The  restraining  influence 
of  Church  authority  was  to  be  spurned,  as  wholly  incompati- 
ble with  freedom,  and  each  one  was  to  be  guided  solely  by 
his  own  private  judgment  in  matters  of  religion. 

The  Germans  were  told  of  the  grievances  they  had  had  to 
endure  in  ages  past  from  the  court  of  Rome.  Angry  pas- 
sions, once  excited  by  long  forgotten  controversies  between 
the  Germanic  empire  and  the  Roman  Pontifls,  were  called  up 
again  from  the  abyss  in  which  they  had  slumbered  for  cen- 
turies; and  the  Germans  were  implored,  in  the  enticing 
name  of  liberty,  to  break  ofi*  all  connection  with  Rome  for- 
ever. In  case  they  would  do  this,  the  Reformation  promised 
that  they  should  realize  the  brightest  visions  of  freedom,  and 
the  blessing  of  true  and  independent  manhood;* 


*  Some  one  has  remarked  that  the  Germans  remember  a  grievance  of  five 


CHURCH   AUTHORITY    AND    PRIVATE   JUDGMENT.  317 

Such  was  the  specious  theory  of  the  Reformation ;  such  is  even 
at  present  the  boasting  speculation  of  Protestant  writers  gener- 
ally. M.  Guizot,  in  his  Lectures  on  Civilization  in  Modern  Eu- 
rope, asserts,  that  through  the  Reformation  was  brought  about 
"  the  emancipation  of  the  human  mind."  According  to  D'Au- 
bigne,  the  Catholic  Church  had  utterly  destroyed  all  human 
liberty: 

"  But  as  a  besieging  army  day  by  day  contracts  its  lines,  compelling  the 
garrison  to  confine  their  movements  within  the  narrow  inclosure  of  the 
fortress,  and  at  last  obliging  it  to  surrender  at  discretion,  just  so  the  hier- 
archy, from  age  to  age,  and  almost  from  year  to  year,  has  gone  on  restricting 
the  liberty  allowed  for  a  time  to  the  human  mind,  until  at  last,  by  succes- 
sive encroachments,  there  remained  no  liberty  at  all.  That  which  was  to 
be  believed,  loved,  or  done,  was  regulated  and  decreed  in  the  courts  of  the 
Roman  chancery.  The  faithful  were  relieved  from  the  trouble  of  examin- 
ing, reflecting,  and  combating ;  all  they  had  to  do  was  to  repeat  the  formu- 
laries that  had  been  taught  them."* 

This  is,  to  use  the  softest  expression,  an  absurd  exaggera- 
tion and  a  grotesque  romance,  which  has  not  even  the  merit 
of  resemblance — or  what  the  French  call  vrahemblance — to 
the  reality  of  the  facts.  What !  were  men  then,  for  fifteen 
hundred  years,  mere  automata  ?  Did  the  obedience  to  the 
decisions  of  the  Church  stifle  all  rational  liberty  ?  Had  not 
Christ  enjoined  this  very  obedience  on  all,  under  the  penalty 
of  being  ranked  with  heathens  and  publicans  ?t  Did  Christ 
and  the  apostles  leave  it  free  for  men  to  decide,  by  their 
private  judgment,  whether  they  would  receive  or  reject  the 
doctrines  they  taught?  And  in  enjoining  obedience  on  all, 
with  the  menace  of  eternal  damnation  to  him  who  would  not 

hundred  years'  standing  almost  as  acutely  as  they  do  one  of  yesterday, 
whenever  the  memory  of  the  former  is  revived.  If  true,  this  national  trait 
of  character  may  serve  to  throw  some  additional  light  on  the  excitement 
which  was  aroused  in  Germany  by  the  violent  harangues  of  Luther  and  his 
colleagues.  The  German  temperament,  though  phlegmatic,  is  sufficiently 
enthusiastic  when  once  fully  aroused  to  a  sense  of  wrong,  whether  present 
or  long  passed ;  for  the  German  poetic  imagination  seems  to  annihilate  time 
and  space.  *  D'Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  237.  f  St.  Matthew,  xviii, 


318       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  OF  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

believe,*  did  tbey  intend  to  crusli  all  liberty  ?  Might  not  oui 
historian,  with  the  very  same,  if  not  even  with  stronger  reason, 
also  taunt  ilie'iT  practice  with  being  inimical  to  freedom,  on 
the  ground  that  it  "  relieved  the  faitliful  from  the  trouble  of 
examining,  reflecting,  and  combating?" 

In  what,  in  fact,  consists  the  difference  between  the  authori- 
tative teaching  of  the  first  body  of  Christ's  ministers  -the 
apostles,  and  that  of  the  body  of  pastors  who,  by  divine  com- 
mission, succeeded  them  in  the  office  of  preaching,  teacning, 
and  baptizing,  and  who,  in  the  discharge  of   these    sacred 
duties,  were  promised  the  divine  assistance  "all  days,  e /en 
to  the  consummation  of  the  world  ?"t     And  if  the  latter  was 
opposed  to  rational  liberty,  why  was  not  the  former?     Be- 
sides, we  learn,  for  the  first  time,  that  the  Roman  chancery 
decided  on  articles  of  faith:  we  had  always  thought  that  this 
was  the  exclusive  province  of  general  councils,  and,  when 
these  were  not  in  session,  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs,  in  whose  doc- 
trinal definitions  the  great  body  of  bishops  always  have  con- 
curred.     We  had  also,  in    our  simplicity,  believed  that  even 
these  did  not  always  decide  on  controverted  points,  but  only  in 
cases  in  which  the  teaching  of  revelation  was  clear  and  explicit ; 
and  that,  in  other  matters,  they  wisely  allowed  a  reasonable 
latitude  of  opinion.     But  D'Aubigne  has  taught  us  better  !     He 
would  have  us  believe  that  Roman  Catholics  are  bound  hand 
and  foot,  body  and  soul,  and  that  they  are  not  allowed  even  to 
reflect ! 

They  were  certainly  not  allowed  to  "combat:" — this  was 
the  special  privilege  of  the  reformed  party.  The  old  Church 
wisely  ordained  that  all  the  "combating"  should  take  place, 
if  at  all,  outside  her  pale :  she  would  permit  no  wrangling 
nor  sects  within  her  own  bosom.  It  is  indeed  curious  to  ob- 
serve, how  D'Aubigne  boasts  of  this  glorious  new  gospel 
privilege  of  wrangling  among  discordant  sects,  as  the  very 
quintessence  uf  Christian  liberty !    This  precious  liberty  could 

*  St  Mark,  xvi.  f  St.  Matthew,  xxviii. 


FREEDOM   TO   COMBAT.  319 

not  be  enjoyed  so  long  as  a  recognition  of  the  conservative 
principle  of  Church  authority  held  the  religious  world  in  re- 
ligious unity ;  the  reformers  therefore  determined  to  burst 
this  bond  of  union,  and  to  assert  their  pugnacious  freedom  "  to 
combat"  at  will!     He  says: 

"  The  Eeformation,  in  restoring  liberty  to  the  Church,  must  therefore  res- 
tore to  it  its  original  diversity  (!),  and  people  it  with  families  united  by  the 
great  features  of  resemblance  derived  from  their  common  head,  but  varying 
in  secondary  features,  and  reminding  us  of  the  varieties  inherent  in  human 
nature.  Perhaps  it  might  have  been  desirable  that  this  diversity  should 
have  been  allowed  to  subsist  in  the  universal  church  without  leading  to 
sectarian  divisions  ;  and  yet  we  must  remember  that  sects  are  only  the  ex- 
pression of  this  diversity."* 

Humiliating  avowal !  Sects  are  therefore  as  essential  char- 
acteristics of  Protestantism,  as  are  the  "diversities"  of  which 
they  are  but  th&  expression!  And  Christian  liberty  neces- 
sarily carries  sects  along  with  it!  St.  Paul,  a  competent 
authority,  reckons  sects  and  dissensions  with  Tuurders  and 
drunkenness;  and  he  says  of  them  all,  that  "they  who  do 
such  things  shall  not  obtain  the  kingdom  of  God."t  Thus, 
according  to  our  historian,  an  essential  element  of  the  Refor- 
mation is,  at  the  same  time,  an  essential  bar  to  entrance  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven !  The  Reformation  is  welcome  to  all 
the  merit  of  having  originated  such  a  system  of  liberty  as 
this!  As  well  might  its  panegyrist  have  claimed  for  it,  as 
essential  to  the  liberty  which  it  brought  into  the  world,  a 
license  for  murders  and  drunkenness ! 

A  little  further  on,  he  thus  glories  in  the  shame  of  Pro- 
testantism : 

"  True  it  is,  that  human  passion  found  an  entrance  into  these  discussions 
(among  Protestant  sects),  but  while  deploring  such  minglings  of  evil,  Pro- 
testantism, far  from  seeking  to  disguise  the  diversity,  publishes  and  proclaims 
it.  Its  path  to  unity  is  indeed  long  and  difficult,  but  the  unity  it  proposes 
is  reaV^X 

Real  in  what  ?     Is  there  one  common  ground  of  unity  which 


*  D'Aubigue,  iii,  p.  238.    f  Gallatians,  v :  20,  21.    \  D'Aubigne,  iii,  p.  238 


320       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

Protestantism  has  not  recklessly  trodden  down  and  rendered 
desolate?  Truly  its  path  to  unity  "has  been  long  and  diffi- 
cult!" During  three  hundred  years,  its  tortuous  course  has 
been  seen  winding  in  more  than  a  hundred  diffez-ent  directions, 
and  it  has  not  yet  led  the  weary  wanderer  to  unity ! 

It  has  done  precisely  the  contrary.  It  is  a  strange  "  path  to 
unity,"  truly,  which  has  always  led  to  disunion.  "  Diversities 
and  sects"  have  multiplied,  and  grown  with  the  growth  of 
Protestantism:  they  are  avowedly  its  "essential  features." 
There  is  scarcely  one  saving  truth  of  revelation  which  Pro- 
testantism, in  its  ever  downward  career,  has  not  frittered 
away.  And  yet  we  are  to  be  told,  that  "the  unity  which  i* 
proposed  was  real."  If  such  was  the  case,  it  certainly  nevei 
carried  into  eifect  what  it  had  proposed. 

The  only  principle  of  unity  possible  among  Protestants,  is 
an  agreement  to  disagree.  But  we  are  prepared  to  prove, 
that  they  were  not  disposed  to  meet  even  on  this  doubtful 
and  slippery  ground  of  union.  One  would  have  thought, 
that  when  the  Reformation  emancipated  its  disciples  from 
the  duty  of  obedience  to  Rome,  and  proclaimed  the  principle 
of  private  judgment  as  the  broad  basis,  the  magna  charta,  of 
the  new  system  of  Christian  liberty,  that  it  would  at  least 
have  guarantied  to  them  freedom  of  thought  and  of  judgment 
in  matters  of  religion.  Surely  after  having  indignantly  re- 
jected the  principle  of  Church  authority,  as  incompatible 
with  liberty,  Protestantism  would  not  attempt  to  enthrone 
again  this  self-same  principle,  much  less  to  impose  it  as  an 
obligation  on  its  own  followers. 

Yet  this  course,  absurd  and  inconsistent  as  it  manifestly 
was,  was  the  very  one  adopted,  without  one  exception^  by 
the  numerous  sects  to  which  the  Reformation  gave  birth! 
If  there  be  any  truth  in  history,  the  reformers  were  them- 
selves the  most  intolerant  of  men,  not  only  towards  the 
Catholic  Church,  but  towards  each  other.  They  could  not 
brook  dissent  from  the  crude  notions  on  religion  which  they  - 
had  broached.     Men  might  protest  against  the  decisions  of 


INTOLERANCE   OF    LUTHER.  321 

the  Catholic  Church ;  but  woe  to  them,  if,  folio  wing  out  theii 
own  private  judgment,  they  dared  protest  against  the  self- 
constituted  authority  of  the  new-fangled  Protestant  sects. 
We  have  already  given  many  proofs  of  this:  but  we  here 
beg  leave  to  submit  the  following  additional  facts.  And  we 
will  allege  little  but  Protestant  authority,  and  the  testimony 
of  the  reformers  themselves.* 

Mr.  Roscoe,  whose  pen  has  so  glowingly  depicted  the  bright 
literary  age  of  Leo  X.,  justly  censures  "the  severity  with 
which  Luther  treated  those,  who  unfortunately  happened  to 
believe  too  much  on  the  one  hand,  or  too  little  on  the  other, 
and  could  not  walk  steadily  on  the  hair-breadth  line  which  he 
had  presented."  He  also  makes  the  following  appropriate 
remark  on  this  same  glaring  inconsistency : 

"  Whilst  Luther  was  engaged  in  his  opposition  to  the  Church  of  Eome,  he 
asserted  the  light  of  private  judgment  with  the  confidence  and  courage  of  a 
martyr.  But  no  sooner  had  he  freed  his  followers  from  the  chains  of  papal 
domination,  than  he  forged  others  in  many  respects  equally  intolerable ;  and 
it  was  the  employment  of  his  latter  years,  to  counteract  the  beneficial  efiects 
produced  by  his  former  labors."f 

The  tyrannical  and  intolerant  character  of  Luther,  the 
father  of  the  Reformation,  is  in  fact  admitted  by  all  candid 
Protestants.  We  have  already  seen  the  testimony  which  his 
most  favored  disciple,  Melancthon,  bears  to  his  brutal  conduct 
even  towards  himself,  whenever  he  timidly  ventured  to  difler 
from  him  in  opinion.  The  vile  state  of  bondage  in  which  the 
fierce  reformer  held  his  meek  disciple  is  thus  graphically 
painted  in  a  confidential  letter  of  Melancthon  to  his  friend 
Camerarius :  "  I  am  in  a  state  of  servitude,  as  if  I  were  in 
the  cave  of  the  Cyclops :  and  often  do  I  think  of  making  my 
e8cape."J     Even  Dr.  Sturges,  a  most  inveterate  enemy  of 

*  We  shall  have  occasion  to  furnish  much  additional  evidence  on  tliis 
subject  in  our  second  volume,  where  we  will  treat  of  the  Reformation  in 
other  parts  of  Europe. 

f  Life  and  Pontificate  of  Leo  X.,  in  4  vols.  8vo. 

J  Epist.  ad  Camerarium 


322       LNFLliENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

Kome,  grants  that  "  Luther  was  in  his  manners  and  writings^ 
coarse,  presuming,  and  impetuous."* 

The  other  reformers  were  little  better  than  Luther  in  regard 
to  charity  and  toleration.  The  Protestant  bishop  Warburton 
gives  the  following  character  of  all  of  them:  ^  "The  other  re- 
formers, such  as  Luther,  Calvin,  and  their  followers,  under- 
stood so  little  in  what  true  Christianity  consisted,  that  they 
carried  with  them  into  the  reformed  churches,  that  very  spirit 
of  persecution  (!)  which  had  driven  them  from  the  Church  of 
Rome."f  As  we  shall  soon  see,  the  recreant  daughters  of 
Rome  far  outstripped  their  mother  in  intolerance.  We  have 
already  proved,  that  it  was  not  persecution,  but  other  causes 
altogether,  which  drove  them  from  Rome,  and  consummated 
their  schism.  Rome  had  indeed  been  inflexible  on  the  subject 
of  doctrines,  upon  which  she  could  allow  no  compromise ;  but 
she  proceeded  towards  the  reformers  with  so  much  mildness 
and  moderation,  as  to  have  secured  the  admiration  of  even 
D'Aubigne,  whose  testimony  on  the  subject  we  have  already 
given.  So  far  was  she  from  persecuting  them,  that  many 
Catholic  writers  have  blamed,  as  excessive  and  injudicious, 
the  mildness  of  her  Pontiffs,  and  epecially  that  of  Leo  X.  and 
Adrian  VI. 

From  an  early  period  of  its  history,  the  Reformation  was 
disgraced  with  the  crime  of  persecution  for  conscience'  sake. 
The  oldest  branch  of  it,  the  Lutheran,  not  only  fiercely  de- 
nounced, and  even  sometimes  excluded  from  salvation,  the 
reformed  or  Calvinistic  branch;  but  it  also  endeavored  to 
check  by  violence  the  fierce  discord  which  raged  within  its 
own  bosom.  A  learned  Lutheran  professor,  Dr.  Fecht,  gives 
it  as  the  opinion  of  his  sect,  "  that  all  but  Lutherans,  and 
certainly  all  the  reformed  Calvinists  were  excluded  from 
salvation.''^  The  Lutheran  Strigel  was  imprisoned  for  three 
years  by  his  brother  religionists,  for  maintaining  that  man 

*  Reflections  on  Popery.  f  Notes  on  Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism 

t  See  Dr.  Pusey's  "  Historical  Inquiry,"  sup.  cit. 


HOW    HE    TREATED    KARLSTADT.  323 

was  not  a  niorely  passive  instrument  in  the  work  of  his  con 
version.  Hardenburg  was  banished  from  Saxony  for  having 
been  guilty  of  some  leaning  towards  the  Calvinistic  doctrines 
on  the  Eucharist.  Shortly  after  Luther's  death,  the  Lutherans 
were  divided  into  two  great  sects,  the  ultra  Lutherans  and 
the  Melancthonians,  who  mutually  denounced  each  other,  and 
even  refused  to  unite  in  the  rites  of  communion  and  burial.  So 
far  was  the  intolerance  growing  out  of  this  controversy  carried, 
that  Peucer,  Melancthon's  son-in-law,  was  imprisoned  for  ten 
years,  for  having  espoused  the  party  of  his  father-in-law :  and 
Cracau,  another  Lutheran,  was  plied  with  the  torture  for  a 
similar  offense !  Besides  these  two  great  Lutheran  sects,  there 
were  also  the  Flaccianists  and  the  Strigelians,  the  Osiandri- 
ans  and  the  Stancarians,  and  many  others,  who  all  persecuted 
one  another  with  relentless  fury,  Lutheranism  was  thus,  from 
its  very  birth,  a  prey  to  the  fiercest  dissensions.  Verily,  they 
claimed  and  fully  exercised  the  precious  liberty  of  "  combat- 
ing," so  essential,  according  to  D'Aubigne,  to  the  Protestant 
idea  of  religious  liberty.* 

The  first  who  dared  question  the  infallibility  of  Luther  was 
the  first  to  feel  the  heavy  weight  of  his  intolerant  vengeance. 
A-udrew  Bodenstein,  more  generally  known  by  the  name  of 
Karlstadt,  could  not  agree  with  him  as  to  the  lawfulness  of 
images,  the  real  presence,  infant  baptism,  and  some  other 
topics.  He  had  reached  totally  different  conclusions,  by  fol- 
lowing his  own  private  judgment  in  expounding  the  Scrip- 
tures. During  Luther's  absence  from  Wittenberg,  he  had 
sought  to  make  proselytes  to  his  new  opinions  in  the  very 
citadel  of  the  Reformation.  Luther  caused  him  to  be  driven 
from  Wittenberg,  and  hunted  him  down  with  implacable  re- 
sentment, driving  him  from  city  to  city  of  Germany ;  till  at 
last  the  unfortunate  victim  of  his  intolerance  expired  a  miser- 
able outcast  at  Basle  in  Switzerland. 

*  For  more  on  this  subject,  see  the  authorities  quoted  by  Moore  — Travels 
of  an  Irish  Gentleman,  p.  172,  seqq.,  and  192,  seqq. ;  to  whom  we  are  in- 
debted for  many  of  the  above  quotations. 


324        INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY. 

"When  Karlstadt  first  left  Wittenberg,  he  fled  to  Orlamunde 
a  city  of  Saxony,  in  which  he  succeeded  by  intrigue  in  obtain- 
ing the  place  of  pastor.  Luther  followed  him  thither ;  and 
finding,  as  we  have  already  seen,  that  he  could  not  succeed 
in  having  him  ejected  from  the  city  by  popular  clamor,  he 
prevailed  on  his  powerful  patron,  the  elector  of  Saxony,  to 
banish  him  from  Saxony.  Karlstadt  received  the  sentence  of 
his  condemnation  with  a  heavy  heart. 

"  He  looked  on  Luther  as  the  author  of  his  disgrace,  and  filled  Germany 
with  his  complaints  and  lamentations.  He  wrote  a  farewell  letter  to  his  friends 
at  Orlamunde.  The  bells  were  tolled,  and  the  letter  read  in  the  presence 
of  the  sorrowing  church.  It  was  signed  :  'Andrew  Bodenstein,  expelled  by 
Luther,  unconvicted,  and  without  even  a  hearing.'  "* 

It  is  in  vain  for  D'Aubigne,  whose  words  we  have  just 
cited,  to  pretend  that  this  persecution  of  Karlstadt  was  not 
brought  about  by  Luther.f  The  testimony  of  Karlstadt,  and 
of  all  Germany,  to  the  sympathy  of  which  he  appealed,  as 
well  as  the  voice  of  all  history,  is  against  this  hypothesis.  So 
certain  was  it,  that  he  owed  his  suflferings  to  the  influence  of 
Luther  with  the  elector  of  Saxony,  that,  when  wearied  of  his 
wanderings  from  city  to  city,  he  sought  repose  for  his  gray 
hairs  in  his  native  Saxony,  he  had  only  to  invoke  the  sym- 
pathy of  Luther.  The  sternness  of  the  Saxon  monk  relented : 
he  permitted  Karlstadt  to  return  to  the  neighborhood  of  Wit- 
tenberg; but  only  on  condition  that  he  should  retract  his 
errors,  and  cease  to  preach  .J  Karlstadt  joyfully  accepted  the 
humiliating  conditions :  he  resided  for  some  time  "  in  a  kind 
of  domestic  exile  at  Remberg  and  Bergwitz — two  small  villa- 
ges, whence  he  could  just  see  the  steeples  of  Wittenberg."§ 
But  he  soon  forgot  his  promise :  he  abandoned  the  agricul- 
tural pursuits  in  which  he  had  been  engaged,  and,  Bible  in 
hand,  sought  again  to  disseminate    his    doctrines.     Luther's 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol  iii,  p.  179.  He  cites  Luther's  Epist.  ii,  558,  edit,  de 
Wette.  f  Ibid. 

I  Gustavus  Pfizer — "  Martin  Luther's  Leiben,"  Ulenberg,  and  Ad.  Men- 
cel — "Neuere  Geschichte  Deutchen,"  1,  269.  ^  Audin,  p.  419. 


AND   THE   ANABAPTISTS.  325 

flpirit  of  intolerance  was  again  aroused  ;  and  again  was  Karl- 
etadt  banished,  never  more  to  return  to  Wittenberg. 

There  were  two  other  Lutheran  theologians  who  shared  his 
fate :  Krautwald  and  Schwenkfeld,  who  were  likewise  forced 
to  quit  Saxony  for  having  rebelled  against  the  authority  of 
the  Saxon  monk.  In  a  letter  to  these  conapanions  in  misfor 
tune,  Karlstadt  di-aws  a  lively  picture  of  the  dis'tress  to  which 
lie  had  been  reduced  by  the  intolerance  of  Luther :  "  I  shall 
soon  be  forced,"  says  he,  "to  sell  all,  in  order  to  support  my- 
self— my  clothes,  my  delf,  all  my  furniture.  No  one  takes 
pity  on  me ;  and  I  fear  that  both  I  and  my  child  shall  perish 
with  hunger."*  He  also  addressed  a  long  letter  of  complaint 
against  Luther,  to  Briick,  the  chancellor  of  Saxony  :f  but  it 
was  all  unavailing.  Luther  was  omnipotent  at  court,  and 
Karlstadt  perished  in  exile! — Why  does  D'Aubigne  conceal 
all  these  important  facts  ?  We  are  not  at  all  astonished  at  it : 
his  history  is  of  the  same  unfair  and  partial  character 
throughout. 

The  cruel  persecutions  of  the  Anabaptists  is  another  dark 
page  in  the  history  of  the  Reformation.  To  be  sure,  these 
sectarists  taught  many  things  subversive  of  all  social  order : 
such  as  polygamy  and  disobedience  to  all  constituted  author- 
ity. But  their  chief  crimes,  in  the  eyes  of  Luther  and  the 
reformers,  were  their  rejection  of  Luther's  authority,  their 
pretensions  to  supernatural  lights,  and  their  protest  against 
infant  baptism,  and  baptism  by  any  other  mode  than  immer- 
sion. A  little  before  the  meeting  of  the  diet  at  Augsburg  in 
1534,  Rothmann,  one  of  their  principal  prophets,  had  openly 
announced  his  principles  in  the  streets  of  that  city.  The 
people  were  captivated  by  his  bold  eloquence,  and  seduced 
by  the  novelty  of  his  doctrines.'  In  vain  did  the  preachers 
of  reform  attempt  tu  argue  with  this  enthusiast,  who  claimed 
immediate  inspiration  from  heaven.  The  people  cried  out,  in 
triumph;  "Answer  Rothmann:  Catholics,  Lutherans,  Zuin- 

*  Apud  Audin,  p.  420.  f  Ibid. 

21 


326       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

glians — you  are  all  in  the  way  of  perdition.  The  only  path  tr 
heaven  is  that  pointed  out  by  our  master :  whoever  walks  not 
in  it,  will  be  involved  in  eternal  darkness."* 

But  the  Lutherans  did  not  think  proper  to  answer  his  argu- 
ments. Both  he  and  the  Zuinglians  had  prepared  a  confes- 
sion of  faith  to  be  presented  to  the  Diet.  Luther  and  Me 
lancthon  succeeded  by  their  influence  in  preventing  them 
from  being  even  heard  at  the  Diet.  The  former  wrote  to  the 
latter  from  Coburg  in  a  tone  of  triumph :  "  That  all  was  de- 
cided; that  the  doctrine  of  Zuingle  and  of  Rothmann  was 
diabolical ;  and  that  these  sowers  of  discord,  these  ravenous 
wolves,  who  devastated  the  fold  of  Christ,  should  be  ban- 
ished."! At  this  same  Diet,  the  Lutherans  sought  for  them- 
selves, not  only  liberty  of  conscience,  but  churches  to  worship 
in,  and  all  the  privileges  of  citizenship ;  and  still  they  would 
not  allow  their  adversaries  even  to  be  heard !  And  yet,  as 
Audin  well  remarks,  "  Rothmann  at  Augsburg,  was  precisely 
what  Luther  had  been  at  Worms."J 

The  Lutherans  'carried  out  their  intolerant  principles  in 
regard  to  the  Anabaptists.  On  the  7th  of  August,  1536,  a 
synod  was  convened  at  Homburg,  to  which  deputies  were 
sent  by  all  the  cities  who  had  separated  from  Rome.  The 
chief  object  of  the  meeting  was  to  devise  means  for  exter- 
minating the  Anabaptists.  Not  one  voice  was  raised  in  their 
favor.  Even  Melancthon,  whom  Audin  styles  "  the  Fenelon 
of  the  Reformation,"  voted  for  inflicting  the  punishment  of 
death  on  every  Anabaptist  who  would  remain  obstinate  in 
his  errors,  or  who  would  dare  return  from  the  place  of  banish- 
ment to  which  the  magistrates  might  transport  him.  Fenelon 
would  not  luue  been  thus  intolerant. 

"  The  ministers  of  Ulra  demanded  that  heresy  should  be  extinguished  by 
fire  and  sword.  Those  of  Augsburg  said  :  '  If  we  have  not  yet  sent  any 
Anabaptist  to  the  gibbet,  we  have  at  least  branded  their  cheeks  witli  red 
iron.'     Those  of  Tubingen  cried  out  '  mercy  for  the  poor  Anabaptists,  who 

*  See  Catron — Histoire  de  I'Anabaptisme,  and  Audin,  p.  459. 

j   Apud  Audin,  ibid.     See  the  authorities  he  quotes,  ioid.     f  Ibid.,  p.  46i. 


SYNOD  OF   HOMBURG.  327 

are  seduced  by  their  leaders ;  but  death  to  the  ministei-s  of  this  sect.'  The 
chancellor  showed  himself  much  more  tolerant :  he  wished  that  the  Ana- 
baptists should  be  imprisoned,  where  by  dint  of  hard  usage,  they  might  be 
converted."* 

From  this  synod  emanated  a  decree,  from  which  we  will 
present  the  following  extract,  as  a  specimen  of  Lutheran  in- 
tolerence,  officially  proclaimed : 

"  Whoever  rejects  infant  baptism — whoever  transgresses  the  orders  of  the 
magistrates — whoever  preaches  against  taxes — whoever  teaches  the  com- 
munity of  goods — whoever  usurps  the  priesthood — whoever  holds  unlawful 

assemblies — whoever  sins  against  faith — shall  he  punished  with  death 

As  for  the  simple  people  who  have  not  preached,  or  administered  baptism, 
but  who  were  seduced  to  permit  themselves  to  frequent  the  assemblies  of 
the  heretics,  if  they  do  not  wish  to  renounce  Anabaptism,  they  shall  be 
scourged,  punished  with  perpetual  exile,  and  even  with  death,  if  they  return 
three  times  to  the  place  whence  they  have  been  expelled."f 

Philip,  the  pious  landgrave  of  Hesse,  professed  to  have 
some  scruples  of  conscience  on  the  severity  of  this  decree: 
he  consulted  Luther  on  the  subject.^  The  monk  answered 
him  in  a  letter  dated  from  Wittenberg,  the  Monday  after 
Pentecost  of  the  same  year.  He  therein  openly  defended 
persecution  on  Scriptural  grounds : 

"  Whoever  denies  the  doctrines  of  our  faith — aye,  even  one  article  which 
rests  on  the  Scripture,  or  the  authority  of  the  universal  teaching  of  the 
church  (!),  must  be  punished  severely.  He  must  be  treated  not  only  as  a 
heretic,  but  also  as  a  blasphemer  of  the  holy  name  of  God.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  lose  time  in  disputes  with  such  people :  they  are  to  be  condemned 
as  impious  blasphemers." 

Towards  the  close  of  this  letter,  speaking  of  a  false  teacher, 

*  Catrou,  ut  supra  liv.  i,  p.  224,  seqq.,  and  Audin,  p.  464. 

f  Ibid.  See  also  Gastius,  p.  365,  seqq.  Menzel,  ut  supra,  and  Meshovius, 
1.  V,  cap.  XV,  xviii,  seqq.,  etc. 

I  W.  Menzel  confirms  this.  Speaking  of  the  same  Diet  of  Augsburg  in 
which  the  Lutheran  confession  of  faitli  which  bears  its  name  was  presented, 
he  says,  that  the  landgrave  of  Hesse  suddenly  left  the  meeting,  "  filled  with 
anger  at  the  weakness  of  his  friends  in  subscribing  to  the  decree,  by  which 
the  disciples  of  Zuingle  were  put  under  the  ban  of  the  empire." — Hist.  Qar 
man}',  vol.  ii,  p.  251. 


328       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

he  says  :  "  Drive  him  away,  as  an  apostle  of  hell :  and  if  he 
does  not  flee,  deliver  him  up  as  a  seditious  man  to  the  execu- 
tioner."*— ^The  landgrave's  scruples  were  quieted,  and  Lu- 
ther's advice  was  acted  on ! 

Such,  then,  were  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Keformation ! 
Such  the  notions  of  the  reformers  on  religious  liberty !  How 
diiferent  were  they  from  those  specious  principles  of  univer- 
sal liberty  by  which  they  had  allured  multitudes  to  their 
standard ! 

The  other  reformers  were  not  a  whit  better  than  Luther  in 
regard  to  toleration.  D'Aubigne  himself  says,  that  at  Zurich 
fourteen  men  and  seven  women  "'were  imprisoned  on  an 
allowance  of  bread  and  water  in  the  heretics'  tower."f  True, 
he  says,  that  this  was  done  "  in  spite  of  Zuingle's  entreaties  •,"J 
but  he  gives  no  authority  whatever  for  this  statement.  We 
know  that  Zuingle  was  almost  omnipotent  at  Zurich,  which 
was  to  Switzerland,  what  Wittenberg  was  to  Germany.  Had 
he  really  wished  it,  he  might  surely  have  prevented  this  cru- 
elty. He  had  indeed  complained  of  Luther's  intolerance, 
when  he  was  the  victim  of  its  violence.  In  a  German  work 
published  at  Zurich  in  1526,  he  had  used  this  language  in 
regard  to  the  course  pursued  by  Luther  and  his  party : 

"  See  then,  how  these  men,  who  owe  all  to  the  word,  would  wish  now  to 
close  the  mouths  of  their  opponents,  who  are  at  the  same  time  their  fellow 
Christians.  They  cry  out  that  we  are  heretics,  and  that  we  should  not  be 
listened  to.     They  proscribe  our  books,  and  denounce  us  to  the  magistrates."^ 

But  when  Ms  star  culminated,  he  was  as  fierce  a  bigot, 
and  as  intolerant  a  tyrant,  as  those  brother  reformers  whom 
he  thus  strongly  denounced.  Did  he  not  die  on  the  field  of 
battle,  fighting  for  his  peculiar  ideas  of  reform  ?  And  did  not 
the  Protestants  of  Switzerland  throw  the  poor  Anabaptists 
into  the  Rhine,  inclosed  in  sacks,  and  jeer  them  at  the  same 

*  Luth.  Comment,  in  Psal.  71.  0pp.  Jenge  tom.  v,  p.  147.  Apud  Audin, 
p  465.  f  D'Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  307. 

t  Ibid.  5  Apud  Audin,  p.  411. 


CONVERTLNG    A   JEW  !  329 

time  with  the  inhuman  taunt,  "  That  they  were  merely  bap- 
tizing them  by  their  own  favorite  method  of  immersion."* 

This  reminds  us  of  a  curious  passage  in  the  history  of 
early  Lutheranism,  which  we  will  here  give  on  the  authority 
of  Florimond  Remond,  almost  a  contemporary  historian.f 
Franz  Von  Sickengen,  the  chief  actor  in  the  scene  we  are 
about  to  present,  was  a  disciple  of  Luther,  who  had  dedicated 
to  him  his  treatise  on  confession,  written  at  the  Wartburg, 
in  1521. 

"  One  day  Franz  was  going  from  Frankfort  to  Mayence  on  the  Maine.  A 
Jew  entered  the  boat,  with  whom  Franz  began  to  dispute.  As  he  was  not 
able  to  convince  him  by  argument,  he  took  him  by  the  middle  of  the  body, 
and  threw  him  into  the  river ;  for  Franz  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  strength. 
Holding  his  victim  suspended  over  the  water  by  the  hair,  the  following 
dialogue  took  place :  'Acknowledge  Jesus  Christ,  or  I  will  drown  you.' — 'I 
acknowledge  him  to  be  my  Saviour :  0  dear  master,  do  not  harm  me ! ' — 
*  Say  that  you  wish  to  be  baptized.' — '  Yes,  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and 
of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.'  Then  Fjanz  took  some  water,  which 
he  poured  on  the  head  of  the  Jew,  while  at  the  same  time  he  pronounced 
the  sacramental  words :  *  I  baptize  thee  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of 
the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.'  The  poor  Israelite  now  made  a  great 
effort  to  rise  :  he  clung  to  the  boat,  believing  that  the  time  of  his  deliverance 
had  arrived.  The  knight,  however,  struck  him  on  the  head  with  his  gauntlet, 
saying,  *  Go  to  heaven,  there  is  one  soul  more  for  paradise.  Were  I  to  draw 
the  wretch  out  of  the  water,  he  would  deny  Chiist,  and  go  to  the  devil.' 
Luther  on  this  occasion  praised  the  Z3al  of  Franz  !" 

The  Calvinists  were  at  least  as  intolerant  as  the  Lutherans. 
When  the  former  gained  the  ascendency  in  a  portion  of  Ger- 
many in  which  the  latter  had  before  been  predominant,  they 
roused  up  the  people  against  the  sons  of  the  devil,  the  mild 
and  charitable  name  which  they  gave  the  Lutherans. 

*  As  we  have  already  seen,  the  Protestant  historian  of  Germany,  Wolf- 
gang Menzel,  bears  evidence  to  this  fact,  when  he  says,  speaking  of  the 
Anabaptists  :  ''  Zuingle  declared  against  them,  and  caused  several  of  them 
to  be  drowned  (A.  D.  1524) ;  but  was  nevertheless  regarded  by  Luther  as  a 
man  who,  under  the  cloak  of  spiritual  liberty  (!),  sought  to  bring  aliout 
political  changes." — Vol.  ii,  p.  233. 

f  "  Hutteuus  delarvatus,"  p.  4C)5.     Apud  Audin,  p.  200. 
VOL.   I.— 28 


330       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

"  They  drove  them  from  their  posts,  of  which  they  took  possessioa 
'What  a  melancholy  thing!  More  than  a  thousand  Lutheran  ministers 
were  proscribed,  with  their  wives  and  chikh-en,  and  reduced  to  beg  the 
bread  of  charity,'  says  Olearius.*  Calvinism  could  not  tolerate  Lutheran- 
ism.  It  had  appealed  to  Prince  Casimir,  and  expressed  its  petition  in 
two  Latin  verses,  in  which  the  prince  was  left  to  choose,  in  extinguish- 
ing the  rival  creed,  between  the  sword,  the  wheel,  the  water,  the  rope,  or 
fire ! — 

"  0  Casimire  potens,  servos  expelle  Lutheri : 
Ense,  rota,  ponto,  funibus,  igne  neca."f 

So  inflexible  were  the  early  reformers  and  their  disciples 
on  the  subject  of  persecution,  that  even  the  emperor  of  Ger- 
many and  the  authority  of  the  whole  Germanic  body  could 
not  restrain  their  bitter  intolerance  against  all  who  ventured 
to  difier  from  their  own  peculiar  ideas  of  reform.  Protestants 
were  resolved  to  persecute  each  other,  though  a  Catholic 
power  —  the  highest  in  the  empire  —  interposed  and  com- 
manded peace.  The  diet  of  Nurenberg,  in  1532,  had  pro- 
claimed a  religious  amnesty  throughout  Germany,  The 
assembled  princes  wished  to  pour  oil  on  the  boiling  waves 
of  controversy,  in  order  to  still  them :  but  the  waves  would 
not  be  quieted.  The  heads  of  the  reformed  party  met  at 
Cadan  in  the  following  year,  and  resolved  to  exclude  from 
the  peace,  published  by  this  diet,  the  Sacramentarians,  the 
Anabaptists,  and  other  heterodox  (not  Lutheran)  sects,  whom 
they  declared  they  would  not  tolerate  nor  suffer  to  remain 
in  the  GOuntry.X 

If  Protestants  thus  ruthlessly  persecuted  one  another,  we 
might  naturally  suppose  that  they  were  not  more  indulgent 
towards  the  Catholics,  "We  have  already  proved  that  the 
Keformation  was  mainly  indebted  for  its  success  to  system- 
atic persecution  of  the  Catholic  Church.     Wherever  it  made 

*  D.  J.  Olearius — "In  den  mehr  als  200  Irrthiimer  der  Calvinisten.'* 
f  Salzer — "  In  seinem   Lutherischem   Gegen-Bericht " — Art.  iv,  p.  385 

Schlosser — "In  der  wahrheit,"  etc.,  chap,  vi,  p.  73.     Hist.,  Aug.  Confess. 

fol.  206,  207,  274,  275.     Apud  Audin,  p.  330. 

I  See  Robelot — Iiitluenoe  de  la  Reformation  de  Luther,  p.  71.     Sup.  cit 


DIET    OF   SPIRES THE   NAME    PROTESTANT.  331 

its  appearance  its  progress  was  marked  by  deeds  of  vio 
lence.  Like  a  tornado,  it  swept  every  thing  before  it ; 
and  you  might  as  easily  trace  its  course  by  the  ruins  it 
left  behind.  Churches  broken  open  and  desecrated;  altars 
stripped  of  their  ornaments  or  pulled  down ;  paintings  and 
statues  destroyed ;  the  monasteries  entered  by  mobs  and 
pillaged  of  their  effects;  Catholic  priests,  monks,  and  nuns 
openly  insulted  and  maltreated  ;  the  property  of  the  churches 
and  monasteries  seized  on  by  violence,  after  having  been 
often  pillaged  and  plundered :  these  were  some  of  the  ruins 
which  the  Reformation  caused ;  these  the  sad  trophies  which 
it  erected  to  celebrate  its  triumphs  over  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion ! 

In  most  places  the  Catholic  worship  was  abolished,  either 
by  open  violence,  or  by  the  high-handed  tyranny  of  the  secu- 
lar princes  who  had  embraced  the  reform.  In  vain  did  Lu- 
ther in  his  cooler  moments  protest  against  these  deeds  of 
violence ;  he  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  had  evoked  the  storm, 
and  he  could  not  calm  it;  probably  he  did  not  even  seri- 
ously wish  this,  for  generally  his  language  to  his  followers 
had  breathed  nothing  but  violence.  This  we  have  already 
shown. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  as  certain  as  it  is  striking,  that  the 
reformers  derived  their  very  name  of  Protestants  from  this 
same  unquenchable  spirit  of  intolerance  !  The  diet  of  Spires 
in  1529  had  made  an  effort  to  put  a  stop  to  the  deeds  of  vio- 
lence by  which  the  Reformation  had  desolated  Germany.  It 
had  published  a  law,  which,  among  other  things  of  less  im- 
portance, enjoined  that  the  decree  of  the  diet  of  Worms  in 
1521  should  be  observed  in  those  places  where  it  had  been 
already  received ;  that  where  it  had  not  been  received,  and 
the  ancient  religion  had  been  changed  in  despite  of  it,  things 
should  continue  in  statu  quo  till  the  meeting  of  a  general 
council,  which  was  to  decide  on  the  matters  in  controversy ; 
that  the  celebration  of  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  should 
be  everywhere  free ;  and  that  the  princes  of  the  empire  should 


'6^2       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY. 

mutually  observe  peace,  and  should  not  molest  each  other  or 
rhe  score  of  religion.* 

In  other  words,  the  diet  decreed  that  Catholics  and  Protest- 
ants should  enjoy  freedom  of  worship,  and  that  neither  should 
molest  the  other.  Had  the  reformers  been  really  the  advo- 
cates of  religious  liberty,  they  could  have  asked  no  more. 
But  they  desired  something  else :  their  notions  of  Christian 
liberty  were  much  more  enlarged  !  They  desired  freedom  to 
pull  down  the  Catholic  altars,  and  to  abolish  the  Catholic 
worship  wherever  they  had  the  power  to  do  so.  Hence,  they 
met  immediately  after  the  diet,  and  protested  against  this 
most  equitable  decree  as  "  contrary  to  the  truth  of  the  gos- 
pel !"f — And  hence  their  name  of  Protestants :  a  name  which 
stamped  on  their  foreheads  a  brand  of  intolerance,  of  which 
they  were  not  ashamed  !J 

A  volume  might  be  filled  with  undoubted  facts  proving  the 
intolerant  spirit  of  the  early  Protestants  of  the  various  na- 
tions of  Europe  against  the  Catholics.  Wherever  they  ob- 
tained the  power  to  do  so,  they  invariably  persecuted  the 
Catholics  by  civil  disabilities  and  corporal  punishments ;  and 
where  they  had  not  the  power  they  excited  disturbance  and 
persecuted  them  by  slander.  We  know  of  no  exception  to 
this  remark.  Unpalatable  as  it  may  appear,  it  is  triumphantly 
established  by  the  facts  of  history ;  and  we  are  not  free  to 
change  the  records  of  the  past  to  pander  to  an  over  delicate 

*  See  Sleidan — ad  annum  1529,  lib.  vi.  Also  Natalis  Alexander,  Hist. 
Ecclesiastica,  torn.  ix.  fol.  79,  edit  Venitiis,  1778 ;  and  Lingard,  History  of 
England— Henry  VIII. ;  and  Audin,  p.  289.  f  Ibid. 

X  In  his  Constitutional  History  of  England,  Hallam  makes  this  same 
statement ;  p.  64,  note. — American  edit.,  1  vol.  8vo.    He  saj^s : 

"  They  declared,  in  the  famous  protestation  of  Spire,  which  gave  them  the 
name  of  Protestants,  that  their  preachers  having  confuted  the  Mass  by  pas- 
sages from  Scripture,  they  could  not  permit  theirsuhjects  to  go  thither ;  since 
it  would  afford  a  bad  example  to  suffer  two  sorts  of  service  directly  opposite 
to  each  other  in  their  churches."  He  quotes  Schmidt,  Hist,  des  AUemanda 
vi,  394 ;  ^\,  24. 


LUTHER  DEFENDS  SACRILEGE.  333 

and  vitiated  taste.     Out  of  a  mass  of  evidence  bearing  on  the 
subject,  we  will  select  some  of  the  more  prominent  facts. 

"We  have  already  alluded  to  the  overture  for  peace  made 
by  the  Catholics  .'n  the  diet  of  Nurenberg,  held  in  1532. 
How  was  it  received  by  the  Lutherans?  They  rejected  it 
with  indignation,  not  only  in  the  assembly  at  Cadan,  but  also 
through  their  organ,  Urbanus  Regius.     Hear  his  language: 

"  We  must  either  have  peace  with  the  papists — that  is,  we  must  suf- 
fer the  destruction  of  our  faith,  our  rights,  our  life,  and  die  as  sinners — or 
we  must  have  peace  with  Christ,  that  is  to  say,  be  hated  by  our  enemies, 
and  live  by  faith.  Which  shall  we  choose  ?  The  rage  of  the  devil,  the 
hostility  of  the  world,  a  struggle  with  Antichrist,  or  the  protection  of  heav- 
en, and  life  through  Christ  ?"* 

Luther  openly  defended  the  violence  by  which  the  Catholic 
worship  had  been  suppressed,  and  the  monasteries  seized  upon 
and  secularized.  He  was  consulted  on  the  subject,  and  this 
was  his  reply : 

"  It  is  said  that  no  violence  should  be  used  for  conscience'  sake ;  and  yet 
have  not  our  princes  driven  away  the  monks  from  their  asylum  ?  Yes :  we 
must  not  oblige  any  one  to  believe  our  doctrine ;  we  have  never  done  vio- 
lence to  the  consciences  of  others  (!) ;  but  it  would  be  a  crime  not  to  prevent 
our  doctrine  from  being  profaned.  To  remove  scandal  is  not  to  force  the 
conscience.  I  can  not  force  a  rogue  to  be  honest,  but  I  can  prevent  him 
from  stealing.  A  prince  can  not  constrain  a  highway  robber  to  confess  the 
Lord,  but  yet  he  has  a  gallows  for  malefactors." 

Strange  casuistry!  Curious  theory  of  religious  liberty! 
He  continues: 

"  Thus,  when  our  princes  were  not  certain  that  the  monastic  life  and  pri- 
vate Masses  were  an  offense  to  God,  they  would  have  sinned  had  they  closed 
the  convents ;  but  after  they  have  been  enlightened,  and  have  seen  that  the 
cloister  and  the  Mass  are  an  insult  to  the  Deity,  they  would  have  been  cul- 
pable had  they  not  employed  the  power  they  had  received  to  proscribe 
them."t 

In  the  famous  convention  at  Smalkald,  in  1536,  the  Prot- 
estant party  decided  on  a  recourse  to  arms  to  defend  them-' 


*  Seckendorf — "Comment,  de  Luth."  lib.  iii,  p.  22. 
f  Lvth.  0pp.  edit.  Wittenb.,  ix,  455. 


334       INFLUENCE  Of  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

selves ;  that  is,  to  be  enabled  to  carry  out  their  favorite  plat 
of  establishing  the  Reformation  by  violence  on  the  ruins  of 
Catholic  institutions.  They  proclaimed  that  "  it  was  an  error 
to  believe  that  they  ought  to  tolerate  among  them  those  who 
opposed  the  reform."*  In  an  imperial  citation  addressed  to 
the  citizens  of  Donauwert  in  1605,  they  are  reproached  with 
having  driven  from  their  city,  as  atrocious  malefactors,!  those 
of  their  fellow  citizens  who  had  espoused  Catholic  wives,  or 
embraced  the  Catholic  religion.J  Again,  at  a  session  of  the 
famous  congress  of  Westphalia,  in  March,  1647,  Trautmans- 
dorf  openly  accused  the  Protestant  party  of  having  driven 
Catholic  laymen  from  their  dominions,  after  having  confis- 
cated their  property .§ 

This  spirit  of  persecution  has  been  perpetuated,  with  some 
modifications,  even  down  to  the  present  day.  Erasmus  had 
remarked  of  Luther  that  his  savage  nature  had  not  been  soft- 
ened down  by  the  blandishments  of  matrimony  ;  and  we  may 
remark  that  the  fierce  intolerance  of  the  early  Reformation 
has  not  been  much  mitigated  by  the  growing  refinement  of 
the  age ! 

Even  as  late  as  the  battle  of  Jena,  in  1806,  Catholics  could 
not  own  property  in  Saxony,  nor  hold  public  ofiices,  nor  enjoy 
any  of  the  rights  of  citizenship.  ||  This  was  also  the  case  in 
Prussia ;  and  in  our  own  days,  have  we  not  seen  a  venerable 
octogenarian,  the  archbishop  of  Cologne,  violently  dragged 
from  his  palace  by  a  band  of  soldiers,  in  the  dead  hour  of 
night,  and  confined  for  years  in  a  state  prison,  by  order  of 
the  king  of  Prussia,  and  all  this  for  no  other  ofiensc  than  that 
his  conscience  did  not  allow  him  to  subscribe  to  the  will  of 
his  royal  master  ? 

In  the  imperial  city  of  Frankfort  on  the  Maine,  Catholics 
were  not  eligible  to  any  municipal  oflices.  As  la^t  as  the 
20th  of  October,  1814,  no  others  than  Lutherans  of  the  cou- 

♦  See  Robelot,  ut  sup.,  p.  71.  f  Atrocissime  delinquentes. 

I  Ibid.  \  Ibid.,  p.  72.  ||  Ibid.,  p.  70. 


PROTESTANT    PERSECUTION.  335 

fession  of  Augsburg  were  eligible  to  any  civil  office  in  the 
free  city  of  Hamburg.*  In  Sweden  it  is  strictly  forbidden 
for  any  Protestant  to  embrace  the  Catholic  religion,  though 
Catholics  are  encouraged  to  become  Protestants.  No  Catho- 
lic can  there  hold  any  office  of  trust  or  emolument.  The  same 
intolerant  laws  are  in  force  in  Denmark  and  Norway.  In 
these  kingdoms,  religious  persecution,  in  one  form  or  other, 
has  continued  even  to  the  present  day.  In  many  of  the  other 
Protestant  kingdoms  of  Germany,  the  penal  laws  against 
Catholics  were  softened  down  after  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
in  1815,  had  settled  the  general  peace  of  Europe,  Yet  the  re- 
finement of  modern  civilization  has  not  been  able  wholly  to 
exorcise  the  demon  of  intolerance.  It  still  exists,  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent  in  every  Protestant  country  of  Europe.f 

But  the  other  day,  when  the  Roman  Pontiff  nominated  a 
bishop  to  attend  to  the  spiritual  wants  of  a  large  body  of 
Catholics  living  in  the  kingdom  of  Denmark,  the  government 
organ  at  Copenhagen  republished  an  old  law  of  the  kingdom, 
which  made  it  a  capital  offense  for  a  Catholic  clergyman  or 
bishop  to  cross  the  border!  And  when  the  celebrated  De 
HaUer  embraced  the  Catholic  religion,  in  1821,  the  grand 
council  of  Berne,  in  Switzerland,  had  his  name  stricken  from 
the  list  of  its  members,  and  revived  the  old  law  of  the  canton 
by  which  no  Catholic  is  eligible  to  office.J 

In  one  word,  not  to  multiply  facts,  Protestants  have  been 
guilty  of  persecution  in  every  country  of  Europe  where  they 
have  had  the  power,  not  only  against  the  Catholic  Church, 
but  against  one  another :  and  their  intolerance,  though  greatly 

*  See  apud  Robelot,  ut  supra. 

f  But  the  other  day,  the  indignation  of  all  Europe  was  aroused  by  the 
banishment  from  Sweden  of  several  helpless  ladies,  whose  only  crime  was 
having  followed  their  private  judgment  and  conscience  in  embracing  the 
Catholic  religion.  Baptists  and  other  Protestant  dissenters  from  Lutherans 
have  also  shared  a  similar  fate.  And  this  in  the  middle  of  the  nmeteentb 
century ! 

\  See  apud  Robelot,  ut  supra. 


336       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

mitigated,  is  still  even  at  the  present  enlightened  day  far  from 
being  extinct. 

Catholics  also,  we  must  admit,  have  sometimes  persecuted. 
Yet  every  impartial  person  must  allow  that  the  circumstances 
under  which  they  persecuted  were  not  so  aggravated,  nor  so 
wholly  without  excuse,  as  those  under  which  they  were  them- 
selves persecuted  by  Protestants.  The  former  stood  on  the 
defensive,  while  the  latter  were  in  almost  every  instance  the 
first  aggressors.  The  Catholics  did  but  repel  violence  by 
violence,  when  their  property,  their  altars,  and  all  they  held 
sacred,  were  rudely  invaded  by  the  new  religionists,  under 
pretext  of  reform.  Their  acts  of  severity  were  often  deemed 
necessary  measures  of  precaution  against  the  deeds  of  lawless 
violence,  which  everywhere  marked  the  progress  of  reform 
They  did  but  seek  the  privilege  of  retaining  quietly  the 
religion  of  their  fathers,  which  the  reformers  would  fain  have 
wrested  from  them  by  violence.  They  were  the  older,  and 
they  were  in  possession.*  Could  it  be  expected  that  they 
would  yield  without  a  struggle  all  that  they  held  most  dear 
and  most  sacred  ?  These  were  extenuating  circumstances, 
which,  though  they  might  not  wholly  justify  their  intolerance, 
yet  greatly  mitigated  its  malice ;  while  the  reformers  could 
certainly  allege  no  such  pretext  in  self-vindication. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  feature  in  the  Protestant 
governments  of  Europe  is  the  union  in  them  of  church  and 
state.  This  unhallowed  union  began  at  the  period  of  the 
Reformation  itself;  and  it  subsists,  with  but  slight  modifi- 
cation, even  down  to  our  own  days.  In  Prussia,  Sweden, 
Denmark,  Holland,  and  England,  the  king  is  at  the  same 
time  the  head  of  the  state  and  of  the  church  established  by 
law.  It  is  his  province  to  regulate,  in  ultimate  resort,  every 
thing  connected  with  the  preaching  of  the  word,  the  adminis- 

*  In  the  Synod  of  Dort  in  1618,  the  Gomarists  used  this  very  argument 
to  justify  their  persecution  of  their  brother  Protestants,  the  Arminians  !- 
f  Sesa  xvii.)     Their  possession  had  been,  however,  of  very  recent  date. 


UNION   OF    CHURCH    AND    STATE.  337 

tration  of  the  sacraments,  and  the  appointment  of  bishopa 
and  pastors.  Even  in  those  cantons  of  Switzerland  in  which 
the  Keformation  obtained  a  footing,  the  legislative  councils 
still  claim  a  right  to  interfere  in  spiritual  matters;  and  the 
Catholics  of  Argovia  and  other  cantons  have,  not  long  ago,  felt 
the  smart  of  this  intolerant  interference. 

Every  body  knows  the  high-handed  measures  by  which  the 
late  king  of  Prussia  sought  to  unite  into  one  "  national  church 
of  Prussia"  the  two  conflicting  parties  of  religionists  in  his 
kingdom,  the  Lutherans  and  Calvinists.  This  political  ma- 
neuver, to  effect  by  force  a  compromise  between  two  warring 
sects,  displeased  them  both,  as  might  have  been  expected; 
and  many  of  the  ejected  ministers  of  both  parties,  but  espe- 
cially of  the  Lutheran,  sought  shelter  from  the  storm  in  foreign 
countries,  and  some  of  them  on  our  own  shores.  The  entire 
success  of  this  attempt,  made  by  the  court  of  Berlin  on  the 
religious  liberties  of  Prussia,  proves  conclusively,  that  there 
at  least  the  Protestant  church  is  but  the  creature  of  the 
state — meanly  subservient  to  all  its  commands. 

Every  one  also  knows,  that  the  persecution  of  the  Catholics 
of  Belgium  by  the  Protestant  government  of  Holland  led  to 
the  successful  declaration  of  independence  by  the  former 
government,  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago :  and  that 
after  the  declaration  had  been  made  good,  the  Belgians  elected 
the  Protestant  Prince  Leopold  as  their  sovereign.  Can  the 
annals  of  Protestantism  afibrd  an  example  of  liberality  like 
this?  At  least,  we  have  never  heard  of  a  Protestant  com- 
munity voluntarily  choosing  a  Catholic  sovereign. 

If  the  Reformation  was  favorable  to  religious  liberty,  why, 
we  ask,  did  it  bring  about  a  union  of  church  and  state  in 
every  country  where  it  was  established  ?  Why  did  it  every- 
where persecute?  It  is  curious  to  trace  the  origin  of  this 
mean  subserviency  of  the  various  Protestant  sects  to  the 
princes,  under  whose  auspices  they  were  respectively  estab- 
lished. 

The   reformers   preached    up   freedom   from   the   alleged 
VOL.  I.— 29 


338         INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

tyranny  of  Rome:  the  people  were  seduced  by  this  flattering 
appeal  to  their  natural  aversion  to  restraint ;  and  the  Sefor- 
mation  was  thus  effected  in  the  manner  which  we  have  en- 
deavored to  unfold.  Once  freed  from  the  authority  of  Rome, 
the  reformers  threw  themselves  and  their  partisans,  for  pro- 
tection, into  the  arms  of  the  secular  princes  who  had  espoused 
their  cause ;  and  these  gave  them  a  bear's  embrace !  They 
had  escaped  from  an  imaginary j  they  now  fell  into  a  real 
bondage.  They  had  gone  out  of  the  dark  land  of  Egypt, 
and  had  returned  from  the  captivity  of  Babylon :  but  in  the 
land  of  promise  into  which  they  led  their  exulting  hosts  of 
disenthralled  disciples,  they  found  other  Pharaohs  and  other 
Nabuchadonosors,  who  lorded  it  over  them  with  a  rod  of 
iron ! — "  And  the  last  state  of  these  men  was  made  worse 
than  the  first."* 

Luther  soon  perceived,  that  the  only  means  of  stemming 
the  torrent  of  innovation,  which  he  had  let  loose  on  the  world, 
was  to  give  unlimited  power  to  princes  in  spiritual  matters. 
Melancthon  earnestly  labored  to  retain  the  order  of  bishops ; 
but  his  unrelenting  master  could  not  brook  this  odious  rem- 
nant of  the  Papacy.  The  result  was,  as  Melancthon  had 
foreseen,  that  for  them  he  substituted  other  bishops — princes 
armed  with  the  power  of  the  sword.  These  were  very  far 
from  being  so  scrupulous  as  had  been  their  Catholic  prede- 
cessors in  the  episcopal  office !  After  having  seized  and  em- 
bezzled the  property  of  the  Catholic  Church,  they  reigned 
supreme  in  church  and  state.  They  interfered  in  the  minutest 
affairs  of  church  government.  It  was  by  the  importunities 
of  \h&  pious  and  scrupulous  landgrave  of  Hesse,  that  Luther 
was  induced,  against  his  inclination,  to  suppress  the  elevation 
of  the  Host  in  the  Mass.f  Thus,  as  Audin  well  remarks, 
"  the  Reformation  which  was  ushered  into  Germany  by  its 
apostles,  as  a  means  of  forcing  the  people  from  the  sacerdotal 
yoke,  created  a  pagan  monstrosity — hierophant  and  magis- 

*  at.  Matthew,  xii :  45.  f  Jak.  Marx.,  sup.  cit.,  p.  177. 


CUJUS   REGIO,   EJUS   RELIGIO.  339 

tnite-  -who  with  one  arm  regulated  the  state,  and  with  the 
other,  the  church,*** 

The  Protestant  historian  of  Germany  fully  admits  this. 
After  the  lines  had  been  pretty  well  drawn  between  the 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  the  diet  of  Augsburg  laid  down 
and  established  the  famous  maxim,  that  in  matters  of  religion 
each  prince  was  supreme  in  his  own  dominions.  This  prin- 
ciple was  embodied  in  the  Latin  motto :  Cujus  E-egio,  Ejus 
Religio — literally,  whose  region^  his  religion  !  If  this  iron 
maxim,  plainly  destructive  of  the  right  of  private  judgment, 
weighed  somewhat  heavily  on  the  Protestant  subjects  of 
Catholic  princes,  it  operated  much  more  oppressively  against 
the  Catholic  subjects  of  Protestant  princes.  These  were,  by 
its  action,  compelled  to  abandon  their  time-honored  religion 
at  the  mere  bidding  of  their  prince,  whose  religious  caprices 
thus  became  the  supreme  law  in  religion  as  in  government! 
In  Catholic  governments,  on  the  contrary,  it  operated  merely 
as  a  conservative  policy,  and  it  simply  checked  innovation  on 
the  established  order  of  things.  The  maxim  itself  clearly 
proves  that  religious  liberty,  as  we  now  understand  the  term, 
was  very  far  from  the  thoughts  and  ideas  of  the  German 
reformers  and  of  their  disciples. 

With  these  observations  we  subjoin  the  remarkable  passage 
from  Menzel  :f 

"  Every  obstacle  was  now  removed,  and  a  peace,  known  as  the  religioutj 
peace  of  Augsburg,  was  concluded  by  the  diet  held  in  that  city,  A.  D.  1555. 
This  peace  was  naturally  a  mere  political  agi-eement  provisionally  entered 
into  by  the  princes  for  the  benefit,  not  of  religion,  but  of  themselves.  Pop- 
ular opinion  was  dumb,  knights,  burgesses,  and  peasants  bending  in  lowly 
submission  to  the  mandate  of  their  sovereigns.  By  this  treaty,  branded  in 
history  as  the  most  lawless  ever  concerted  in  Germany,  the  principle  '  cujus 
BEGio,  EJUS  RELIGIO,' — the  faith  of  the  prince  must  be  that  of  the  people, — 
•vas  laid  down.  By  it  not  only  all  the  refcJrmed  subjects  of  a  Catholic 
prince  were  exposed  to  the  utmost  cruelty  and  tyranny,  but  the  religion  of 
each  separate  country  was  rendered  dependent  on  the  caprice  of  the  reigning 
prince ;  of  this  the  Pfalz  offered  a  sad  example,  the  religion  of  the  people 

♦  Audin,  p.  347  t  History  of  Germany,  vol.  ii,  p.  270. 


340         INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

beiiii  thus  four  times  arbitrarily  changed.  The  struggles  of  nature  and  ol 
reason  were  powerless  against  the  executioner,  the  stake,  and  the  sword 
This  principle  was,  nevertheless,  merely  a  result  of  Luther's  well-known 
policj',  and  consequently  struck  his  contemporaries  far  less  forcibly  than 
after-generations.  Freedom  of  belief,  confined  to  the  immediate  subjects  of 
the  empire,  for  instance,  to  the  reigning  princes,  the  free  nobility,  and  the 
city  councilors,  was  monopolized  by  at  most  twenty  thousand  privileged 
persons,  including  the  whole  of  the  impoverished  nobility,  and  the  oligarchies 
of  the  most  insignificant  imperial  free  towns,  and  it  consequently  follows, 
taking  the  whole  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  empire  at  twenty  millions,  that, 
out  of  a  thousand  Germans,  one  only  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  choosing  his 
own  religion." 

This  usurpation  of  Protestant  princes  was  afterwards  again 
legalized,  and  it  became  a  settled  matter  of  state  policy,  at 
the  congress  of  Westphalia  in  1648,  after  the  close  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War.  This  congress  recognized  in  the  Pro'test- 
ant  princes  of  Germany  the  jus  reformandi,  or  the  right  to 
reform  the  churches  existing  within  their  dominions,  accord- 
ing to  their  own  judgment  and  good  pleasure.*  Thus,  after 
a  protracted  struggle  of  more  than  a  hundred  years,  during 
which  oceans  of  blood  had  been  poured  out  in  the  sacred 
name  of  liberty,  Protestantism  finally  sunk  down  exhausted — 
a  degraded  slave — in  the  murderous  embrace  of  earthly 
princes !  It  was  bound  hand  and  foot,  and  could  not  move, 
but  by  the  permission  of  its  remorseless  master ! 

The  reformers  were  themselves  the  sole  cause  of  this  un- 
happy result.  They  had  flattered  princes,  and  had  courted 
this  very  union,  to  which  may  be  fairly  traced  the  servile 
degradation  of  the  sects  they  respectively  founded.  Tliey 
had  invoked  the  power  of  the  sword,  not  only  against  Cath- 
olics, but  also  against  their  brother  religionists,  who  dared 
oppose  their  own  schemes  of  reformation.  Tliey  had  pro- 
claimed, that  the  right  of  suppressing  heresy  "belonged  only 
to  princes  who  alone  could  mow  down  the  cockle  with  the 
BWord."t     At  the  general  assembly  of  the  Protestant  party 

*  Jak.  Marx — Audin,  p.  347. 

f  Ott.  ad  annum,  1536.     Gastius,  sup.  cit.,  p.  365.     Audin,  p.  463. 


CHURCH    AND   STATE   IN   SAXONY.  341 

at  Homburg  in  1536,  the  deputies  of  Lunenburg  hai  said: 
"The  magistrate  has  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  the 
heretics.'** 

Luther  himself,  in  his  defense  of  the  enactments  of  this 
assembly,  addressed  to  the  landgrave  of  Hesse,-f  had  laid 
down  this  sweeping  principle: 

"  If  then  there  takes  place  between  Catholics  and  sectaries,  one  of  those 
discussions  in  which  each  combatant  advances  with  a  text,  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  magistrate  to  take  cognizance  of  the  dispute,  and  to  impose  silence  on 
those  whose  doctrine  does  not  accoi-d  with  the  holy  books." — Could  he  con- 
sistently blame  princes  for  afterwards  tyrannically  using  the  power  which 
he  himself  had  vested  in  them  ? 

The  history  of  the  union  of  church  and  state  in  Saxony, 
will  throw  some  light  on  its  subsequent  establishment  in 
other  Protestant  countries.  It  was  to  meet  the  wishes  and 
to  carry  out  the  suggestions  of  Luther,  that  John,  elector  of 
Saxony — naturally  a  weak  and  effeminate  prince — first  inter- 
fered in  the  affairs  of  the  church.  After  he  had  entered, 
however,  on  his  new  spiritual  functions,  his  ardent  zeal  car- 
ried him  further  than  the  monk  had  bargained  for. 

"  He  determined  to  free  himself  fi'om  the  domination  of  the  olergy  (Pro- 
testant) ;  and  for  that  purpose  found  that  the  most  eflBcacious  means  was  to 
apply  at  once  the  reforming  theories  of  Luther  to  the  organization  of  parishes. 
A  commission  of  ecclesiastics  and  laymen  was  accordingly  named  by  the 
elector,  who  were  charged  to  visit  and  administer  the  different  districts.  It 
was  a  real  revolution.  The  church  lost  even  its  name ;  it  was  turned  into  a 
pagan  temple."| 

Let  US  also  see  what  is  the  opinion  of  the  Protestant 
Hallam  on  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  on  religious 
liberty.  He  surely  is  not  prejudiced  against  the  reformers, 
as  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  see;  and  his  opinion 
must  therefore  be  of  great  weight  with  Protestants.  We 
have  already  given  some  extracts  from  his  latest  work,  bear- 

*  Ott.  ad  annum,  1536,  p.  86.  f  Referred  to  above,  p.  328. 

\  Audin,  p.  3,53.     We  have  above  quoted  a  passage  from  Menzel,  which 
fi'Uy  confirms  this,  and  even  goes  further. 
22 


842       mi^'LUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY. 

ing  indirectly  on  the  present  subject.     We  add  the  following 
passages : 

"  It  is  often  said  that  the  essential  principle  of  Protestantism,  and  that  for 
which  the  struggle  was  made,  was  something  different  from  all  we  have 
mentioned;  a  perpetual  freedom  from  all  authority  in  religious  belief,  ot 
what  goes  by  the  name  of  the  right  of  private  judgment.  But,  to  look 
more  nearly  at  what  occurred,  this  permanent  independence  was  not  much 
asserted,  and  still  less  acted  upon.  The  Reformation  was  a  change  of 
masters;  a  voluntary  one,  no  doubt,  in  those  loJio  had  any  choice;  and,  in 
this  sense,  an  exercise,  for  the  time,  of  their  personal  judgment.  But  no 
one  having  gone  over  to  the  confession  of  Augsburg  or  that  of  Zurich,  was 
deemed  at  liberty  to  modify  these  creeds  at  his  pleasure.  He  might,  of 
course,  become  an  Anabaptist  or  an  Arian ;  but  he  was  not  the  less  a  heretic 
in  doing  so,  than  if  he  had  continued  in  the  Church  of  Rome.  By  what 
light  a  Protestant  was  to  steer,  might  he  a  problem.,  which  at  that  time,  as  ever 
aince,  it  would  perplex  a  theologian  to  decide :  but  in  practice,  the  law  of  the 
land  which  established  one  exclusive  mode  of  faith,  was  the  only  safe,  as, 
in  ordinary  circumstances,  it  was,  upon  the  whole,  the  most  eligible  (!) 
guide."* 

In  another  place,  speaking  of  the  causes  which  brought 
about  the  decline  of  Protestantism  and  the  reaction  of  Catho- 
licity, he  says : 

"We  ought  to  reckon  also  among  the  principal  causes  of  this  change, 
those  perpetual  disputes,  those  irreconcilable  animosities,  that  bigotry,  above 
all,  and  persecuting  spirit,  which  were  exhibited  in  the  Lutheran  and  Cal- 
vinistic  churches.  Each  began  with  a  common  principle — the  necessity  of 
an  orthodox  faith.  But  this  orthodoxy  evidently  meant  nothing  more  than 
their  own  belief  as  opposed  to  that  of  their  adversaries ;  a  belief  acknowl- 
edged to  be  fallible,  3'et  maintained  as  certain ;  rejecting  authority  in  one 
breath,  and  appealing  to  it  in  the  next,  and  claiming  to  rest  on  sure  proofs 
of  reason  and  Scripture,  which  their  opponents  were  ready,  with  just  as 
much  confidence,  to  invalidate."! 

In  conclusion,  we  may  observe,  that  in  regard  to  toleration, 
the  Catholic  countries  of  Europe  at  the  present  time  compare 
advantageously  with  those  which  have  been  enh'g/itened  by 
the  Reformation  for4the  last  three  hundred  years.  There  is 
not  one  Catholic  government  of  Europe  which  now  persecutes 

■•  "Histo-y  of  Literature,"  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  200.         f  Ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  278. 


CATHOLICf  TOLERATION.  343 

foi  conscience'  sake ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  scarcely 
one  Protestant  government  which  does  not  persecute,  in  one 
form  or  other,  even  at  this  day !  We  have  ah-eady  seen  what 
has  been,  and  to  a  great  extent  is  still,  the  policy  of  the  latter 
in  regard  to  religious  liberty.  Our  assertion  in  regard  to  the 
former,  can  be  easily  substantiated. 

Belgium  is  Catholic,  and  Belgium  allows  equal  political 
rights  to  Protestants  with  Catholics,  and  is  at  the  same 
time,  perhaps,  the  freest  monarchy  in  Europe.  The  in- 
quisition has  been  long  since  abolished  in  Spain  and 
Portugal,  and  these  no  longer  persecute  dissenters.  France 
is  Catholic,  and  France  not  only  does  not  persecute,  but 
she  protects  the  Protestant  religion,  and  pays  its  ministers 
even  more  than  she  allows  to  the  Catholic  clergy — which 
is  but  equitable,  as  the  former  have  their  wives  and  families 
to  support ! 

Bavaria  is  Catholic;  and  Bavaria  allows  equal  civil  rights 
to  Protestants  as  to  Catholics.  Austria  is  Catholic ;  and  Aus- 
tria adopts  the  same  equitable  policy.  Bohemia  is  Catholic  ; 
and  Bohemia  imitates  the  example  of  the  other  Catholic 
states :  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  Hungary,  which,  like 
Bohemia,  is  a  dependency  of  the  Austrian  empire.  Italy  is 
Catholic ;  and  Protestants  have  places  of  worship  and  public 
cemeteries  at  the  very  gates  of  the  eternal  city  itself.  So 
far  is  this  toleration  carried,  that  but  a  few  years  since,  a 
parson  of  the  church  of  England,  delivered  a  course  of  lec- 
tures against  "popery"  at  Rome  itself;  and  Dr.  "Wiseman 
answered  them. 

Poland — poor  bleeding  and  crushed  Poland,  ims  Catholic 
to  its  very  hearts's  core ;  and  Poland  was  seldom,  if  ever  sul 
lied  with  persecution.  Ireland  was  ever  Catholic ;  and  Ire 
land  never  persecuted,  though  she  had  it  in  her  power  to  dc 
80  at  three  different  times.  Finally,  it  was  the  Catholic  Lord 
Baltimore,  and  the  Catholic  colonists  of  Maryland,  who,  in 
1648,  first  proclaimed  on  this  broad  continent,  as  a  settled 
law,  the  great  principle  of  universal  toleration,  while  the 


344  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

Puritans  were  persecuting  brother  Protestants  in  New  En 
gland,  and  the  Episcopalians  were  doing  the  same  thing  in 
Virginia  !* 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

INFLUENCE    OF     THE     REFORMATION    ON    CIVIL 
LIBERTY. 

"  The  most  striking  effect  of  the  first  preaching  of  the  Reformation  was  that  it  ap- 
pealed to  the  ignorant;  and  though  political  liberty  ....  cannot  be  reckoned  the  aim 
of  those  who  introduced  it,  yet  there  predominated  that  revolutionary  spirit  which 
loves  to  witness  destruction  for  its  own  sake,  and  that  intoxicated  self-confidence 
which  renders  folly  mischievous." — Hallam."+ 

Boasting — Theory  of  government — Political  liberty — Four  things  guarantied 
— Pursuit  of  happiness — The  Popes  and  liberty — Rights  of  property — Use 
made  of  confiscated  church  property — The  Attila  of  the  Reformation — 
Par  nobile  fratrum — Spoliation  of  Catholics — Contempt  of  testamentary 
dispositions — The  jus  manuale  abolished — And  restored — Disregard  of  life 
— And  crushing  of  popular  liberty — The  war  of  the  peasants — Two 
charges  made  good — Grievances  of  the  peasants — Drowned  in  blood — 
Remarkable  testimony  of  Menzel  —  Luther's  agency  therein  —  Halting 
betweei^^  two  extremes — Result — Absolute  despotism — Swiss  cantons — 
D'Aubigne  puzzled — Liberty,  a  mountain  nymph — The  old  mother  of 
republics —  Security  to  character — Recapitulation. 

The  friends  of  the  Reformation  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
boasting,  that  to  it  we  are  indebted  for  all  the  free  institutions 
we  now  enjoy.  Before  it,  there  was  nothing  in  the  world  but 
slavery  on  the  one  hand,  and  reckless  despotism  on  the  other : 

•  See  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  1,  Mar3dand.  About 
the  same  time,  or  perhaps  a  few  years  previously,  Roger  Williams,  driven 
into  the  wilderness  by  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts,  established  the  colony 
of  Rhode  Island,  the  charter  of  which  granted  free  toleration,  from  which 
however,  the  Catholics  were  in  all  probability  excluded,  at  least  until  a  con- 
siderably later  period. 

j  "  History  of  Literature,"  vol.  i,  p.  192. 


POLITICAL   LIBERTY.  345 

after  it,  came  liberty  and  free  government.  In  school-boy 
orations  and  Fourth-of-July  speeches ;  in  sermons  from  the 
pulpit  and  in  effusions  from  the  press  ;  this  assertion  has  been 
reiterated  over  and  again  with  so  much  confidence,  that  many 
persons  of  sincerity  and  intelligence  have  viewed  it  as  founded 
in  fact.  To  such  we  would  beg  leave  to  present  the  following 
brief  summary  of  evidence  bearing  on  the  subject.  Let  them 
read  both  sides ;  and  then  will  they  be  able  to  form  an 
enlightened  judgment. 

D'Aubigne  asserts  roundly :  "  The  Reformation  saved  reli- 
gion, and  with  it  society."*  We  have  already  seen  what  it 
did  for  religion  :  we  will  now  examine  what  it  did  for  society. 
Did  it  really  save  society ;  or  was  society  saved  in  sjplte  of  it? 
To  narrow  down  the  ground  of  the  inquiry  ;  did  it  really 
contribute  by  its  influence  to  check  political  despotism,  and  to 
protect  the  rights  of  the  people  ?  Or,  in  other  words,  did  it 
develop  the  democratic  principle,  and  originate  free  institu- 
tions ?  Were  we  to  decide  according  to  the  measure  of  its 
boasting,  it  certainly  did  this  and  much  more.  It  had  liberty 
forever  on  its  lips :  it  loudly  proclaimed  that  one  great  object 
of  its  mission  was  to  free  mankind  from  a  degrading  servitude, 
both  religious  and  political.  But  was  its  practice  in  accord- 
ance with  its  loudly  boasting  theory  ?     We  shall  see. 

Political  liberty  guaranties  security  to  life,  to  property,  to 
character,  and  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness  :  and  it  does  this 
with  the  least  possible  restraint  on  personal  freedom.  The 
greater  the  security  to  these  objects,  and  the  less  the  restraint 
on  individual  liberty,  the  more  free  and  perfect  is  the  system 
of  govornment.  A  well  regulated  democracy — where  the 
people  can  bear  it — best  corresponds  with  this  theory,  and  is 
therefore,  with  the  condition  just  named,  the  best  of  all  pos- 
sible forms  of  government.  And  the  nearer  others  approxi 
mate  to  this  standard,  the  more  do  they  verge  to  perfection. 
Buch  are  the  principles  of  our  political  creed :  and  by  them 


♦  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  67. 


346  INFLUENCE    OF   REFORMATION    ON   CIVIL    LIBERTY. 

as  a  test,  we  are  willing  to  decide  on  the  influence  of  the 
Reformation  on  free  government.  Did  this  religious  revolu- 
tion provide  greater  security  to  life,  property,  honor,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  with  less  restraint  to  individual  liberty 
than  had  previously  existed  ?  If  it  did,  then  was  its  influence 
favorable  to  liberty ;  if  it  did  not,  then,  however  its  advocates 
may  boast,  its  influence  was  decidedly  hostile  to  true  civil 
liberty.  We  will  stand  by  these  principles,  which  we  are 
sure  our  adversaries  will  not  be  disposed  to  reject,  at  least  in 
this  country. 

1.  We  will  begin  with  the  object  of  government  last 
named — security  to  men  in  ihe  pursuit  of  happiness.  Ko 
government  is  free,  which  does  not  guaranty  this.  The  high- 
est, the  most  noble,  and  the  only  sure  way  of  pursuing  happi- 
ness, is  by  the  path  of  religion.  Without  this,  there  is,  and 
can  be,  no  real  or  permanent  happiness,  either  in  this  world 
or  in  the  next.  This,  we  think,  will  be  admitted  by  all  who 
are  imbued  with  the  very  first  principles  of  Christianity. 
Now,  there  is  manifestly  no  freedom  in  this  exalted  pursuit, 
without  the  guaranty  of  i-eligious  liberty.  Hence,  a  system, 
which  has  sapped  the  very  foundations  of  religious  liberty, 
could  not  guaranty  one  of  the  greatest  objects  of  all  free  gov- 
ernments— security  in  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Now,  we 
have  already  proved,  that  the  Reformation  did  not  secure,  but 
rather  destroyed  religious  freedom  :  therefore,  the  inference  is 
irresistible,  that  it  did  not  tend  to  promote  free  government. 

We  will  pursue  this  line  of  argument  a  little  further.  The 
Reformation  cast  off  the  religious  yoke  of  the  Pontiffs  and  of 
the  Catholic  Church ;  and,  in  its  place,  it  wore,  solidly  riveted 
on  its  neck,  that  of  the  princes  who  had  espoused  its  cause. 
Was  the  exchange  favorable  to  liberty  ?  Did  the  union  of 
church  and  state,  which  necessarily  ensued,  secure  to  Protest- 
ants in  Germany  a  greater  amount  of  freedom  than  they  had 
heretofore  enjoyed  ?  The  Pope  was  far  off,  and  he  generally 
interposed  his  authority  only  in  spiritual  matters,  or  in  great 
emergencies  of  the  state :  the  princes,  who  succeeded  to  his 


PURSUIT    OF   HAPPINESS.  347 

authority,  were  present,  and  they  interfered  in  every  thing, 
both  in  church  and  state.  They  were  in  fact  supreme  in 
both.  When  they  chose  to  phxy  the  tyrant,  who  was  to 
oppose  their  will  ? 

The  reformed  party  were  powerless :  they  had  given  up 
themselves,  bound  hand  and  foot,  into  the  power  of  their 
princes.  The  voice  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs,  which  had  hitherto 
thundered  from  the  Vatican,  and  stricken  terror  into  the  heart 
of  tyranny,  was  now  also  powerless  :  the  reformers  themselves 
had  drowned  that  voice  in  the  maddening  clamor  of  their  op- 
position to  the  Pope.  What  resource  had  they  left  to  meet 
and  repel  royal  tyranny  ?  They  had  themselves,  of  their  own 
accord,  rendered  powerless'  the  only  arm  which  could  protect 
them,  or  redress  their  grievances. 

The  time  has  gone  by,  for  men  of  sense  and  intelligence  to 
clamor  against  the  tyranny  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs.  Protest- 
ants themselves  are  beginning  to  view  these  much  abused 
men  in  a  more  favorable  light  than  they  did  heretofore.  They 
no  longer  paint  them  as  the  unmitigated  tyrants  who  lorded 
it  over  the  world  for  their  own  selfish  purposes  and  unhal- 
lowed ambition ;  but  as  the  saviours  of  Europe,  and  the  pro- 
tectors of  its  political  rights  trodden  in  the  dust  by  tyrants. 
Such  Protestants  writers  as  Guizot,  Yoigt,  Ranke,  Pusey,  and 
Bancroft,  have  done  at  least  a  measure  of  justice  to  the  Popes. 

The  last  named  says,  speaking  of  Pope  Alexander  III.,  who 
lived,  A.  D.  1167:    He, 

"  True  to  the  spirit  of  his  office,  which  during  the  supremacy  of  brute  force 
.n  the  middle  age,  made  of  the  chief  minister  of  religion  the  tribune  of  the 
people  and  the  guardian  of  the  oppressed,  had  written,  'that  nature  having 
made  no  slaves,  all  men  have  an  equal  right  to  liberty.'  "* 

We  might  quote  many  similar  acknowledgments  made  by 
Protestant  writers  :  but  the  fact  we  have  asserted  will  scarcely 
be  questioned,  and  we  may  refer  in  general  to  the  works  of  the 
writers  mentioned  above  for  evidence  in  its  support.    Nothing 

*  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i,  p.  163. 


348  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

is,  ill  fact,  more  certain  than  that  the  Popes  of  the  middio 
ages  labored  assiduously  to  maintain  the  rights  of  the  people 
against  the  tyranny  of  their  princes.  Whenever  they  struck 
a  blow,  it  was  generally  aimed  at  tyranny,  and  well  calculated 
to  raise  up  the  lower  orders  in  the  scale  of  society.  The  op- 
pressed of  every  nation  found  a  willing  and  a  powerful  advo- 
cate in  Rome.  When  the  Roman  Pontiffs  threw  around  the 
people  the  broad  shield  of  their  own  protection,  it  was  more 
effectual  towards  their  defense  against  the  tyranny  which  had 
ground  them  in  the  dust,  than  had  been  the  eagles  which  had 
perched  on  the  Roman  standard  of  old.  For  Germany  par- 
ticularly, the  deposing  power,  claimed  by  the  Popes  of  the 
middle  ages,  was  a  broad  segis  thrown  around  the  liberties  of 
its  people.  When  was  that  power  ever  exercised,  but  in  be- 
half of  the  poor,  the  crushed,  and  the  bleeding?  And  when 
was  it  evoked  except  against  tyranny  and  an  oppression  no 
longer  tolerable,  or  remediable  by  any  other  means?  We 
know  of  few,  if  of  any  cases  of  its  exercise,  except  under  such 
circumstances  as  these. 

What  would  have  become  of  the  liberties  of  Europe  in 
that  period  of  anarchy  and  tyranny,  but  for  the  exercise  of 
papal  power  ?  No  other  authority  was  available :  because  no 
other  voice  would  have  been  heard  or  respected,  amidst  the 
general  din  of  war  and  the  confusion  of  the  times.  And  by 
destroying  that  authority,  the  reformers  broke  down  the  most 
effectual  barrier  against  tyranny,  and  destroyed  the  greatest 
security  to  popular  rights. 

2.  But  perhaps  the  Reformation  provided  greater  security 
for  the  rights  of  property,  than  had  been  made  in  the  good 
old  Catholic  times  ? — We  have  seen  how  the  Protestant  princes 
seized  upon  and  alienated  the  vast  property  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  They  diverted  it  from  its  legitimate  channels,  and 
generally  embezzled  it  for  their  own  private  uses.  Neither 
the  public  treasury  nor  the  people  profited  much  by  this  sac- 
rilegious invasion  of  church  property :  it  was  generally  spent 
m  profligacy. 


SECURITY    TO   PROPERTY.  349 

True,  the  Protestant  princes,  who  became  the  heads  of  the 
reformed  churches,  promised,  in  some  places,  to  employ  at 
least  a  portion  of  the  immense  property  thus  seized  on  by 
violence,  for  the  establishment  of  public  schools  and  hospitals. 
But  this  promise  was  never  carried  into  effect,  at  least  to  any 
great  extent.  Thus,  in  Sweden,  a  great  portion  of  the  church 
property  was  given  to  the  nobles,  as  a  reward  for  their  co-ope- 
ration with  the  monarch — Gustavus  Wasa — in  carrying  out 
his  favorite  project  of  reform :  another  large  portion  was  an- 
nexed to  the  crown ;  and  the  miserable  remnant  was  doled 
out,  with  a  niggardly  hand,  for  the  support  of  the  episcopal 
body — which  was  there  retained — of  the  inferior  clergy,  and 
of  the  charitable  and  literary  institutions.*  In  Denmark,  the 
monarch  and  the  nobility  shared  the  spoils.f 

In  Germany,  the  avarice  of  the  nobility  swallowed  up 
almost  every  thing,  which  had  escaped  the  grasp  of  the  per- 
jured monks,  or  the  pillage  of  the  infuriated  mobs.  We 
have  already  seen,  how  Luther  himself  lashed  them,  with  his 
withering  eloquence,  for  their  sacrilegious  avarice,  which  had 
left  almost  nothing  of  the  ample  patrimony  of  the  Church, 
for  the  support  of  the  reformed  preachers  and  their  wives ! 
We  shall  see,  in  the  sequel,  how  he  rebuked  their  parsimony, 
in  not  erecting  and  supporting  public  schools. 

The  ejected  Catholic  monks  and  clergy  were  reduced  to 
beggary,  and  had  no  alternative  left,  but  to  starve,  or  to  ob- 
tain a  livelihood  at  the  price  of  apostasy.  Alas !  too  many 
of  them  adopted  the  latter  alternative !  John  Hurd,  a  coun- 
selor of  the  elector  of  Saxony,  whose  authority  is  cited  by 
Luther  in  his  appeal  against  the  avarice  of  the  princes,  asserts 
that  the  Protestant  nobility  had  squandered  in  licentiousness, 
not  only  the  goods  of  the  monasteries  on  which  they  had 
seized,  but  also  their  own  private  patrimony — so  sadly  de- 
moralized had  they  become.J 

*  See  Robelot,  sup.  cit,  p.  177. 

f  Ibid.  We  shall  treat  of  this  subject  at  some  length  in  our  second  yd- 
ume  \  Ibid.,  p.  178. 


350  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

Many  of  these  marauding  princes  were  not  content  with 
the  pillage  of  the  church  property  within  their  own  territory, 
but  sallied  forth  with  an  armed  band  to  devastate  that  of 
their  neighbors.  We  have  already  adverted  to  the  memorable 
exploits  of  many  German  princes  in  this  way,  and  have  seen 
how  gallantly  their  armed  bands  put  to  flight  whole  troops 
of  cowled  monks  and  helpless  women,  in  order  to  seize  on 
their  property !  "We  have  seen  the  excursion  of  the  apostate 
Albert  of  Brandenburg,  at  the  head  of  ten  thousand  armed 
men,  into  the  territory  of  the  Prince  Bishop  of  Treves :  and 
how  their  sacrilegious  devastations  there  were  like  those  of  an 
army  of  Huns. 

This  man,  viewed  by  D'Aubigne  as  a  saint,  but  more  prop- 
erly called  by  his  contemporaries,  "  the  Attila  of  the  Refor- 
mation,"* established  a  temporal  principality,  and  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  present  kingdom  of  Prussia,  by  his  success- 
ful invasion  and  gigantic  pillage  of  property  belonging -to 
much  better  men  than  himself.  He  not  only  appropriated  to 
his  own  private  use  the  vast  property  belonging  to  the  Teu- 
tonic Order,  of  which  he  was  the  general ;  but  he  also,  by  the 
same  lawless  means,  annexed  to  his  territory  all  eastern  Prus- 
sia. He  was  as  treacherous  and  unprincipled,  as  he  was 
avaricious  and  lawless.  To  promote  the  purposes  of  his  am- 
bition, he  passed  from  the  camp  of  Henry  H.,  to  that  of  the 
Catholic  Charles  V. ;  and  though  the  treaty  of  Passau  had 
guarantied  to  the  Lutherans  of  the  Confession  of  Augsburg 
the  free  exercise  of  their  religion,  he,  at  the  head  of  his  troops, 
ravaged  the  territories  of  the  Protestant  princes — thus  reck- 
lessly sacrificing  friends  as  well  as  enemies !  The  Reforma- 
tion is  welcome  to  all  the  credit  its  cause  may  derive  from 
such  saints  as  he  and  the  landgrave  of  Hesse.  Yet  these 
two  men  were  among  its  chief  supports,  and  brightest  orna- 
ments ;  and  their  glory  is  intimately  blended  with  that  of  the 
Reformation. 

*  See  Robelot,  sup.  cit.,  p.  206 


WHOLESALE   ROBBERY.  351 

Bayle  says  to  the  reformed  party,  with  caustic  truth :  "  You 
forget  every  thing,  when  it  is  question  of  your  interests."* 
The  League  of  Smalkald,  noticed  above,  had  for  one  of  its 
principal  objects,  to  protest  against  the  decisions  of  tlie  im- 
perial courts,  which  had  not  granted  entire  liberty  to  the 
Protestant  princes  to  pillage  at  will  the  property  of  the 
Catholics !  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  most  of  the  criminal 
prosecutions  commenced  in  these  courts  were  directed  against 
the  lawless  violence  of  the  Protestant  nobility,  and  especially 
of  the  noted  landgrave  of  Hesse.f  Catholics  could  not  be 
secure  in  their  property,  and  even  the  protection  of  the  em- 
peror was  unavailing  for  this  purpose  in  those  times  of  lawless 
depredation  and  gospel  zeal ! 

And  be  it  remembered,  that  Catholics  still  formed  the 
great  body  of  the  Germanic  empire.  Thus  the  Reformation 
succeeded  in  depriving,  to  a  great  extent,  of  their  most  sacred 
rights,  the  vast  majority  of  the  people.  Was  this  course 
favorable  to  liberty,  which  is  a  mere  name,  without  security 
to  property?  The  truth  seems  to  be,  that  the  reformed  party 
were  so  much  attached  to  liberty,  that  they  wished  to  monopo- 
lize it  altogether,  and  have  it  all  for  themselves.  No  one  else 
was  deemed  worthy  to  enjoy  the  precious  boon ! 

But,  perhaps,  the  most  mischievous  influence  of  the  Refor- 
mation on  the  rights  of  property,  was  its  reckless  disregard 
of  testamentary  dispositions.  The  property  which  the  Pro- 
testant princes  thus  seized  on  and  alienated,  had  been — most 
of  it — accumulated  from  pious  bequests,  made  for  special 
church  and  charitable  purposes,  by  men  on  their  death-beds. 
What  right  had  the  reformed  party  to  interfere  with  these 
testamentary  dispositions?  What  right  had  they  to  divert 
the  property  thus  created,  from  the  channels  in  which  the 
abiding  Catholic  feeling  of  respect  for  the  dead  had  caused  it 
to  flow  for  centuries?     What  right  had  they,  above  all,  to 

*  ffiuvres,  torn,  ii,  p  621.     La  Haye,  1727, 
f  See  Eobelot,  ut  supra,  p.  205,  note. 


352         LNFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    0-.    CIVIL    LIBERTY. 

squander,  and  to  appropriate  to  their  own  unhallowed  pur 
poses,  wealth  which  had  been  hitherto  applied,  by  the  express 
will  of  those  who  had  bequeathed  it,  to  religious  and  charitable 
objects  ? 

And  what  security  was  there  any  longer  left  for  the  rights 
of  property,  when  even  the  sanctity  of  last  wills  and  testa- 
ments was  thus  recklessly  disregarded  and  trampled  upon  ? 
Had  those  charitable  men  of  the  good  old  Catholic  times 
been  able  to  rise  up  from  their  tombs,  how  they  would  have 
rebuked  this  sacrilegious  alienation  of  the  property  they  had 
left!  True,  some  stop  was  put  to  this  unhallowed  wholesale 
sequestration  of  church  property  by  the  treaty  of  1555;  in 
which  such  property  was  declared  sacred,  and  last  wills 
were  pronounced  inviolable;  and  Robertson,  the  historian 
of  Charles  V.,  tells  us,  that,  at  this  treaty,  the  Protestant 
princes  themselves,  after  having  at  first  opposed  the  article 
which  checked  their  lawless  violence,  withdrew  at  length 
their  objections,  and  acquiesced  in  its  equity.*  But  the 
mischief  had  already  been  done,  and  they  had  already  fat- 
tened on  the  spoils  of  the  Church!  Their  forbearance  was 
therefore  not  very  wonderful,  under  the  circumstances. 

But  for  the  tumults  caused  by  the  Reformation,  the  rights 
of  property  would,  in  all  probability,  have  been  permanently 
settled  throughout  Germany,  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. The  frequent  depredations  committed  by  the  feudal 
chieftains  of  the  middle  ages  on  the  property  of  each  other 
and  of  their  vassals,  had  been  already  eflectually  checked  by 
the  Emperor  Maximilian,  in  an  imperial  law  passed  in  1405. 
This  law  of  the  empire  abolished  altogether  what  was  called 
the  jus  manuale  —  or  the  right  claimed  by  many  lawless 
feudal  sovereigns  to  take  by  force  whatever  they  could  lay 
their  hands  on ;  and  it  established  an  imperial  court  of  adju- 
dication, in  which  all  points  of  contested  jurisdiction  were  to 
be  definitely  settled,  and  all  grievances  from  violations  of  the 

*  History  of  Charles  V.,  I.  xi.     Cited  by  Robelot,  p.  181. 


PERSONAL   FREEDOM.  353 

law  to  be  redressed.  Germany  enjoyed  a  profound  peace  foi 
many  years  after  the  enactment  of  this  wise  law :  men 
breathed  more  freely ;  might  and  riglit  were  no  .onger 
synonymous  terms ;  the  rights  of  property  were  re-estab- 
lished.* 

But  this  peace  was,  alas !  of  but  short  duration.  It  was  a 
calm,  which  preceded  an  awful  storm.  The  violent  preaching 
of  Luther  against  emperors,  princes,  and  bishops,  aroused 
again  into  full  activity  the  dormant  passions  of  the  lower 
orders.  Hence  the  dreadful  war  of  the  peasants,  with  all  its 
appalling  horrors,  its  effusion  of  blood,  and  the  desolation 
with  which  it  afflicted  Germany.  Seven  years  only  had 
elapsed  since  the  commencement  of  the  Reformation ;  and 
the  confusion  of  the  middle  ages  returned.  The  rights  of 
property,  of  life,  and  of  liberty  were  again  ruthlessly  trampled 
under  foot  with  impunity.  Wholesale  sacrilege,  unheard  of 
in  the  Catholic  middle  ages,  now  became  the  order  of  the  day. 
Robbery  began  with  the  house  of  God !  The  years  1524  and 
1525  were  awful  years  for  Germany.  The  princes  of  the 
empire  availed  themselves  of  the  general  disorder,  to  commit 
all  manner  of  excesses.  No  man's  property,  or  liberty,  or 
life  was  any  longer  safe.  The  tree  planted  by  Luther  at  Wit- 
tenberg was  bearing  its  bitter  first  fruits  ! 

3.  The  history  of  this  war  of  the  peasants  sheds  so  much 
additional  light  upon  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  on  the 
rights  of  the  lower  orders  and  the  liberty  of  the  people,  that 
we  will  be  pardoned  for  dwelling  on  it  at  some  length.  Our 
limits  will  however  allow  only  a  brief  summary  of  the  more 
prominent  facts,  and  a  rapid  sketch  of  the  leading  features 
of  that  eventful  struggle.  It  will  be  seen  from  this  brief  ex- 
amination that  the  Reformation  provided  no  security  what- 
ever, either  for  personal  liberty,  or  for  life  itself. 

We  deliberately  charge  on  the  Reformation  two  things : 
let,  that  it  stimulated  the  peasants  to  revolt ;  2dly,  that  it 

*  For  a  luminous  view  of  this,  see  Eobelot,  ut  sup.,  p.  200,  201. 
VOL.   I.— 30 


354  INFLUENCE    OF    REFORMATION    ON    CIVIL    LIBERTY. 

used  its  powerful  influence  to  crush  that  revolt  by  force,  and 
to  drown  the  voice  of  the  poor  peasants,  crying  out  for  redress 
of  grievances,  in  their  blood !  The  result  of  the  rebellion,  thua 
stifled  in  their  blood,  was  a  weakening  of  the  democratic 
principle,  and  a  strengthening  of  the  arm  of  power.  At  the 
close  of  the  dreadful  struggle,  liberty  lay  crushed  and  bleed- 
ing, and  despotism,  armed  with  all  its  iron  terrors,  was  trium- 
phant. We  hope  to  make  good  these  assertions  by  undeniable 
facts  and  unexceptionable  evidence. 

A  Protestant  historian  of  Germany,  Adolphus  Menzel, 
candidly  admits  that  Luther's  doctrines  were  calculated  to 
sow  the  seeds  of  sedition  among  the  lower  orders.*  The 
violent  appeal  he  had  made  to  the  people  against  the  emperor 
and  the  princes  of  the  empire,  at  the  close  of  the  diet  of  Nu- 
renberg,  in  1522 — two  years  before  the  revolt  of  the  peasants 
— was,  in  fact,  nothing  else  but  an  open  call  to  rebellion.f 
His  words  fell,  like  burning  coals,  on  the  inflammatory  mate- 
rials which  then  abounded  in  Germany.  The  standard  of 
revolt  was  everywhere  raised :  and  on  it  was  inscribed  the 
talismanic  word — liberty.  Far  from  wishing  to  extinguish  it, 
Luther  fanned  the  flame  with  his  breath.  When  the  insur- 
rectionary movements  were  reaching  his  own  Saxony,  he 
addressed  a  pamphlet  to  the  German  nobility,  in  which  he 
sided  with  the  peasants,  and  openly  charged  the  princes  with 
being  the  cause  of  the  revolt. 

He  cried  out:  » 

"  On  you  rests  the  responsibility  of  these  tumults  and  seditions  ;  on  you, 
princes  and  lords,  on  you  especially,  blind  bishops  and  senseless  priests  and 
monks !  You,  who  persist  in  making  yourselves  fools,  and  opposing  the 
gospel,  although  you  know  that  it  will  triumph,  and  that  you  shall  not  pre- 
vail. How  do  you  govern  ?  You  only  know  how  to  oppress,  to  destroy, 
and  to  plunder,  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  your  pomp  and  pride.  The 
people  and  the  poor  have  got  enough  of  you.  The  sword  is  raised  over 
your  heads,  and  yet  you  believe  yourselves  so  firmly  seated,  that  you  can 

*  "Neuere  Geschichte  der  Deutchen" — Tom.  1,  p.  169. 
+  See  extracts  from  this  writing  in  Audin,  p.  285,  seqq. 


GRIEVANCES    OF   THE   PEASANTS.  355 

not  be  overthrown My  good  sirs,  it  is  not  merelj  the  peasants  who 

rise  up  against  you  ;  it  is  God  himself  who  comes  to  chastise  your  tyranny. 
A  drunken  man  must  have  a  bed  of  straw ;  a  peasant  will  require  some- 
thing softer.  Go  not  to  war  with  them ;  you  do  not  know  how  the  affair 
will  terminate."* 

This  was  an  appeal  worthy  of  an  apostle  of  liberty — it  was 
seized  up  with  avidity  by  Miinzer  and  the  other  leaders  of 
the  revolt :  all  Germany  was  in  arras. — How  soon  did  Luther 
change  his  note,  and  preach  up  the  extermination  of  these 
same  peasants  by  fire  and  sword!  Before  we  shoW  this,  how- 
ever, we  must  first  see  what  were  the  principal  grievances 
of  which  the  peasants  complained,  and  what  were  their  de- 
mands. 

There  is  no  doubt,  that  there  was  much  fanaticism,  and 
much  extravagance  in  the  whole  insurrectionary  movement 
of  the  peasants :  but  there  is  as  little  doubt,  that  most  of  their 
claims  were  founded  in  strict  justice.  Chrystopher  Schapp- 
ler,  a  Swiss  priest,  drew  up  their  manifesto,  in  which  they 
demanded,  among  other  things  of  less  moment:  "That  they 
should  pay  tithes  only  in  corn — that  they  should  no  longer 
be  treated  as  slaves,  since  the  blood  of  Jesus  had  redeemed 
them — that  they  should  be  allowed  to  fish  and  to  fowl,  since 
God  had  given  them,  in  the  person  of  Adam,  dominion  over 
the  fishes  of  the  sea  and  the  fowls  of  the  air — that  they  might 
cut  in  the  forest  wood  for  fuel  and  for  building — that  the 
labor  should  be  diminished — that  they  should  be  permitted 
to  possess  landed  property — that  the  taxes  should  not  exceed 
the  value  of  the  property — that  the  tribute  to  the  nobles,  after 
the  death  of  a  father  of  a  family,  might  be  abolished,  so  that 
his  widow  and  orphans  might  not  be  reduced  to  beggary — 
and  finally,  that  if  these  grievances  were  not  well  founded, 
they  might  be  disproved  from  the  word  of  God."* 

*  See  Audin,  p.  309,  310.  '       ' 

f  Catrou — Histoire  du  Fanatisme,  torn.  1.     Menzel,  tom.  1,  apud  Audin, 

p.  311-2.     See  also  Robertson's  Charles  V.,  in  one  vol.  8vo.,  American  edit. 

p.  205-6.    We  will  give  the  more  detailed  account  of  Menzel  a  little  furthei 

oil.     There  are  two  Menzels,  Wolfgang  and  Adolf— we  refer  to  the  former. 


356  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

How  was  this  declaration  of  grievances  met  by  the  re 
formed  party?  If  they  were  really  the  friends  of  liberty 
they  would  at  once  have  recognized  the  justice  of  most  of 
these  d(?mands,  and  would  have  urged  the  princes  to  grant 
them.  At  least  consistency,  if  not  justice,  required  that  Lu- 
ther should  have  adopted  this  course.  And  yet  he — the  same 
Luther,  whom  we  have  just  heard  rebuking  the  tyranny  of 
the  princes,  and  justifying,  nay,  urging  forward  the  peasants 
in  their  revolt — the  very  same  man  now  changed  his  tactics, 
and  loudly  clamored  for  the  blood  of  the  peasants !  He  met 
their  challenge,  in  which  they  had  triumphantly  appealed  to 
the  Scriptures  for  their  justification,  and  wrote  a  labored 
treatise  to  prove,  from  the  word  of  God,  that  they  were  in 
the  wrong ! 

In  this  reply  to  their  statement  of  grievances,  he  said : 

"  I  know  that  Satan,  under  pretext  of  the  gospel,  conceals  among  you 
many  men  of  a  cruel  heart,  who  incessantly  calumniate  me ;  (was  this  tJm 
reason  why  he  ahandoned  Iheh-  cause  ?).  But  I  despise  them :  I  do  not  dread 
their  rage.  You  tell  me  that  you  will  triumph ;  that  you  are  invincible. 
But  can  not  God,  who  destroyed  Sodom,  overcome  you  ?  You  have  taken 
up  the  sword ;  you  shall  perish  by  the  sword.  In  resisting  your  magis- 
trates, you  resist  Jesus  Christ." 

He  then  goes  on  to  answer,  from  the  Scriptures,  their  de- 
mands, one  by  one.  Bible  in  hand,  he  defends  tithes  and 
even  the  enslaving  of  the  poor  peasants,  who  had  demanded 
to  be  free : 

"  You  wish  to  emancipate  yourselves  from  slavery  :  but  slavery  is  as  old 
as  the  world.  Abraham  had  slaves,  and  St.  Paul  establishes  rules  for  those 
whom  the  laws  of  nations  reduced  to  that  state." — As  if  conscious  of  his 
own  treachery  and  utter  inconsistency,  he  winds  up  his  reply  with  these  words : 
"  On  reading  my  letter,  you  will  shout  and  exclaim,  that  Luther  has  become 
the  courtier  of  princes :  but  before  you  reject,  at  least  examine  my  advice. 
Above  all,  listen  not  to  the  voice  of  those  new  prophets  who  delude  you. 
I  know  them."* 

What  a  change !  As  Luther  had  anticipated,  the  peasants 
accused  him,  with  justice,  of  perfidy  to  them,  and  of  mean 

*  Apud  Audin,  p.  312,  313. 


B.EVOLT   AND    SLAUGHTER    OF   THE    PEASANTS.  357 

sycophancy  to  princes.  To  prove  the  perfidy,  Miinzer  read 
to  the  assembled  multitudes  an  extract  from  Luther's  violent 
appeal  against  "  the  ecclesiastical  order  falsely  so  called,"*  in 
which  he  had  said : 

"  Wait,  my  lord  bishops,  yea,  rather  imps  of  the  devil ;  Doctor  Martin 
Luther  will  read  for  you  a  bull,  which  will  make  your  ears  tingle.  This  is 
the  Lutheran  bull — whoever  will  aid  with  his  arms,  his  fortune,  or  his  life, 
to  devastate  the  bishops  and  the  episcopal  hierarchy,  is  a  good  son  of  God,  a 
true  Christian,  and  observes  the  commandments  of  the  Lord." 

In  his  answer  to  Prierias,  which  it  appears  Miinzer  had 
not  seen,  Luther  had  employed  this  terrible  language : 

"If  we  hang  robbers  on  the  gallows,  decapitate  murderers,  and  burn 
heretics,  why  should  we  not  wash  our  hands  in  the  blood  of  those  sons  of 
perdition,  those  cardinals,  those  popes,  those  serpents  of  Eome,  and  of 
Sodom,  who  defile  the  church  of  God  ?"f 

Luther's  interposition  in  favor  of  order  came  too  late:  and 
it  lost  all  its  force  by  the  manifest  treachery  and  inconsistency 
with  his  previous  declarations.  The  struggle  went  on;  the 
hostile  armies  met  on  the  memorable  field  of  Frankhausen : 
the  confederated  princes  were  triumphant,  and  the  peasants 
were  butchered  like  sheep.  Their  prophet  Miinzer  fell  mor- 
tally wounded :  he  embraced  again  the  Catholic  faith,  and  to 
his  last  breath  accused  Luther  of  having  been  the  cause  of 
all  his  misfortunes !  J 

"  Such  was  the  end  of  the  war  of  the  peasants.  In  the  short  time  in 
which  they  were  permitted  to  afflict  society,  it  is  estimated  that  more  than  a 
hundred  thousand  men  fell  on  the  field  of  battle,  seven  cities  were  dis- 
mantled, fifty  monasteries  razed  to  the  ground,  and  three  churches  burned — 
not  to  mention  the  immense  treasures  of  painting  and  sculpture,  of  stained 
glass  and  of  beautifully  written  manuscripts — which  wert'  r-anihilated.  Had 
they  triumphed,  Germany  would  have  relapsed  into  );arbarism :  literature, 
arts,  poetry,  morality,  faith,  and  authority,  would  have  been  buried  under 

*  "Contra  falso  nominatum  ordinem  ecclesiasticum."     Luth.  0pp.,  ed 
Wittenb.,  ii,  fol.  120,  seqq. 
f  Osiander  (a  Protestant)  Cent.  161,  etc.,  p.  109.     Audin,  p.  213. 
f  For  a  graphic  description  of  this  whole  struggle,  see  Audin,  p.  315, 

23 


358   ■       INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

the  same  ruin.  The  rebellion  which  Luther  had  caused,  was  the  daughter 
of  disobedience :  her  father,  however,  knew  how  to  chastise  her.  If  there 
was  innocent  blood  shed,  let  it  be  on  his  head.  '  For,'  says  the  reformer, 
'  it  is  I  who  have  shed  it,  bj'  order  of  God ;  and  whoever  has  perished  in 
this  combat,  has  lost  both  soul  and  bod}^  and  is  eternally  damned.'  "* 

The  voice  of  all  history  prockiims,  that  Luther  was  the 
cause  of  the  insurrection  of  the  peasants,  and  of  their  subse- 
quent slaughter.  Even  Protestant  contemporary  historians 
have  accused  him  of  all  this.  Osiander  says :  "  Poor  peasants, 
whom  Luther  flattered  and  caressed,  while  they  were  content 
with  attacking  th(  oishops  and  the  clergy!  But  when  the 
revolt  assumed  another  aspect,  and  the  insurgents  mocked  at 
his  bull,  and  threatened  him  and  his  princes — then  appeared 
another  bull,  in  which  he  preached  up  the  slaughter  of  the 
peasants  as  if  they  were  so  many  sheep.  And  when  they 
were  killed,  how,  think  you,  did  he  celebrate  their  funeral  ? — 
By  marrying  a  nun!"  This  reminds  us  of  Erasmus'  beautiful 
remark  given  above,  that  while  Luther  was  reveling  in  his 
nuptials,  "a  hundred  thousand  peasants  were  descending  to 
the  tomb!" 

Hospinian,  another  Protestant  writer,  says,  addressing 
Luther:  ''It  is  you  who  excited  the  peasants  to  revolt."t 
Memno  Simon,  another  Protestant,  asserts  the  same  thing.J 
Cochlseus,  a  Catholic  historian  of  the  time,  estimates  the 
number  of  the  slaughtered  peasants  at  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  ;  and  says  :  "  On  the  day  of  judgment,  Miinzer  and 
his  peasants  will  cry  out  before  God  and  his  angels,  '  ven- 
geance on  Luther  !'"§ 


*  Tisch  Reden,  edit.  Eisleb.,  p.  276.  Luth.  0pp.,  edit.  Jenaj.  Tom.  iii, 
fol.  130.     Audin,  p.  318. 

•f  "  Historia  Sacramentar."  pars  2,  fol.  200.  I  Lib.  de  cruce. 

5  Cochlseus — Defensio  Duels  Georgii,  p.  63,  edit.  Tngolstadt,  an.  1545,  in4to. 

Wolfgang  Menzel  estimates  the  number  of  the  slaughtered  peasants  at 
one  hundred  thousand  !  He  says  :  "  Thus  terminated  this  terrible  struggle, 
during  which  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  of  the  peasantry  fell,  and 
which  reduced  the  survivors  to  a  more  degraded  state  of  slavery." — History 
of  Germany,  vol.  ii,  p.  244.     Bohn's  edition 


menzel's  account.  35S 

And  liave  we  not  heard  Luther  himself  boldly  avowing  hit 
agency  in  the  whole  transaction,  and  even  boasting  of  it,  with 
a  kind  of  fiendish  exultation  ?  Had  he  not  recommended  the 
princes  to  have  no  pity  on  the  peasants,  and  threatened  them 
with  the  indignation  of  God,  if  they  poured  oil  on  their  bleed- 
ing wounds  ?*  Had  he  not  said  :  "  Give  the  peasants  oats  ; 
and  if  they  grow  strong-headed,  give  them  the  stick  and  the 
cannon  ball  ?  "f 

Tlie  unexceptionable  Protestant  historian  of  Germany, 
whom  we  have  just  quoted,  furnishes  the  following  fuller 
account  of  the  revolt  of  the  peasants,  of  the  detailed  griev- 
ances for  which  they  sought  redress,  and  of  Luther's  agency 
in  having  them  cruelly  butchered,  for  no  other  crime  than 
their  having  dared  ask  for  a  very  moderate  share  of  popular 
liberty : 

"  The  peasantry  discovered  extreme  moderation  in  their  demands,  which 
were  included  in  twelve  articles,  and  elected  a  court  of  arbitration  consisting 
of  the  Archduke  Ferdinand,  the  elector  of  Saxony,  Luther,  Melancthon,  and 
some  preachers,  before  which  their  grievances  were  to  be  laid. 

"  The  twelve  articles  were  as  follows  : — 1.  The  right  of  the  peasantry  to 
appoint  their  own  preachers,  who  were  to  be  allowed  to  preach  the  word  of 
God  from  the  Bible.  2.  That  the  dues  paid  by  the  peasantry  were  to  be 
abolished,  with  the  exception  of  the  tithes  ordained  by  God  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  clergy,  the  surplus  of  which  was  to  be  applied  to  general  pur- 
poses and  to  the  maintenance  of  the  poor.  3.  The  abolition  of  vassalage  as 
iniquitous.  4.  The  right  of  hunting,  fishing,  and  fowhng.  5.  That  of  cut- 
ting wood  in  the  forests.  6.  The  modification  of  socage  and  average  service. 
7.  That  the  peasant  should  be  guarantied  from  the  caprice  of  his  lord  by  a 
fixed  agreement.  8.  The  modification  of  the  rent  upon  feudal  lands,  by 
which  a  part  of  the  profit  would  be  secured  to  the  occupant.  9.  The  admin- 
istration of  justice  according  to  the  ancient  laws,  not  according  to  the  new 
statutes  and  to  caprice.  10.  The  restoration  of  communal  property,  illegally 
seized.  11.  The  abolition  of  dues  on  the  death  of  the  serf,  by  which  the 
widows  and  orphans  were  deprived  of  their  right.  12.  The  acceptance  of 
the  aforesaid  articles,  or  their  refutation  as  contrary  to  the  Scriptures. 

"  The  princes  naturally  ridiculed  the  simplicity  of  the  peasantry  in  deem- 

*  Epist.  Nich.  Amsdorf,  30  Maii,  152.5. 

f  Epist.  to  Kuhel,  edit,  de  Wette,  tom.  ii,  p.  669. 


SCO  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

ing  a  court  of  arbitration,  in  which  Luther  was  to  be  seated  at  the  side  i>f  the 
archduke,  possible,  and  Luther  himself  refused  to  interfere  in  their  afilvirs. 
Although  free  from  the  injustice  of  denying  the  oppressed  condition  of  the 
peasantry,  for  which  he  had  severely  attacked  the  princes  and  nobility,  he 
dreaded  the  insolence  of  the  peasantry  under  the  guidance  of  the  Anabap- 
tists and  enthusiasts,  whom  he  viewed  with  deep  repugnance,  and,  conse- 
quently, used  his  utmost  endeavors  to  quell  the  sedition ;  but  the  peasantry 
believing  themselves  betrayed  by  him,  gave  way  to  greater  excesses,  and 
Thomas  Miinzer  openly  accused  him  of  'deserting  the  cause  of  liberty,  and 
of  rendering  the  Reformation  a  fresh  advantage  for  the  princes,  a  fresh  meana 
of  tyranny.' 

"  The  whole  of  the  peasantry  in  southern  Germany,  incited  by  fanatical 
preachers,  meanwhile  revolted,  and  were  joined  by  several  cities.  Karlstadt, 
expelled  fi'om  Saxony,  now  appeared  at  Rotenburg  on  the  Tauber ;  and  the 
Upper  German  peasantry,  inflamed  by  his  exhortations  to  prosecute  the 
Reformation  independently  of  Luther,  whom  he  accused  of  countenancing 
the  princes,  rose  in  the  March  and  April  of  1525,  in  order  to  maintain  the 
twelve  articles  by  force,  to  compel  the  princes  and  nobles  to  subscribe  to  them, 
to  destroy  the  monasteries,  and  to  spread  the  gospel.  Mergentheim,  the  seat 
of  the  unpopular  German  Plospitallers,  was  plundered 

"  This  atrocious  deed  drew  a  pamphlet  from  Luther  '  against  the  furious 
peasantry,'  in  which  he  called  upon  all  the  citizens  of  the  empire  '  to  strangle, 
to  stab  them,  secretly  and  openly,  as  they  can,  as  one  would  kill  a  mad  dog.'* 
The  peasantry  had,  however,  ceased  to  respect  him." 

Such,  then,  were  the  tender  mercies  of  the  Reformation ! 
Such  its  regard  for  the  lower  orders !  Such  its  political  code ! 
The  poor  peasants  were  first  stimulated  to  take  up  arms  to 
secure  their  freedom,  and  then  butchered  by  tens  of  thou- 
sands! In  their  tomb  was  buried  whatever  of  liberty  re- 
mained in  Germany.  The  princes  became  omnipotent :  the 
revolt  once  crushed,  no  one  dared  any  longer  to  raise  his 
voice  in  defense  of  freedom  ! 

The  Reformation  had  halted  for  a  brief  space  between  two 
dreadful  extremes :  that  of  absolute  and  uncrontrolled  despot- 
ism on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  dreadful  anarchy  on  the 
other.     It  at  first  favored  the  latter,  but  soon  it  threw  the 

*  "  Casper  von  Schwenkfeld  said :  '  Luther  has  led  the  people  out  of  Egypt 
^,the  Fapacy)  through  the  Red  Sea  (the  peasant  war),  but  has  deserted  them 
in  the  wilderness.'     Luther  never  forarave  him."    Menzel,  ibid. 


ABSOLUTE   MONARCHY.  361 

whole  weight  of  its  powerful  influence  into  the  scales  of  the 
former.  The  result  has  been,  what  might  have  been  expected, 
absolute  despotism  and  union  of  church  and  state  in  every 
country  of  Germany,  where  the  Reformation  obtained  a  solid 
footing !  Had  the  reformers  been  really  the  friends  of  human- 
ity and  of  liberty ;  had  they  urged  the  princes  to  redress  the 
just  grievances  of  the  peasants ;  the  issue  of  that  struggle  would 
have  been  very  diflferent.  The  lower  orders  would  have  been 
raised  in  the  scale  of  society,  and  free  institutions,  which  have 
not  blessed  Germany  since  the  days  of  Luther,  would  have 
been  established  on  a  solid  and  permanent  basis. 

One  of  the  most  famous  Protestant  historians  of  the  day, 
Guizot,  once  prime  minister  of  France,  tells  us,  in  his  Lectures 
on  Civilization  in  Modern  Europe:  "that  the  emancipation 
of  the  human  mind  (by  the  Reformation !),  and  absolute  mon- 
archy triumphed  simultaneously  throughout  Europe."*  All 
who  have  but  glanced  at  the  political  history  of  Europe,  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  must  at  once  see  the  truth  of  this  start- 
ling remark.  In  the  Protestant  kingdoms  of  continental 
Europe,  this  rule  suffers  no  exception :  in  all  of  them,  absolute 
monarchy,  in  its  most  consolidated  and  despotic  form,  dates 
precisely  from  the  period  of  the  Reformation.! 

Witness  Prussia,  Denmark,  Sweden,  and,  we  may  add,  En- 
gland :  for  it  is  certain,  that  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
following  the  Reformation  in  England,  the  liberties  of  the 
people  were  crushed ;  the  privileges  secured  by  the  Catholic 
Magna  Charta  were  wantonly  trampled  under  foot ;  and  the 
royal  prerogative  almost  swallowed  up  every  other  element 
of  government.  It  was  only  at  the  period  of  the  revolution, 
in  1688,  that  the  principles  of  the  great  Catholic  Charter  were 

*  Page  300  of  Lectures,  etc.,  American  edit.,  1  vol.  12mo. 

f  In  the  year  1848  some  ameliorations  were  obtained  or  promised,  but 
they  were  generally  of  a  transient  character.  Even  in  Sweden,  of  whose 
popular  institutions  we  sometimes  hear  or  read,  the  Lutheran  religion  ia 
firmly  established  by  law,  and  a  union  of  church  and  state  in  its  /ery  worst 
form  exists,  even  down  to  the  present  day. 
VOL.    I.— Si 


362  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERIT. 

again  feebly  asserted,  and  partially  restored  to  their  proper 
influence  in  the  government.* 

In  Cathclic  countries,  the  necessity  of  strong  measures  of 
precaution  against  the  seditions  and  tumults  occasioned  by 
the  Reformation  in  every  place  where  it  had  made  its  appear- 
ance, necessarily  tended  to  strengthen  the  arm  of  the  execu- 
tive :  and  in  the  general  ferment  of  the  times,  the  people 
willingly  resigned  most  of  the  civil  privileges  they  had  en- 
joyed during  the  middle  ages,  in  order,  by  increasing  the 
power  of  their  rulers,  the  more  effectually  to  stem  the  torrent 
of  innovation,  and  to  avert  the  threatened  evils  of  anarchy. 
Thus  the  political  tendency  of  the  Reformation,  both  directly 
and  indirectly,  favored  the  introduction  of  absolute  systems 
of  government  throughout  Europe. 

And  thus  do  we  clearly  owe  to  the  "glorious  Reformation," 
the  despotic  governments,  the  vast  standing  armies,  and  we 
may  add,  the  immense  public  debts  and  the  burdensome  tax- 
ation, of  most  of  the  European  governments.  Guizot's  asser- 
tion is  then  well  founded,  both  in  the  principles  of  political 
philosophy,  and  in  the  facts  of  history.  We  may  however 
remark,  that  it  was  a  strange  "  emancipation  of  the  human 
mind"  truly,  which  thus  avowedly  led  to  the  "triumph  of 
absolute  monarchy  throughout  Europe!" 

It  would  seem  that  Switzerland  at  least  was  an  exception 
to  Guizot's  sweeping  assertion ;  as  absolute  monarchy  never 
was  established  in  its  cantons,  even  after  the  Reformation. 
But  the  reader  of  Swiss  history  will  not  fail  to  observe,  that 
wherever  Protestantism  was  established  in  that  country,  there 
the  democratic  principle  was  weakened,  there  the  legislative 
councils  unduly  interfered  in  spiritual  matters,  and  there  des- 
potism thus  often  triumphed  in  the  much  abused  name  of 
liberty.    Those  cantons  of  Switzerland  precisel}^  are  the  freest, 

*  See  an  ablr^  essay  on  this  subject  in  Nos.  xv,  xviii,  xix,  of  the  Dablin 
Review,  "  On  A  rbitrary  Power,  Popery,  Protestantism ;"  repubhshed  in  a 
Qeat  12mo  volume  by  M.  Fithian,  Philadelphia,  1842,  pp.  251. 


SWISS    LIBERTY.  363 

which  have  remained  faithful  to  the  Catholic  religion.  In 
them,  you  read  of  no  persecution  of  Protestants  for  conscience' 
sake,  of  no  attempts  to  unite  church  and  state,  and  of  little 
departure  in  any  respect  from  the  original  Catholic  charter 
of  Swiss  liberties.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  three 
cantons  which  first  asserted  Swiss  liberty — those  of  Schweit?, 
Uri,  and  Unterwald — have  all  continued  faithful  to  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  as  well  as  to  the  good  old  principles  of  democ- 
racy bequeathed  to  them  by  the  Catholic  founders  of  their 
republic. 

D'Aubigne  admits,  and  he  is  sadly  puzzled  to  account  for, 
this  stern  adherence  of  the  oldest  and  freest  Swiss  cantons  to 
the  Catholic  faith.  He  explains  it  in  his  own  characteristic 
way,  by  appealing  to  the  inscrutable  ways  of  the  Providence 
of  God !     He  says : 

"  But  if  the  Helvetic  towns,  open  and  accessible  to  ameliorations,  were 
likely  to  be  drawn  early  within  the  current  of  the  Reformation,  the  case  was 
very  different  with  the  mountain  districts.  It  might  have  been  thought 
that  these  communities,  more  simple  and  energetic  than  their  confederates 
in  the  towns,  would  have  embraced  with  ardor  a  docti'ine,  of  which  the  char- 
acteristics were  simplicity  and  force  ;  but  He  who  said — '  at  that  time  two 
men  shall  be  in  the  field,  the  one  shall  be  taken  and  the  other  left' — saw  fit  to 
leave  these  mountaineers,  while  he  took  the  men  of  the  plain.  Perhaps  an 
attentive  observer  might  have  discerned  some  symptoms  of  the  difference, 
which  was  about  to  manifest  itself  between  the  people  of  the  town  and  the 
hills.  Intelligence  had  not  penetrated  to  those  hights.  Those  cantons 
which  had  founded  Swiss  liberty,  proud  of  the  part  they  had  played  in  the 
grand  struggle  for  independence,  were  not  disposed  to  be  tamely  instracted 
by  their  younger  brethren  of  the  plain.  Why,  they  might  ask,  should  they 
change  the  faith  in  which  thej^  had  expelled  the  Austrians,  and  which  had 
consecrated  by  altars  all  the  scenes  of  their  triumphs  ?  Their  priests  were 
the  only  enlightened  guides  to  whom  they  could  apply  ;  their  worship  and 
their  festivals  were  occupation  and  diversion  for  their  tranquil  lives,  and 
enlivened  the  silence  of  their  peaceful  retreats.  They  continued  closed 
against  religious  innovations."* 

Sure  enough :  why  should  they  change  the  religion  which 
had  sealed  their  liberties  with  its  divine  sanction,  and  the 


*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  82,  83. 


3 64  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

principles  and  the  worship  of  which  were  so  closely  inter- 
woven with  their  most  cherished  patriotic  reminiscences^ 
"Intelligence  had  not  penetrated  to  those  hights,"  indeed! 
Those  mountaineers  were  not  sujfficiently  enlightened  to  per 
ceive, — what  no  one  has  yet  perceived — that  the  seditions  and 
tumults  which  everywhere  marked  the  progress  of  the  Refor- 
mation were  favorable  to  liberty.  They  may  well  bless  the 
day,  in  which  they  took  the  resolution  to  adhere  to  the  faith 
of  their  patriotic  forefathers :  and,  from  their  mountain  hights, 
amidst  "  their  peaceful  retreats,"  they  may  look  down  with 
proud  complacency  on  their  "brethren  of  the  plain"  torn  by 
civil  factions  and  religious  dissensions — persecuting  and  pro- 
scribing one  another — all  in  consequence  of  their  having  had 
the  "intelligence"  to  embrace  the  "glorious  Reformation!" 

John  Quincy  Adams,  the  "  old  man  eloquent,"  has  offered 
a  far  more  plausible  solution  of  the  difficulty  which  so  sadly 
puzzled  the  mind  of  D'Aubigne.  In  a  speech,  which  he  made 
some  years  ago  at  Buffalo,  he  said  that  "  liberty  was  a  moun- 
tain nymph,"  who  loved  always  to  breathe  the  purest  air, 
and  to  dwell  in  the  most  lofty  situations,  nearest  to  heaven ! 
The  old  Swiss  cantons  had  an  instinctive  feeling  of  the  truth 
of  this  beautiful  and  poetic  thought.  They  loved  liberty,  and 
therefore  they  remained  Catholic* 

Did  our  space  permit,  we  might  here  show  what  were  the 
political  opinions  of  the  various  Catholic  States  of  Europe, 
adopted  under  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  Church,  for  cen 
turies  before  the  Reformation  was  even  heard  of.  We  might 
prove,  that  the  Catholic  Church  was  the  mother  of  republics ; 
and  that  during  what  are  sometimes  called  the  Dark  Ages, 
every  important  principle  of  free  government — popular  repre- 
sentation, trial  by  jury,  exemption  from  taxation  without  the 
consent  of  the  governed,  habeas  corpus,  and  the  great  funda- 
mental principle,  that  all  power  emanates  from  the  people — 

*  111  the  next  chapter,  we  will  show  the  political  thralldom  of  Geneva 
under  Calvin. 


SECURITY    TO    CHARACTER.  365 

were  generally  recognized  and  firmly  established.  We  might 
moreover  show,  how  almost  every  one  of  these  sacred  prin- 
ciples was  successfully  trampled  on  and  abolished  by  that 
very  Reformation,  which  is  forever  boasting  its  advocacy  of 
free  principles!  But  we  have  elsewhere  devoted  a  special 
essay  to  this  interesting  and  highly  suggestive  subject.*  By 
comparing  the  political  state  of  Europe  in  the  good  old  Cath- 
olic times,  with  what  it  subsequently  became,  after  the  Refor- 
mation had  done  its  work,  the  reader  will  be  best  enabled  to 
ascertain  and  appreciate  the  influence  of  this  latter  revolution 
on  civil  liberty. 

4.  Enough  has,  however,  been  already  established  to  enable 
the  impartial  reader  to  form  an  enlightened  judgment  on  the 
real  political  influence  of  the  Reformation.  We  have  seen, 
that  with  liberty  forever  on  its  lips,  it  really  trampled  under 
foot  almost  every  element  of  popular  government:  that  it 
weakened,  and  in  many  cases  for  a  long  time  entirely  des- 
troyed all  security  to  life,  to  property,  and  to  the  pursuit  of 
happiness  :  and  that  withal,  it  everywhere  imposed  the  intol- 
erable yoke  of  absolute  despotism,  with  union  of  church  and 
state,  on  the  necks  of  its  disciples. — And  all  this,  after  men 
had  been  seduced  to  its  banner,  by  the  enticing  name  of 
liberty  which  they  read  inscribed  thereon !  But  we  have 
scarcely  as  yet  alluded  to  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  on 
one  other  essential  element  of  free  government — security  to 
character.  Did  the  Reformation  provide  more  ample  security 
to  this — the  dearest  perhaps  of  all  human  rights — than  had 
been  insured  during  the  Catholic  times  ? 

The  Reformation,  as  we  have  already  shown,  created  dis- 
sensions and  sowed  distrust  among  those  who  had  been  hith- 
erto united  as  brethren.  It  split  up  the  religious  world,  till 
then  composing  but  "one  sheepfold  under  one  Shepherd," 
into  a  hundred  wai'ring  sects.     These  carried  on  bitter  con- 

*  See  the  essay,  On  the  Influence  of  CathoUcity  on  Civil  Liberty,  repub- 
lished in  our  Miso^Uanea. 


366  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CIVIL  LIBERTY. 

troversies  with  one  another,  while  all  united  in  fiercely  de- 
nouncing those  who  continued  faithful  to  the  religion  uf  their 
forefathers.  Acrimonious  denunciation,  and  pers  )nal  recrim- 
ination, with  the  most  scurrilous  abuse,  became  the  order  of 
the  day  under  the  new  state  of  things.  The  arms  of  ridicule, 
of  caricature,  of  misrepresentation,  and  of  open  calumny  were 
constantly  used,  in  the  hallowed  name  of  the  religion  of 
peace  and  love !  No  man's  character  was  any  longer  secure, 
especially  if  he  had  the  independence  to  adhere  to  the  ancient 
faith,  and  to  call  in  question  the  infallibility  of  the  new  dog- 
matizers. — Does  not  every  one  recognize  at  once  the  truth  of 
this  picture  ?  And  is  it  not  true,  to  a  great  extent,  even  at 
the  present  day?  What  security  then,  we  ask,  did  the  Ref- 
ormation provide  for  character? 

Thus,  the  boasted  Reformation  trampled  in  the  dust  every 
important  object  of  free  government:  security  to  life,  to  char- 
acter, to  property,  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  to  personal 
liberty.  And  still  we  are  to  be  told,  that  to  it  we  are  indebted 
for  all  the  liberty  we  possess ! 

In  further  confirmation  of  what  has  been  already  advanced 
in  this  and  the  preceding  chapters,  we  will  here  furnish  the 
testimony  of  the  two  recent  Protestant  travelers  referred  to 
above — Bremner  and  Laing — in  regard  to  the  present  condi- 
tion of  civil  and  religious  liberty  in  Northern  Europe,  which 
has  been  for  three  centuries  wholly  under  Protestant  influence. 

Bremner  assures  us  that  the  king  of  Denmark  is  '^  the  most 
uncontrolled  sovereign  in  Europe.  We  have  looked  for,"  he 
adds,  "but  can  find  no  single  check  to  the  power  of  the  king 
of  Denmark.  Laws,  property,  taxes,  all  are  at  the  mercy  of 
his  tyranny  or  caprice."  Tlie  Danes  boast  much  of  the  liber- 
ation of  the  peasants  in  1660 :  but  Mr.  Bremner  says,  "  that 
this  was  not  a  liberation  of  any  class  in  the  kingdom,  but  the 
more  complete  subjugation  of  all  classes  to  the  crown ;  and 
that  the  peasants  remained  and  still  remain  in  many  parts  of 
Denmark  little  better  than  serfs."* 

♦  In  the  work  cited  above,  chap.  viii. — See  DubUn  Review  for  May,  1843 


DENMARK    AND    SWEDEN.  367 

Laing  confirms  this  statement.     The  following  is  his   re- 
markable language: 

"  It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  circumstances  in  modern  history,  that 
about  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  when  all  other  countries  were 
advancing  towards  constitutional  arrangements  of  some  kind  or  other,  for 
the  security  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  Denmark  by  a  formal  act  of  her 
states  or  diet,  abrogated  even  that  shadow  of  a  constitution,  and  invested 
her  sovereigns  with  full  despotic  power  to  make  and  execute  law,  without 
any  check  or  control  on  their  absolute  authority.  Lord  Molesworth,  who 
wrote  an  account  of  Denmark  in  1692,  thirty-two  years  after  this  singular 
transaction,  makes  the  curious  observation — '  that  in  the  Romrm  Cntlwlic  re- 
Ugion  there  is  a  resisting  prinripJe  to  absolute  civil  power,  from  the  division  of 
authority  with  the  head  of  the  Church  at  Rome  ;  but  in  the  north,  the 
Lutheran  church  is  entirely  subservient  to  the  civil  power,  and  the  whole  of 
die  iwrthern  people  of  Protestant  countries,  have  lost  their  liberties  ever  since  they 
changed  their  religion  for  a  better.'  ....  'The  blind  obedience  which  is  de- 
structive of  natural  liberty,  is,  he  conceives,  more  iirmly  established  in  the 
northern  kingdoms  by  the  entire  and  sole  dependence  of  the  clergy  upon 
the  prince,  without  the  interference  of  any  spiritual  superior,  as  that  of  the 
Pope  among  Romanists,  than  in  the  countries  which  remained  Catholic'  "* 

This  observation  of  Lord  Molesworth,  startling  as  it  maj 
appear,  is  clearly  grounded  in  history;  and  Laing  further 
confirms  its  truth  in  his  interesting  work  on  Sweden.  He 
says: 

"  The  Swede  has  no  freedom  of  mind,  no  power  of  dissent  in  religious 
opinion  from  the  established  church ;  because  although  toleration  nominally 
exists,  a  man  not  baptized,  confirmed,  and  instructed  by  the  clergyman  of 
the  establishment,  could  not  communicate  in  the  established  church,  and 
could  not  marry,  or  hold  office,  or  exercise  any  act  of  majority  as  a  citizen — 
would,  in  fact,  be  an  outlaw ! " 

He  then  goes  on  to  prove  that  there  is  in  Sweden  a  most 
rigid  form  of  inquisition,  which  annually,  even  at  this  day, 
severely  punishes  from  forty  to  fifty  persons  for  alleged 
ofiences  against  religion 

"  The  crime  of  '  mockery  of  the  public  service  of  God,  or  contemptuous 

For  more  on  this  subject,  we  refer  the  reader  to  the  chapter  Df  our  second 
volume  on  the  Reformation  in  Denmark  etc. 
*  Work  cited  above,  chap.  viii. 


368  INFLUENCE  OF  REFORMATION  ON  CI\IL  LIBERTY. 

behavior  during  the  same,'  is  the  first  in  the  rubric  of  the  second  class  of 
crimes  :  that  is,  it  comes  after  murder,  blasplieni}',  sodomy,  but  before  per- 
jury, forgery,  or  theft.  It  is,  evidently,  a  very  undefined  crime,  but  is  vis- 
ited  with  punishment  in  chains  for  various  terms  of  years,  as  a  crime  against 
the  churcii  establishment.  Betvs^een  1830  and  1836,  not  fewer  than  two 
hundred  and  forty-two  persons  have  been  condemned  to  chains  for  this  crime 
in  Sweden.  Who  will  say,  that  the  inquisition  was  abolished  by  Luther's 
Eeformation  ?  It  has  only  been  incorporated  with  the  state  in  Lutheran 
countries,  and  exercised  by  the  church  through  the  ecclesiastical  department 
of  government  in  the  civil  courts,  instead  of  in  the  church  courts.  The 
thing  itself  remains  in  vigor ;  Lord  Molesworth  was  right  when  he  said, 
that  the  whole  of  the  northern  people  of  Lutheran  countries  had  lost  their 
liberties  ever  since  they  changed  their  rehgion  for  a  better."  (worse  ?) 

In  Sweden,  and,  in  fact,  in  all  Northern  Europe,  the  lower 
orders  are  but  little  better  than  slaves.  The  servant  may  be 
cudgeled  by  his  master,  and  no  matter  how  barbarously  he 
be  treated,  provided  he  be  neither  killed  nor  maimed,  he  has 
no  legal  recourse!     Laing  himself  tells  us  as  much. 

"  The  servant  has  no  right  of  action  on  the  master  for  personal  maltreat- 
ment, and  during  his  time  of  service  has  no  more  rights  than  a  slave." 
"  These  people,"  he  adds,  "  are  trained  to  obedience,  and  in  that  class,  to 
consider  nothing  their  own  but  what  is  left  to  them  by  the  clergy  and  the 
government,  to  whom,  in  the  first  place,  their  labors,  time,  and  property 
must  belong.  A  country  in  this  state,  wants  the  very  foundation  on  which 
civil  liberty  must  stand — a  sense  of  independence  and  property  among  the 
people." 

He  sums  up  his  remarks  on  the  political  and  religious  con- 
dition of  Sweden  as  follows : 

"  Such  a  state  of  laws  and  institutions  in  a  country,  reduces  the  people 
as  moral  beings  to  the  state  of  a  soldiery,  who,  if  they  fulfill  their  regimen- 
tal duties  and  military  regulations,  consider  themselves  absolved  from  all 
other  restraints  on  conduct.  This  is  the  condition  of  the  Swedish  people. 
The  mass  of  the  nation  is  in  a  state  of  pupilage,  living  like  soldiers  in  a 
regiment,  under  classes  or  oligarchies  of  privileged  bodies — the  public  func- 
tionaries, clergy,  nobility,  owners  of  estate  exempt  from  taxation,  and  incor- 
porated traders  exempt  from  competition.  Under  this  pressure  in  Sweden 
upon  industry,  property,  liberty,  free  opinion  and  free  will,  education  is  but 
a  source  of  amusement,  or  of  speculation  in  science,  without  influence  on 
private  morals,  or  public  affairs ;  and  religion,  a  superstitious  observance  of 
church  days,  forms,  and  ordinances,  with  a  bhnd  veneration  for  the  clergy,"  etc 


AND   PRUSSIA.  3GS 

The  politico-religious  condition  of  Prussia  is  not  u  whit 
more  flattering.  The  serf  system  continued  to  prevail  in  this 
kingdom  even  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  century ; 
and  Laing  assures  us,  that  "the  condition  of  these  born-serfs" 
— the  great  body  of  the  people — "  was  very  similar  to  that 
of  the  negro  slaves  on  the  West  India  estate  during  the  ap- 
prenticeship term,  before  their  final  emancipation." 

He  proves  that  the  so  much  vaunted  system  of  common 
school  education  in  Prussia,  is  little  more  than  a  powerful 
state  engine  to  enslave  the  people. 

"  This  educational  system  is,  in  fact,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  nothing 
but  a  deception,  a  delusion  put  upon  the  noblest  principle  of  human  nature — 
the  desire  for  intellectual  development — a  deception  practiced  for  the  paltry 
political  end  of  rearing  the  individual  to  be  part  and  parcel  of  an  artificial 
system  of  despotic  government,  of  training  him  to  be  either  its  instrument 
or  its  slave,  according  to  his  social  station." 

He  further  demonstrates  the  utter  political  degradation  of 
Prussia,  by  enlarging  upon  the  apathy  with  which  the  royal 
fusion  of  the  two  Protestant  sects  into  one  by  the  late  king 
of  Prussia,  was  viewed  by  the  mass  of  the  population.  He. 
proves  at  length  that  the  Prussian  is,  in  every  respect,  the 
veriest  political  and  religious  slave — bound  hand  and  foot  by 
government. 

Such  then  has  been,  from  unexceptionable  Protestant  testi- 
mony, the  practical  influence  of  the  Reformation  on  civil  and 
religious  liberty  in  those  countries  where  that  influence  has 
been  least  checked,  and  longest  exercised ! 

\^' '''' 


370  REFORMATION   IN    GENEVA. 


CHAPTER     XIV. 

THE    REFORMATION   AT    GENEVA,  AND    ITS    INFLUENCE 
ON    CIVIL    AND    RELIGIOUS    LIBERTY. 

Character  of  Calvinism — Protestant  historians — The  "Registers" — Audm — 
Calvin's  character — His  activity — His  heartlessness — Luther  and  Calvic 
compared — Early  liberties  of  Geneva — The  "Libertines" — Blue  laws — 
Spy  system — Persecution — Death  of  Gruet — Burning  of  Servetus — Hal- 
lam's  testimony — Morals  of  Calvin — His  zeal — His  complicated  diseases — 
His  last  will — His  awful  death  and  mysterious  burial — A  douceur — The 
inference. 

The  second  great  branch  of  the  German  Reformation  was 
that  established  at  Geneva  bj  John  Calvin.  Of  all  the  re- 
formers, he  was  perhaps  the  most  acute,  learned,  and  talented. 
And  he  has  succeeded,  better  perhaps  than  any  of  them  all, 
in  impressing  his  own  stern  and  morose  character  on  the  sect 
he  founded.  Geneva  was  the  center  of  his  operations,  as 
Wittenberg  was  of  those  of  Luther,  and  Zurich,  of  those  of 
Zuingle.  Starting  from  Geneva,  Calvinism  soon  spread 
through  Switzerland,  and  it  afterwards  extended  to  France, 
Holland,  Scotland,  and  England.  Even  on  the  soil  of  Ger 
many  itself,  it  was  soon  able  to  dispute  the  supremacy  with 
the  sect  previously  established  by  Luther.  We  have  deferred 
till  now  our  account  of  the  origin  and  progress  of  Calvinism, 
because  we  intend  to  view  it  chiefly  in  its  bearing  on  the 
subjects  treated  of  in  the  two  last  chapters — civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty.  Besides,  in  point  of  time,  it  is  posterior  to 
the  branches  of  the  Reformation  established  respectively  by 
Luther  and  Zuingle. 

Much  additional  light  has  been  lately  shed  on  the  history 
of  early  Calvinism.  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic  historians 
have  labored  with  great  success  in  this  interesting  field. 
Among  the  former,  we  mention  as  among  the  most  distin- 
guished,  Galiffe,   Gaberel,  and  Fazy.     These  three  learned 


RECENT   PROTESTANT    RESEARCHES.  371 

Protestants  hav^e  al]  greatly  contributed  to  elucidate  the  his- 
tory of  Geneva  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The  last  named 
published  in  1838  at  Geneva,  his  Essay  on  the  History  of  the 
Genevan  Republic,*  in  which  he  enlarges  on  the  influence 
of  Calvinism  on  the  destinies  of  the  republic.  The  work  of 
Gaberel,  entitled  Calvin  at  Geneva,t  enters  still  more  directly 
into  the  subject,  and  furnishes  many  additional  details. 

But,  for  ability,  and  research  into  the  history  of  early  Cal- 
vinism, they  are  both  perhaps  surpassed  by  Galiffe.  Hia 
three  volumes  of  Genealogical  Notices  of  Genevan  Families,^ 
unfold  much  of  the  secret  history  of  Geneva  under  the  the- 
ocracy of  Calvin.  He  has  ferreted  out  and  published  to  the 
world  the  famous  Registers  of  the  Genevan  ecclesiastical 
consistory  and  cantonal  council  during  the  sixteenth  century. 
These  had  been  long  lost  to  the  world.  The  friends  of  Calvin 
seem  to  have  carefully  concealed  them,  out  of  respect  to  the 
character  of  their  father  in  the  ftiith. 

When,  some  years  ago,  Vemet  requested  the  Genevan  sec- 
retary of  state,  Chapeaurouge,  to  communicate  to  him  the 
order  of  proceedings  touching  Servetus,  the  council  of  state, 
to  whom  the  matter  was  referred,  refused  to  grant  the  request. 
However,  Calandrini,  the  syndic  of  Geneva,  answered,  that 
"  the  conduct  of  Calvin  and  of  the  council  in  that  aflair  were 
such,  that  they  wished  to  bury  it  in  deep  oblivion,"§  But 
thanks  to  the  indefatigable  researches  of  Galiffe,  and  to  the 
growing  indifference  of  the  ministers  of  Geneva  for  the  mem- 
ory of  Calvin,  those  long  hidden  records  of  the  political  and 
religious  history  of  Geneva  during  Calvin's  lifetime,  have 
been  at  length  revealed  to  the  world.  A  Protestant  has  thus 
removed  the  dark  veil  which  had  hung  over  the  cradle  of 
Calvinism  for  centuries. 

*  "Essai  d'un  precis  de  I'Histoire  ie  la  Rep.  Genevaise,"2  vols.,  8vo. 
t  "  Calvin  k  Geneve,"  8vo.  1836. 

I  "Notices  Genealogiques  sur  les  Families  Gcnevaises,"  3  vols.  1831,  1836 
5  The  letter  of  the  syndic  is  published  in  full  by  GaUffe  in  his  "  Notices,' 
sup.  cit. 


372  REFORMATION   IN    GENEVA. 

In  his  life  of  Calvin,*  Audin  has  availed  himself  of  the 
labors  of  all  his  predecessors  in  this  interesting  branch  of  re- 
ligious history.  He  had  previously  qualified  himself  for  hia 
task  by  much  patient  labor  and  research.  He  assures  us  that 
there  was  not  a  library  of  any  note  in  France  or  Germany 
which  he  did  not  visit.f  In  his  travels,  he  discovered  many 
letters  of  Calvin  hitherto  unpublished.  Among  these  is  his 
famous  letter  to  Farel,  which  he  found  in  the  hand-writing 
of  Calvin  himself,  in  the  royal  library  at  Paris.J  The  publi- 
cation of  this  letter — which  is  of  undoubted  genuineness  § — 
has  rendered  manifest  what  before  was  strongly  suspected — 
the  agency  of  Calvin  in  compassing  the  death  of  Servetus. 

In  what  we  will  have  to  say  on  the  history  of  the  Refor- 
mation at  Geneva,  we  shall  follow  all  these  authors.  More 
particularly  will  we  avail  ourselves  of  the  fiicts  disclosed  by 
the  learned  and  pains-taking  Audin.  Our  plan  does  not  of 
course  require,  nor  will  the  limits  of  a  single  chapter  permit, 
any  very  lengthy  details  on  the  history  of  early  Calvinism. 
The  character  of  this  branch  of  the  Reformation,  is,  in  fact, 
nearly  the  same  as  that  of  those  of  "Wittenberg  and  Zurich, 
of  which  we  have  already  treated  at  some  length.  Similar 
means  were  also  adopted  to  bring  it  about.  Its  effects  on  so- 
ciety, as  we  shall  endeavor  to  show,  were  also  nearly  the 
?ame. 

John  Calvin  was  born  at  Noyon,  in  France,  on  the  10th  of 
Tuly,  1509,  and  he  died  at  Geneva,  on  the  19th  of  May,  1564, 
in  the  fifty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  The  first  feature  which 
strikes  us  in  his  character,  is  his  untiring  industry  and  restless 
activity.  Whether  we  view  him  as  a  student  frequenting  the 
schools  of  Paris,  as  a  minister  at  Geneva,  concerting  with  the 

♦  "  Histoire  de  la  Yie,  des  Ouvrages  et  des  Doctrines  de  Calvin  " — Par 

Audin,  auteur  de  "I'Histoire  de  Luther," — 2  vols.,  8vo.  Paris,  184:3.     This 

(vork  has  been  translated  into  English  by  the  present  distinguished  bishop 

)f  Richmond.     Our  quotations  are  from  the  original. 

f  Introduction,  p.  19.  |  Published  in  full,  vol.  ii,  p.  313,  seqq 

5  See  Ilallam — Hist  of  Literature,  vol.  i,  p.  280. — Note. 


Calvin's  character.  373 

ministers  Farel  and  Froment  his  plans  for  carrying  out  the 
Reformation,  as  an  exile  at  Strasburg,  intermeddlir  g  with  the 
affairs  of  German  diets  and  German  reformers,  or^  after  his 
return  to  Geneva  from  the  exile  into  which  his  own  restless- 
ness had  driven  him  ; — throughout  his  whole  life,  in  fact,  he 
is  the  same  busy,  intriguing,  restless  character.  He  was 
never  asleep  at  his  post ;  he  was  always  on  the  alert ;  he 
toiled  day  and  night  in  carrying  out  his  plans. 

He  was  as  cool  and  calculating  as  he  was  active.  He 
seldom  failed, by  one  means  or  another,  to  put  down  an  enemy 
— and  every  opponent  was  Ms  enemy — because  he  could 
seldom  be  taken  at  a  disadvantage.  His  vigilance  detected 
their  plans,  and  his  prompt  activity  generally  thwarted  them. 
Though  very  irritable,  and  inexorable  in  his  anger,  yet  his 
passion  did  not  cloud  his  understanding,  nor  hinder  the  carry- 
ing out  of  his  deliberate  purpose.  In  temperament  he  was 
cold  and  repulsive,  even  sour  and  morose.  He  mingled  little 
with  others,  and  was  as  reserved  in  his  conversation  as  he 
•was  fond  of  retirement  and  study. 

If  he  had  any  heart,  he  never  gave  evidence  of  the  fact  by 
the  manifestation  of  feeling.  At  the  death  of  his  first  and 
only  child,  he  appears  to  have  shed  not  one  tear.  In  a  letter 
to  the  minister  Viret,  he  coldly  informed  him  of  the  fact,  and 
invited  him  to  pay  him  a  visit  at  Strasburg,  telling  him,  as 
an  inducement  to  come,  "that  they  could  enjoy  themselves, 
and  talk  together  for  half  a  day."*  He  never  manifested  the 
least  sympathy  for  those  in  distress,  though  in  many  cases  he 
was  himself  the  cause  of  their  sufferings.  Thus,  when  Ser- 
vetus,  on  hearing  that  he  was  condemned  to  the  stake,  gave 
way  to  his  feelings  in  a  burst  of  agony  and  tears,  Calvin 
mocked  at  his  distress  by  writing  to  one  of  his  friends  "  that 
he  bellowed  after  the  manner  of  a  Spaniard — mercy,  mercy ."f 

*  See  Audin,  Vie  de  Calvin,  vol.  i,  p.  351,  note,  for  Calvin's  words. 
f  "Ut  tantum  Hispanico   more  reboaret :  Misericordia,   misericordia ! " 
Tbid.,  vol.  ii,  p.  304. 
24 


374  REFORMATION   IN    GENEVA. 

Thus  also,  when  Castalio,  one  of  the  most  excellent  men 
and  accomplished  scholars  of  his  age,  was  on  the  very  verge 
of  starvation  at  Berne,  whither  he  had  repaired  to  escape 
Calvin's  persecution  at  Geneva,  the  reformer  had  the  cold- 
heartedness  to  remind  him  that  he  had  fed  at  his  table  in 
Strasburg ;  and,  to  do  away  with  the  effect  of  Castalio's  argu- 
ments, which  he  found  it  difficult  to  answer,  he  even  accused 
him  of  theft !  To  the  first  charge  Castalio  answered,  "  1 
lodged  with  you,  it  is  true,  about  a  week  ....  but  I  paid  you 
for  what  I  had  eaten.  How  cordially  you  and  Beza  hate 
me."*  The  charge  of  theft  he  indignantly  repelled  as  fol- 
lows :  "  And  who  told  that  ?  Your  spies  have  deceived  you. 
Reduced  to  the  most  frightful  misery  ....  I  took  a  hook,  and 
went  to  gather  the  wood  which  floated  upon  the  Rhine,  which 
belonged  to  no  one,  and  which  I  fished  up,  and  burnt  after- 
wards at  my  house  to  warm  myself.  Do  you  call  this  theft  ?"t 
Castalio,  thus  hunted  down  by  his  inexorable  enemy,  literally 
died  of  hunger  while  struggling  to  maintain  by  his  learning 
a  wife  and  eight  children.  But  he  had  had  the  misfortune 
to  difler  with  Calvin  on  predestination  while  at  Geneva,  and 
the  boldness  to  reprove  him  and  his  colleagues  with  an  intol- 
erant spirit. — "  Paul,"  he  had  told  them,  "  chastised  himself, 
you  torment  others  ."J 

Calvin's  personal  appearance  was  an  index  to  his  character. 
He  was  of  middle  hight,  of  a  lean  and  supple  figure,  with  a 
contracted  chest,  with  the  veins  of  his  neck  full  and  promi- 
nent, his  mouth  well  made  and  large,  his  lips  bluish,  his 
forehead  expanded,  bony,  and  furrowed  with  wrinkles,  his 
eye  restless,  and,  when  he  was  excited,  darting  fire.  His 
ceaseless  labors  caused  him  to  become  prematurely  gray,  and 
gave  him  a  pale  and  cadaverous  aspect.  He  was  a  man 
from  whose  ap})earance  you  would  expect  little  that  was  not 
the  result  of  hard  labor. 


♦  Castalio — Defensio,  pp.  26,  40. — Apud  Audin,  ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  239. 
+  Defens.,  p.  12,  ibid.  p.  240.  I  Ibid.,  p.  234. 


LUTHER    AND    CALVIN    COMPARED.  375 

What  a  contrast  between  him  and  Luther!  Luther,  a 
ci  mature  of  impulse,  a  portly  ex-friar,  fond  of  good  cheer, 
and  never  more  at  home  than  when  conversing  with  boon 
companions  at  his  favorite  resort,  the  Black  Eagle  tavern: 
Calvin,  meager,  silent,  and  morose,  shut  up  within  himself, 
chilling  all  with  his  reserve — all  head  and  no  heart.  In  the 
pulpit  the  difference  was  equally  marked.  Luther  spoke  ex- 
temporaneously, and,  without  method  or  choice  of  words, 
bore  down  all  before  him  by  a  torrent  of  passionate  invective 
or  boisterous  declamation.  Calvin  was  cold  and  unimpas- 
sioned,  his  diction  was  pure  and  polished,  his  thoughts  clear 
and  precise,  and  his  whole  manner  calculated  to  make  a 
more  deep  and  lasting  impression  on  his  hearers.  Calvin's 
was  the  eloquence  of  the  head,  Luther's  that  of  the 
heart. 

But  they  agreed  in  one  thing,  if  in  little  else :  they  both 
crushed  the  liberties  of  the  people  in  the  countries  which 
were  the  respective  theaters  of  their  labors.  Their  profession 
of  breaking  the  bonds  of  religious  slavery,  and  of  securing 
political  freedom  to  the  people,  was  all  mere  talk.  It  is  too 
late  in  the  day  to  hold  them  up  as  the  champions  of  popular 
rights.  The  effect  of  the  Reformation,  both  at  Wittenberg 
and  at  Geneva,  was  obviously  to  weaken  the  democratic 
principle ;  in  both  places  the  rights  of  the  lower  orders  were 
ruthlessly  trampled  under  foot.  In  Germany,  Luther  conjured 
up  a  storm  which  he  could  not  control.  We  have  already 
shown  how  he  firet  stirred  up  the  people  to  revolt,  and  then 
clamored  for  their  blood,  and  how  completely  he  succeeded 
in  destroying  their  liberties.  Calvin  also  crushed  the  liber- 
ties of  the  people,  but  in  a  more  insidious  manner:  he  robbed 
them  of  their  liberty  in  the  name  of  liberty.  A  foreigner, 
he  insinuated  himself  into  Geneva,  and,  serpent-like,  coiled 
himself  around  tlie  very  heart  of  the  republic  which  had 
given  him  hospitable  shelter,  and  had  adopted  him ;  nor  did 
he  relax  his  hold  so  long  as  he  lived.  He  thus  stung  the 
very  bosom  which  had  warmed  him.     That  this  language 


376  REFORMATION    IN   GENEVA. 

is  not  too  strong,  the  following  plain  statement  of  facts  wiL 
sufficiently  show. 

The  cantons  of  Switzerland  formed  one  of  the  many  re- 
publics  of  the  middle  ages.  They  owed  all  their  liberties, 
and  even  their  very  existence  as  a  distinct  government,  to 
Catholics  in  Catholic  times.  William  Tell,  Melchtal,  and 
Furst  were  the  fathers  of  Swiss  liberty.  In  1307  was  fought 
by  these  heroes  the  famous  battle  of  Morgarten,  which  drove 
the  Austrians  from  Switzerland,  and  secured  Swiss  independ- 
ence. The  bishops  of  Geneva  had  been  its  earliest  and 
greatest  benefactors.  They  had  more  than  once  protected 
the  rights  of  the  city  against  the  aggressions  of  the  dukes 
of  Savoy  themselves.  One  of  them — ^^Adhemar  Fabri — as 
early  as  1387,  had  written  out  the  laws  and  privileges  of  the 
city;  and  the  book  was  venerated  as  containing  the  magna 
charta  of  Genevan  liberties.  Those  laws  provided  that  the 
citizens  had  the  sole  right  of  inflicting  capital  punishment ; 
that  none  should  be  tortured  without  the  consent  of  the 
people;  that,  from  the  rising  to  the  setting  of  the  sun,  the 
citizens  were  the  sole  guardians  of  the  city;  that  no  agent 
of  the  duke  or  bishop  could  exercise  any  power  during  that 
time,  and  that  the  citizens  alone  had  the  right  to  elect  their 
burgomasters.* 

Calvin  soon  trampled  upon  every  one  of  these  cherished 
popular  privileges.  At  the  instigation  of  the  ministers  Farel 
and  Froment,  Geneva  had  already  cast  ofi'  the  mild  yoke  of 
her  episcopal  court.  Instead  of  it,  she  was  doomed  to  wear, 
firmly  riveted  on  her  neck,  the  iron  yoke  of  Calvin's  consis- 
tory. This  spiritual  court  of  Calvin's  devising  gradually 
monopolized  all  power  in  Geneva.  The  hitherto  free  council 
of  the  burgomasters  became  a  mere  tool  in  its  hands.  "With 
its  manifold  appliances  of  preachers,  elders,  and  spies,  it  pen- 

*  Hottinger,  Hist,  des  Eglises  de  la  Suisse ;  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  15.  Those 
laws  are  written  in  the  quaint  old  Latin  of  that  period,  and  they  present  a 
strange  mixture  of  the  old  Savoyard  Patois  with  the  classical  Latin.  The 
Style  is  very  similar  to  that  of  the  English  Magna  Charta. 


GENEVA    IN    CATHOLIC    TIMES.  377 

etrated  everywhere,  and  struck  terror  into  every  bosom.  The 
pulpit  was  then  a  powerful  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
police.  Every  one  trembled  at  the  denunciation  of  the  minis- 
ters, for  it  was  almost  sure  to  be  followed  by  ulterior  conse- 
qusnces  in  the  social  and  civil  order. 

Whoever  will  read  Audin's  book,  and  the  Protestant  his- 
torians referred  to  above,  must  be  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
these  remarks.  Our  limits  will  not  allow  copious  details ;  we 
must  confine  ourselves  to  some  of  the  more  prominent  facts  in 
support  of  the  strong  statement  just  made. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Geneva  was  one 
of  the  great  commercial  centers  of  Europe.  Occupying  a 
central  position  between  Italy,  Germany,  and  France,  it  was 
a  common  mart  for  the  goods  of  all  these  countries.  The 
enterprising  flocked  thither  from  almost  every  part  of  Europe. 
It  became  also  a  city  of  refuge  for  all  the  uneasy  and  restless 
spirits,  who,  in  consequence  of  religious  or  political  intrigues, 
had  been  forced  to  leave  their  own  country.  The  population 
of  Geneva  was,  on  this  account,  of  a  most  motley  character. 
Calvin  was  among  the  many  French  refugees  who  took  shelter 
there.  Before  his  arrival,  the  Reformation  had  been  already 
begun  through  the  agency  of  Fare!  and  Froment.  Its  course 
had  oeen  marked,  as  elsewhere,  by  pillage  of  the  churches, 
by  seizure  of  church  property,  by  destruction  of  works  of  art, 
by  robbery  and  sacrilege,  and  by  massacres.  La  Soeur  Jeanne 
de  Jussie,  a  nun  of  St.  Clare,  an  eye-witness  of  these  horrors, 
and  a  suflerer  by  them,  has  left  a  most  graphic  description  of 
them,  and  Audin  has  given  us  an  abstact  of  her  interesting 
work.* 

Such  was  the  state  of  things  when  Calvin  came  to  Geneva. 
Among  its  citizens,  the  mechanics  and  common  laborers 
formed  a  numerous  class.  These  constituted  too  a  distinct 
political  party,  who  viewed  with  an  evil  eye  the  ascendency 
acquired  by  Calvin  and  the  other  foreign  refugees.     Calvin 

*  Audin.  vol.  i,  p.  195  to  215. 
VOL.  I. — 32 


378  REFORMATIOxV   IN   GENEVA. 

could  not  brook  them,  and  lie  styled  them  sneeringly  the 
party  of  the  Libertines.  The  history  of  his  protracted  and 
bitter  contest  with  them  forms  the  matter  of  many  long  and 
highly  interesting  chapters  in  Audin's  book.*  The  high-priest 
of  Geneva  could  not  bear  them,  because,  in  their  evening- 
parties,  they  took  the  unwarrantable  liberty  of  laughing  at 
liim — at  his  cadaverous  figure,  his  withered  hands,  and  his 
nasal  twang  in  the  pulpit ;  and  because  they  had  even  gone 
80  far  as  to  call  him  "  le  renard  Francois,  or  the  French  fox."f 

Besides,  they  had  the  unpardoiiable  efl'rontery  to  drink 
healths,  to  dance,  and  otherwise  amuse  themselves  when  the 
labors  of  the  day  were  over.  Calvin's  sour  and  morose  tem- 
perament could  ill  brook  this  social  cheerfulness,  and  espe- 
cially the  witty  or  malicious  sallies  at  his  own  expense. 
Besides,  he  was  troubled  with  the  asthma,  and  was  subject  to 
vertigo  and  headache.  —  And  what  right  had  those  vulgar 
clowns  to  shock  his  nerves,  or  to  disturb  his  sleep  ?  What 
right  had  they  to  their  old  and  long-cherished  national  amuse- 
ments, if  it  was  in  the  least  displeasing  to  the  humor  of  this 
splenetic  stranger  \  What  right  had  they  to  sing,  or  to  laugh 
at  his  peculiarities  ?  If  it  was  not  downright  blasphemy,  as 
the  ministers  more  than  once  intimated  from  the  pulpit,  it 
was  at  least  very  impolite  in  them  not  to  wear  longer  faces, 
at  least  while  lie  was  in  the  city. 

Calvin  determined  to  put  down  the  Libertines  ;  and,  the 
better  to  efiect  his  purpose,  he  procured  the  enactment  of  a 
body  of  laws,  of  which  we  will  here  give  a  few  specimens. 
They  show  us  what  was  the  spirit,  and  what  was  the  legisla 
tion  of  Calvinism  from  its  very  birth. 

"They  punished  with  imprisonment  the  lady  who  arranged  her  hair  with 
too  much  coquetry  (the  ministers  were  to  judge),  and  even  her  chambermaid 
who  assisted  at  her  toilet ;  the  merchant  who  played  at  cards,  the  peasant 
who  spoke  too  harshly  to  his  beast,  and  the  citizen  who  had  not  extinguished 
his  lamp  at  the  hour  appointed  by  law."! — "Men  were  forbidden  to  dance 

*  Audin,  chapters  i,  vi,  viii,  and  xv  of  vol.  ii.  f  Ibid.,  vol.  ii,  p.  13,  seq 

4  Ibid  vol.  ii,  p.  12. 


BLUE    LAWS   AND    ESPIONAGE.  379 

with  women,  or  to  wear  figured  hose,  or  flowered  breeches."* — "  Three  tan- 
ners were  put  in  prison  for  three  days,  on  bread  and  water,  for  having  eaten 
at  breakfast  three  dozen  pieces  of  pastry,  which  was  great  dissoluteness."f — 
"  They  forbade  any  one  to  have  a  cross,  or  any  other  badge  of  popery." — "A 
merchant  who  sold  wafers  marked  with  a  cross  was  fined  sixty  sols,  and  his 
wafers  were  cast  into  the  fire  as  scandalous."! 

"  Woe  to  him  who  did  not  uncover  his  head  at  the  approach  of  Calvin ;  he 
was  fined.  Woe  to  him  that  gave  him  a  flat  contradiction  ;  he  was  brought 
before  the  consistory,  and  menaced  with  excommunication.  ^  Woe  to  ths 
girl  who  presented  herself  to  be  married  with  a  bunch  of  flowers  in  her 
bonnet,  if  her  chastity  was  even  suspected  by  the  consistory.  Woe  to  him 
who  danced  on  the  day  of  his  marriage ;  he  was  imprisoned  for  three  days. 
Woe  to  the  young  married  lady  if  she  wore  shoes  according  to  the  present 
fashion  of  Berne:  she  was  publicly  reprimanded."  1| 

This  minute  and  vexatious  Calvinistic  legislation  regulated 
even  the  number  of  plates  which  should  appear  on  the  table 
of  the  rich,  and  the  quality  of  butter  to  be  sold,  etc.^ 

"All  were  ordered  to  eat  meat  on  Fridays  and  Saturdays,  under  penalty 
of  imprisonment :  and  the  night-watch  was  ordered  to  proclaim  that  no  one 
should  make  slashed  doublets  or  hose,  or  wear  them  hereafter  under  penalty 
of  sixty  sols."** — "  Chapius  was  put  in  prison  for  having  persisted  in  calling 
his  cliild  Claud,  although  the  minister  wished  to  call  iiin  Abraham.  Ho 
had  said  that,  rather  than  do  this,  he  would  keep  ■  his  child  fifteen  years 
without  baptism.ff  He  was  kept  in  prison  four  days." — "  One  day  a  relation 
presented  himself  at  the  altar  with  a  young  girl  of  Nantes  to  be  married. 
The  minister,  Abel  Poupin,  asked  him  :  Will  you  be  faithful  to  your  wife  ? 
The  bridegroom  instead  of  answering  yes,  only  inclined  his  head.  Hence 
great  tumult  among  the  assistants.  He  was  sent  to  prison,  obliged  to  ask 
pardon  of  the  young  lady's  uncle,  and  condemned  to  bread  and  water."|| 

We  might  multiply  facts  of  the  kind,  to  exhibit  still  fur- 
ther the  peculiarities  of  this  singular  code.  The  pious  Cal- 
vinistic legislators  who  enacted  the  hlue  laws  of  Conneo- 
ticQt  could  at  least  boast  precedent  if  not  common  sense,  for 

*  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  138,  from  Register  of  Geneva,  1522,  July  14. 

t  Ibid.  Register,  13th,  February,  1558.  t  Ibid.,  p.  173. 

{  Ibid.  Register,  31st  Dec.  1543. 

II  Reglement  de  Rolice,  29th  July,  1549,  ibid.  If  Ibid. 

**  Register,  16th  April,  1543     Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  185. 

ft  Register,  1546 ;  ibid.  tt  Ibid.,  p.  186. 


380  REFORMATION    I^    GENEVA. 

their  curious  enactments.  Tlie  abo\  e,  liowevex',  are  but  small 
scraps  of  Genevese  legislation  under  Calvin's  theocracy.  To 
understand  fully  the  spirit  of  his  laws,  .vn  all  their  length  and 
breadth,  you  must  read  the  criminal  prosecutions  of  Berthel- 
lier,  Gruet,  Gentilis,  Bolsec,  Ami  Perrin,  Francis  Favre,  and 
Servetus,  copious  portions  of  which  are  spread  before  us  by 
Audin,  from  the  original  documents.  We  may  have  occasion 
to  refer  to  some  of  these  a  little  later. 

To  ferret  out  and  punish  the  infractors  of  these  singular 
laws,  Calvin  established  a  regular  system  of  espionage. 

"  He  kept  in  his  pay  secret  informers,  in  order  to  learn  the  secrets  of  fami- 
lies."*— "  Besides  these,  there  was  another  band  of  spies,  the  elders,  recog- 
nized by  law,  who  could  penetrate  once  a  week  into  the  most  mysterious 
sanctuary  of  domestic  life,  in  order  to  report  to  the  consistory  .what  they 
might  see  and  hear."f — "  In  one  single  year,  the  consistory  instituted  more 
than  two  hundred  prosecutions  for  blasphemy,  calumny,  obscene  language, 
lechery,  insults  to  Calvin,  offenses  against  the  ministers,  and  attempts  against 
the  French  exiles."]: 

The  liberties  of  the  city  were  now  totally  crushed,  and 
every  one  trembled  for  his  life !  Tlie  spies  whom  Calvin  em- 
ployed were  chiefly  from  among  the  most  degraded  of  the 
French  refugees ;  and  this  odious  practice  was  carried  to  such 
lengths  that  the  citizens  trembled  at  the  approach  of  one  of 
these  sinister  individuals.  A  curious  instance  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  these  miscreants  is  found  in  the  Registers  of  Geneva. 

"  Master  Eaymond,  a  spy,  was  passing  by  the  bridge,  when  he  heard  a 
voice  saying  '  Go  to  the  devil ! ' — '  Who  is  that  ? '  asked  Raymond  of  Domi- 
nic Clement,  who  was  present.  Dominic  answered :  '  'Tis  a  girl  who  is 
wishing  the  "  Renard,"  or  "  Fox,"  at  the  devil'  Raymond  thought  the  man 
meant  to  insult  him  :  '  You  are  a  fox  yourself,'  says  he  to  Dominic,  who  an- 
swered, '  I  am  as  good  a  man  as  you  are,  and  have  not  at  least  been  banished 
from  my  country.'  Dominic  was  denounced  to  the  consistory,  which  shaiply 
reproved  him.  On  his  wishing  to  justify  himself,  Calvin  silenced  him,  say- 
ing, '  Hush,  you  have  blasphemed  against  God  in  saying  I  have  not  been 
banished.'"^ 

♦  Audfn,  vol.  ii,  p.  149.  t  ^Wd-,  p.  150. 

t  Ibid  5  Ibid.,  p.  167. 


CALVIN    INEXORABLE   AND    BLOOD-THIRSTY.  381 

Our  historian  furnishes  us  with  a  number  of  such  facts. 
Every  enemy  of  Calvin  was  closely  watched,  and  could 
scarcely  escape  being  denounced.  Woe  to  him  who  smiled 
while  Calvin  was  preaching,  even  though  he  treated  his  hear- 
ers as  "  letchers,  blasphemers,  and  dogs."  "  Three  persons 
who  had  smiled  at  a  sermon  of  Calvin,  on  seeing  a  man  fall 
from  his  chair  asleep,  were  denounced,  condemned  to  three 
days  of  imprisonment  on  bread  and  water,  and  to  beg  par- 
don."* These  spies  laid  snares  for  the  simple.  "  They  asked 
a  Norman  who  was  going  to  Montpellier,  whether  he  intended 
to  change  his  religion."  The  Norman  replied,  "  I  dont  think 
the  Church  is  so  narrowly  bounded,  as  to  hang  from  the  girdle 
of  M.  Calvin."     He  was  denounced  and  banished  !f 

Talk  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  after  this  !  And  yet  these  are 
not  the  darkest  shades  of  the  picture.  Far  from  it.  They  are  but 
mere  trifles,  when  compared  with  the  horrible  facts  developed 
in  the  criminal  prosecutions  alluded  to  above.  Whosoever 
opposed  Calvin,  whether  in  religion  or  in  politics,  was  hunted 
down  and  his  blood  was  sought  at  his  instigation.  He  never 
forgave  a  personal  injury.  In  regard  to  his  enemies,  he  was 
as  watchful  as  a  tiger  preparing  to  pounce  on  its  prey — and 
as  treacherous  !  This  is  strong  language  ;  but  it  is  more  than 
justified  by  the  official  records  of  Geneva.  We  will  present  a 
few  of  the  more  striking  facts  in  confirmation  of  our  statement. 

How  sanguinary,  for  instance,  is  the  spirit  breathed  in  this 
extract  of  Calvin's  letter  to  the  Marquis  de  Pouet ! 

"  Do  not  hesitate  to  rid  the  country  of  those  fanatical  fellows  (faquins), 
who  in  their  conversation  seek  to  excite  the  people  against  us,  who  blacken 
our  conduct,  and  would  fain  make  our  belief  pass  as  a  revery :  such  monsters 
ought  to  he  strangled,  as  I  did,  in  the  execution  of  Michael  Servetus,  the 
Spaniard."J 

His  vindictive  conduct  towards  Pierre  Ameaux,  a  member 
of  the  Genevan  council  of  twenty-five,  is  a  fit  commentary 
on  this  sentiment.     At  a  supper,  this  man,  inflamed  with 


*  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  171.  f  Ibid.,  p.  179.  f  Ibid.,  p.  172. 


382  REFORMATION   IN    GENEVA. 

wine,  had  said  some  hard  things  of  Calvin.  At  his  table, 
another  man,  Henry  de  la  Mar,  had  also  said,  amidst  the 
general  applause  of  the  guests:  "That  Calvin  was  a  spiteful 
and  vindictive  man,  who  never  pardoned  any  one  against 
whom  he  had  a  grudge." — The  next  morning,  Ameaux  was 
cited  before  the  council,  where  he  excused  himself  on  the 
ground  that  he  was  excited  with  wine.  The  council  fined 
him  thirty  thalers — a  large  sum  at  that  time.  "  On  hearing 
of  this  sentence,  Calvin  arose,  donned  his  doctor's  dress,  and 
escorted  by  the  ministers  and  elders,  penetrated  into  the  hall 
of  the  council,  demanded  justice  in  the  name  of  that  God 
whom  Pierre  Ameaux  had  outraged,  in  the  name  of  the 
morals  he  had  sullied,  and  of  the  laws  he  had  violated ;  and 
declared  that  he  would  quit  Geneva,  if  the  man  were  not 
compelled  to  make  the  amende  honorable — a  public  apology, 
bareheaded,  at  the  city  hotel,"  and  in  two  other  public  places ! 
The  council  yielded ;  and  "  the  next  day,  Ameaux,  half  naked, 
with  a  torch  in  his  hand,  accused  himself  in  a  loud  voice  of 
having  knowingly  and  wickedly  offended  God,  and  begged 
pardon  of  his  fellow-citizens."* — What  is  to  be  thought  of  a 
man,  who  could  thus  crush  a  penitent  and  stricken  enemy ! 
Had  he  aught  of  the  spirit  of  that  God-Man  who  "  would  not 
break  the  bruised  reed  ? " 

Henry  la  Mar,  the  other  culprit,  did  not  escape.  He  was 
dogged  by  Texier,  one  of  Calvin's  spies,  who  extracted  from 
his  lips,  under  an  oath  of  secresy,  some  words  disrespectful 
to  his  master.  Texier  came  running  to  Calvin  with  the  news, 
saying  that  he  did  not  think  himself  bound  by  his  oath,  when 
the  public  good  required  the  disclosure.  "  Calvin  accused 
La  Mar,  caused  him  to  lose  his  situation,  and  had  him  con- 
demned to  prison  for  three  days.  The  judges  assigned  as 
their  reason,  'that  he  had  blamed  M.  Calvin !'"f 


*  See  the  whole  account,  from  original  documents,  in  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  181, 
Beq.,  where  also  a  number  of  similar  facts  are  recounted. 
f  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  184, 


Calvin's  persecution — death  of  gruet.  383 

Of  a  similar  character  was  the  prosecution,  commenced  at 
the  instance  of  Calvin,  against  Francis  Favre,  a  veteran 
soldier  of  the  republic,  and  a  counselor  of  the  city.  He 
had  been  at  a  wedding  where  they  had  danced  all  the  even- 
ing, and  where  he  was  accused  by  one  of  Calvin's  spies  of 
having  used  seditious  language.  Among  the  ten  specifications 
alleged  against  him,  were  several  things  he  had  said  against 
Calvin ;  and  the  last  and  most  grievous  was,  that  he  had,  on 
being  conducted  to  prison,  cried  out:  " Liberty !  Liberty!! 
I  would  give  a  thousand  dollars  to  have  a  general  council ! " 
(of  the  burgomasters.)  He  was  sentenced  to  beg  pardon 
publicly.  The  veteran  refused ;  he  was  sent  to  prison  for 
three  weeks,  and  was  then  liberated  only  at  the  instance  of  a 
deputation  from  Berne.* 

Calvin  also  sought  the  life  of  Ami  Perrin,  the  captain- 
general  of  Geneva.  Perrin's  wife  had  been  guilty  of  dancing 
on  the  territory  of  Berne.  Calvin  sought  to  entrap  Perrin 
by  means  of  Megret,  one  of  his  hired  spies.  This  miscreant 
denounced  Perrin  before  the  council ;  and  he  was  in  conse- 
quence thrown  into  prison.  Calvin  thirsted  for  his  blood. 
But  the  people  loved  Perrin.  The  council  of  the  two  hundred 
assembled  to  try  him  for  his  life.  A  reaction  took  place; 
Perrin  was  about  to  be  liberated,  and  Megret  was  openly 
denounced.  At  this  juncture,  Calvin  entered  the  council 
hall.  The  people  received  him  with  cries  of  "  death  to  Cal- 
vin ! "  Calvin  waved  his  hand,  addressed  them,  arid  calmed 
their  fury;  but  he  barely  succeeded  by  his  eloquence  in 
saving  his  own  life  If 

In  reading  these  details,  we  are  almost  reminded  of  Marat 
and  Robespierre  haranguing  the  Jacobin  clubs  during  the 
reign  of  terror.  In  fact,  Calvin's  reign  in  Geneva  was  truly 
a  reign  of  terror ;  and  if  during  it,  as  much  blood  did  not 

♦  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  189,  seq. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  196,  seq.  By  his  overweening  influence,  Calvin  however  suc- 
ceeded in  having  Perrin  afterwards  tried,  when,  though  his  life  was  spared, 
he  was  deprived  of  the  place  of  captain-general ;  ibid.,  p.  197,  seq. 


384  REFORMATION    IN    GENEVA. 

flow  as  during  the  French  Revolution,  it  was  not  surely  his 
fault.  He  combined  the  cruelty  of  Danton  and  Robespierre, 
with  the  eloquence  of  Marat  and  Mirabeau,  though  he  was 
much  cooler,  and  therefore  more  successful  than  any  one  of 
them  all. 

Who  will  not  be  stricken  with  horror  on  reading  of  the 
cold-blooded  cruelty  with  which  he  hunted  down  and  com- 
passed the  death  of  poor  Gruet,  the  poet!*  This  unfortunate 
man  was  accused  of  having  affixed  a  placard  on  Calvin's  pul- 
pit at  St.  Peter's  church,  in  which  the  reformer  was  severely 
handled.  He  was  apprehended  and  his  papers  were  seized. 
Among  these,  consisting  of  nothing  but  loose  sheets,  were 
found  some  scraps  of  poetry  and  other  fugitive  pieces,  which 
were  tortured  into  heresy  and  treason.  He  was  plied  with 
the  torture  by  Calvin's  creature,  Colladon,  every  day  for  a 
whole  month.  They  wished  him  to  implicate  Favre  or  Per- 
rin ;  but  though  he  cried  out  in  agony  of  torture :  "  Finish 
me,  I  beseech  you — I  am  dying;"  he  remained  firm,  and 
would  not  accuse  them.  The  council  pronounced  sentence  of 
death  on  him.  Among  the  charges  against  him,  the  prin- 
cipal were :  "  That  he  had  endeavored  to  ruin  the  authority 
of  the  consistory — that  he  had  menaced  the  ministers,  and 
spoken  ill  of  Calvin — and  that  he  had  conspired  with  the 
king  of  France  against  the  safety  of  Calvin  and  of  the  state."t 
Gruet  died  on  the  scafibld,  but  Calvin  was  not  yet  satisfied. 
He  wished  that  his  writings  should  be  condemned,  and  he 
himself  drew  up  a  long  form  of  condemnation  of  them,  which 
was  approved  by  the  council.J  Calvin  alone  is  responsible 
for  the  blood  of  Gruet ;  it  still  cries  aloud  to  heaven  against 
him! 

We  might  exhibit  similar  hard-heartedness  and  tyranny  in 
his  persecution  of  Bolsec,§  of  Gentilis,  of  Berthillier,||  and 

*  He  was  not  poet  enough  to  excite  much  envy.       f  Audin,  p.  200,  seqq. 
J  This  document,  found  at  Berne  in  the  handwriting  of  Calvin,  is  given 
in  full  by  Audin,  ibid.,  p.  244,  seqq. 

{  Ibid.,  vol.  ii,  p.  245,  seqq.  ||  Ibid.,  p.  347,  seqq. 


BURNING   SERVETUS.  385 

ji  others.  But  we  are  heart-sick  of  these  horrors,  and  must 
hasten  on.  Yet  we  can  not  wholly  pass  over  the  well-known 
case  of  Servetus,  to  which  Audin  devotes  two  whole  chap- 
ters,* and  upon  which  he  sheds  much  additional  light.  We 
will  state  only  a  few  undoubted  and  prominent  facts  in  this 
sad  afikir. 

1st.  Servetus  was  burnt  on  the  27th  of  October,  1553 ;  but 
as  early  as  1546 — seven  years  previously — Calvin  had  thirsted 
for  his  blood,  as  appears  from  these  words,  taken  from  his 
famous  letter  to  Farel,  written  in  that  year:  "If  he  (Serve- 
tus) come  here  (to  Geneva),  and  my  authority  be  considered, 
I  will  not  permit  him  to  escape  with  his  life."f 

2d.  Pursuing  this  blood-thirsty  purpose,  he  had  denounced 
Servetus  to  the  police  of  Lyons,  where  he  then  was.  And 
when  he  (Servetus)  had  fled  to  Vienne,  he  very  narrowly 
escaped — probably  with  the  connivance  of  the  Catholic  clergy 
of  Vienne — from  the  prison  to  which  he  had  been  consigned, 
at  the  instigation  of  ofiicers  sent  in  quest  of  him  in  conse- 
quence of  his  denunciation,  by  Calvin's  agents,  at  Lyons.J 

3d.  "When  Servetus,  fleeing  from  his  enemies,  passed 
through  Geneva,  Calvin  denounced  him  and  had  him  ar- 
rested, against  all  the  laws  both  of  God  and  of  man.§  For 
Servetus  was  a  stranger,  only  passing  through  Geneva ;  ||  and 
he  was  not  responsible  to  the  Genevan  tribunals  for  a  crime 
which  he  had  not  committed  within  the  Genevan  territory ; 
and  this,  even  supposing  heresy  to  be  a  crime  punishable  by 
the  civil  laws. 

4th.  Though  Servetus  was  a  poor  stranger,  and  though  he 
begged  for  counsel  to  defend  him,  that  right,  not  denied  even  to 
the  meanest  culprit,  was  refused  him  at  the  instance  of  Calvin.Tl 

*  Audin,  chapters  xii  and  xiii  of  vol.  ii,  p.  258  to  324. 
t  See  the  letter  in  full,  ibid.,  vol.  ii,  p.  314,  seqq.      f  Ibid.,  vol.  ii,  285,  seqq. 
}  Ibid.,  p.  287,  seqq. 

II  Bancroft  assigns  this  same  reason :  "  Servetus  did  but  desire  leave  to 
3ontinue  liis  journey."     Hist.  United  States,  vol.  i,  p.  455. 
T  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  297. 
VOL.   T.— 3.S 


386  •  REFORMATION    IN   GENEVA. 

5th.  After  Servetus  had  lain  in  prison  five  weeks,  a  victim 
of  disease  and  devoured  by  vermin,  he  wrote  to  the  council, 
stating  his  situation,  and  begging  for  a  change  of  linen.  Tho 
council  wished  to  grant  his  request,  but  Calvin  opposed  it, 
and  he  succeeded!  Three  other  letters  written  during  the 
following  week  from  prison,  in  which  Servetus  begged  for 
counsel,  and  asked  that  the  charges  against  him  should  be 

specified  and  made  known  to  him,  were  answered  by 

silence.* 

6th.  When,  on  the  morning  of  his  execution,  Servetus  sent 
for  Calvin,  and  begged  his  pardon,  if  he  had  ofiended  him, 
Calvin  answered  him  with  cold-hearted  cruelty.f  We  have 
seen  above  how  he  insulted  his  tears. 

Tth.  The  heartless  cruelty  of  the  minister  Farel,  who  ac- 
companied Servetus  to  execution,  is  enough  to  make  one's 
blood  run  cold  at  the  bare  reading  of  it.J 

8th.  The  year  after  the  execution  of  Servetus — in  1554 — 
Calvin  published  his  famous  work  on  punishing  heretics,§  in 
which  he  justified  the  whole  proceeding  by  the  authority  of 
Scripture ! 

Was  this  man  sent  to  reform  the  Church  of  God  ?  He  was 
worse  than  "  the  Caliph  of  Geneva,"  as  Audin  calls  him — he 
was  a  very  Nero !  Gibbon  has  well  said  of  this  transaction  : 
''  I  am  more  deeply  scandalized  at  the  single  execution  of 
Servetus  than  at  the  hecatombs  (not  true)  which  have  blazed 
at  auto  da  fes  of  Spain  and  Portugal." 

Hallam  gives  the  following  account  of  the  burning  of  Ser 
vetus : 

"  Servetus,  having,  in  1553,  published  at  Vienna,  in  Dauphine,  a  new 
treatise,  called  Christianismi  Restitutio,  and  escaping  from  thence,  as  he 
vainly  hoped,  to  the  Protestant  city  of  Geneva,  became  a  victim  to  the  big- 
otry of  the  magistrates,  instigated  by  Calvin,  wJio  had  acquired  an  immense 
ascendency  over  that  r^ublic."\\ — And  in  a  note  he  brings  abundant  pnv^f  of 

♦  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  299,  seq.         f  See  the  whole  conversation,  ibid.,  p.  305 
I  Ibid.,  p.  304,  seq.  ^  De  Haereticis  Puniendis. 

U  History  of  Literature,  vol.  i,  p.  280. 


THE  PLAGUE  IN  GENEVA.  dO/ 

all  this,  alleging,  among  other  things,  the  famous  letter  of  Calvin  to  Farel, 
"published,"  he  says,  " by  Witenbogart  (a  Protestant)  in  an  ecclesiasicai 
history,  written  in  Dutch." — In  the  same  note  he  says  :  "  Servetus,  in  fact, 
was  burned  not  so  much  for  his  heresies,  as  for  personal  offense  he  had  several 

years  before  given  to   Calvin Servetus  had,  in  some  printed  letters, 

charged  Calvin  with  man}^  errors,  which  seems  to  have  exasperated  the  great  (!) 
reformer's  temper,  so  as  to  make  him  resolve  on  what  he  afterwards  exe- 
cuted."— "  The  death  of  Servetus,"  he  continues,  "  has  perhaps  as  many 
circumstances  of  aggravation  as  any  execution  for  heresy  that  ever  took 
place.  One  of  these,  and  among  the  most  striking,  is  that  he  was  not  the 
subject  of  Geneva.,  nor  domiciled  in  the  cit}'^,  nor  had  the  Christianismi  Res- 
titutio been  published  there,  but  at  Vienne.  According  to  our  laws,  and 
those,  I  believe,  of  most  civilized  nations,  he  was  not  amenable  to  the  tribu- 
nals of  the  republic."* — He  concludes  the  entire  account  with  this  sweeping 
accusation  against  all  the  early  reformers  in  regard  to  intolerance  :  "  Thus, 
in  the  second  period  of  the  Reformation,  those  ominous  symptoms  which 
had  appeared  in  its  earliest  stage,  disunion,  virulence,  bigotry,  intolerance, 
far  fi-om  yielding  to  any  benignant  influence,  grew  more  inveterate  and  in- 
curable."! 

We  think  that  the  above  facts  make  good  our  assertion, 
that  Calvin  crushed  the  liberties  of  Geneva,  political  as  well 
as  religious.  The  following  may  serve  to  show  us  how  sin- 
cere was  his  zeal  for  the  salvation  of  souls. 

The  plague  broke  out  at  Geneva  in  1543.  The  ministers 
from  the  pulpit  recommended  prayer  once  a  week  to  avert  the 
scourge,  and  they  appointed  the  Sunday  week  next  following 
as  the  day  for  administering  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per with  the  same  intent.J  The  plague  continued,  and  the 
ministers  hid  themselves,  though  hundreds  were  calling  on 
them  for  spiritual  succor  in  their  dying  moments !  The  hos- 
pital was  crowded  with  the  dying.  The  council  of  state 
called  on  the  ministers  to  send  one  of  their  number  to  assist 
the  dying  at  the  hospital,  from  which  duty,  however,  they 
wished  "to  exempt  Calvin,  because  the  church  had  need  of 
him!"  The  ministers  met  with  Calvin,  and  agreed  to  decide 
by  lot  who  was  to  go.     One  only,  Geneston,  offered  to  go,  if 

*  History  of  Literature,  vol.  i,  p.  280.  ,  Ibid.,  p.  281. 

X  Register,  etc.,  Audin  vol.  ii,  p.  16. 


388  REFORMATION    IN    GENEVA. 

the  lot  fell  on  him !  The  others  "  confessed  tliat  God  had  not 
yet  given  them  grace  to  have  the  strength  and  courage  to  go 
to  the  hospital !"  And  "  it  was  resolved  to  pray  to  God  to 
give  them  more  courage  for  the  future."*  The  result  was 
that  no  one  vs^ent  to  the  hospital,  except  Chatillon,  a  young 
French  poet,  and  another  Frenchman,  who  fell  a  victim  to 
the  disease.  Were  these  men  true  shepherds,  or  were  they 
only  mercenaries  ?  The  answer  may  be  found  in  the  tenth 
chapter  of  St.  John's  Gospel. 

Calvin's  morals  have  been  discussed  on  both  sides.  Beza 
and  his  other  friends  have  held  him  up  as  a  model  of  per- 
fection; others,  with  Bolsec,  have  represented  him  as  a 
monster  of  impurity  and  iniquity.  The  story  of  his  having 
been  guilty  of  a  crime  of  nameless  turpitude  at  Noyon, 
.  though  denied  by  his  friends,  yet  rests  upon  very  respectable 

1^^  authority.     Bolsec,  a  contemporary  writer,  relates  it  as  cer- 

tain. Before  his  work  appeared,  it  had  been  mentioned  by 
Surius  in  1558 ;  by  Turbes,  who  lived  in  the  reign  of  Francis 
I.;  by  Simon  Fontana  in  1557;  by  Stapleton  in  1558;  by 
La  Vacquerie  in  1560-1;  by  De  Mouchi  in  1562;  by  Du 
Preau  in  1567;  and  by  Whitaker  before  1570.t  The  learned 
and  careful  Protestant  Galiffe,  who  had  examined  most 
thoroughly  the  archives  of  Geneva,  uses  this  very  plain 
language : 

j  ,     .       ^"The  history  of  many  of  the  reformer's  colleagues  is  very  scandalous, 
'  V^  '        i^/*ihe  details  of  which  can  not  enter  into  a  work  designed  for  both  S3xes."j 
-^    Y     The  same  writer  tells  us  "that  most  of  the  facts  related  by  the  physician  of 
JC  ^         rtA  Lyons  (Bolsec)  are  perfectly  true."^ 

In  the  introduction  to  the  third  volume  of  his  JVotioes,  he 
bears  the  following  testimony  to  the  state  of  morals  at  Geneva 
in  Calvin's  time: 

"  To  those  who  imagine  that  the  reformer  had  done  nothing  that  is  not 
good,  I  will  exhibit  our  Registers  covered  with  entries  of  illegitimate  chil- 

*  Audin,  Register  of  Council.  t  See  ibid.,  vol.  ii,  p.  256.     Note, 

.    I  Gahffe,  Notices,  torn,  iii,  p.  381.     Note — quoted  ibid. 
(  Ibid.,  p.  457,  note.     Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  257. 


Calvin's  death  and  misterious  burial.  389 

(Iren — (these  were  exposed  at  all  the  corners  of  the  city  and  country,)  with 
prosecutions  hideous  for  their  obscenity,  with  wills  in  which  fathers  and 
mothers  accuse  their  own  children  not  only  of  errors,  but  of  crimes,  with 
transactions  before  notaries  public  between  young  girls  and  their  paramours, 
who  gave  them,  in  the  presence  of  their  relatives,  means  of  supporting  their 
illegitimate  offspring,  with  multitudes  of  forced  marriages,  where  the  delin- 
quents were  conducted  from  prison  to  the  church,  with  mothers  who  aban- 
doned their  infants  at  the  hospital,  while  they  were  living  in  abundance  with 
a  second  hus])and,  with  whole  bundles  of  processes  between  brothers,  with 
multitudes  (literally  heaps,  taa)  of  secret  denunciations :  and  all  this  in  the 
generation  nourished  b}^  the  mystic  manna  of  Calvin !  "* 

Truly,  if  the  Registers  prove  ali  this,  we  may  conclude 
that  Calvin  stamped  his  own  image  upon  his  generation,  and 
especially  his  heartlessness.  Such  facts  as  these,  resting  as 
they  do  upon  the  undoubted  authority  of  the  official  records 
of  Geneva,  speak  volumes  in  regard  to  the  moral  influence 
of  that  gloomy  system  of  religionism  which  Calvin  intro- 
duced into  that  city,  as  a  substitute  for  the  Catholic  religion. 
They  prove  that  the  boasted  austerity  of  the  early  Calvinists 
was  little  better  than  a  sham,  if  it  was  not  even  a  cloak 
to  cover  enormous  wickedness.  They  exhibit  their  own 
favorite  doctrine  of  total  depravity  in  its  fullest  practical 
development ! 

The  accounts  published  of  the  circumstances  attending  the 
last  sickness  and  death  of  Calvin  are  various  and  contra- 
dictory. His  disciple  Beza,  who  wrote  his  life,  represents 
his  death  as  worthy  of  an  apostle  and  of  a  samt.  Yet  even 
he,  as  we  shall  see,  furnishes  us  with  some  particulars  which 
would  make  us  distrust  the  truth  of  this  flattering  picture. 
Tlie  diseases  which  led  to  his  dissolution  were  many  and 
complicated.  In  a  letter  to  the  physicians  of  Montpelier, 
written  a  short  time  before  his  death,  Calvin  gives  a  full 
account  of  the  maladies  with  which  he  was  tormented. 
Among  these,  he  mentions  "  the  dropsy,  the  stone,  the  gravel, 
colics,  hemorrhoids,  internal  hemorrhages,  quartan  fever, 
cramps,  spasmodic  contractions  of  the  muscles  from  the  foot 

*  Galiffe,  Notices,  torn,  iii,  p.  15.     Apud  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  174 
25 


390  REFORMATION   IN    GENEVA. 

to  the  knee,  and,  during  the  whole  summer,  a  frightfu^ 
neuralgia  or  nervous  afiection."* 

His  malady  increasing,  he  dictated  his  last  will  and  testa- 
ment on  the  26th  of  April,  15G4.  The  greater  part  of  this 
curious  instrument  is  devoted  to  a  defense  of  his  conduct  and 
motives  throughout  life !  f  He  "  protests  that  he  has  endeav- 
ored, according  to  the  measure  of  grace  given  to  him,  to 
teach  with  purity  the  word  of  God,  as  well  in  his  sermons 
as  in  his  writings,  and  to  expound  faithfully  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures. And  that,  in  all  the  disputes  which  he  had  had  with 
the  enemies  of  truth,  he  had  employed  neither  chicanery  nor 
sophistry,  but  had  proceeded  roundly  (rondement)  to  main- 
tain the  quarrel  of  God."  In  disposing  of  his  effects,  towards 
the  close  of  his  will,  he  thus  speaks  of  his  nephew:  "As  to 
my  nephew  David  .  .  because  he  has  been  light  and  volatile, 
I  leave  him  only  twenty-five  crowns  (ecus)  as  a  chastisement." 

On  the  morning  of  the  27th  of  May,  at  eight  o'clock,  he 
breathed  his  last,  after  having  passed  a  night  of  horrible 
agony.  The  circumstances  of  his  death  and  burial  were  hid- 
den and  mysterious.  His  body  was  immediately  covered, 
and  his  funeral  was  hastened :  it  took  place  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  of  the  same  day.  Beza,J  his  favorite  disciple, 
thus  writes  on  the  subject : 

"  There  were  many  strangers  come  from  a  distance,  who  wished  greatly 

to  see  him,  although  he  was  dead,  and  made  instance  to  that  effect 

But,  to  obviate  all  calumnies,  he  was  put  into  the  cofBn  at  eight  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  and  at  two  o'clock  in  the  evening  was  carried  in  the  ordinary 
manner,  as  lie  himself  had  directed,  to  the  common  cemetery,  called  '  Plein 
Palais,'  without  any  pomp  or  parade,  where  he  lies  at  the  present  day, 
awaiting  the  resurrection." 

The  "calumnies"  to  which  Beza  refers  were  ^.robably  th« 
public  rumors  spread  through  the  city  regarding  the  mannei 
of  the  reformer's  death. 


*  See  his  letter  in  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  452,  seq. 
f  It  is  given  in  full  by  Audin,  ibid.,  p.  456.  seq. 
I  Vie  de  Calvin,  apud  Audin. 


CHARACTER    OF    CALVEN.  391 

"It  was  said  that  every  one  had  boen  prohibited  from  entering  into  his 
chamber,  because  the  body  of  the  deceased  bore  traces  of  a  desperate  strug- 
gle with  death,  and  of  a  premature  decomposition,  in  which  the  eye  would 
have  seen  either  visible  signs  of  the  divine  vengeance,  or  marks  of  a  shame- 
ful disease ;  and  that  in  consequence  a  black  veil  was  hastily  thrown  over 
the  face  of  the  corpse,  and  that  he  was  interred  before  the  rumor  of  his 
death  had  spread  through  the  city.  So  fearful  were  his  friends  of  indiscreet 
looks  !"* 

The  mystery  seems,  however,  to  have  been  penetrated  by 
Haren,  a  young  student  who  had  visited  Geneva  to  take  les- 
sons from  Calvin.  He  penetrated  into  the  chamber  of  the 
dying  man,  and  he  has  furnished  the  following  evidence  of 
what  he  saw  on  the  occasion.  And  we  beg  our  readers  to 
bear  in  mind  that  he  was  no  enemy,  but  a  partisan  of  Calvin, 
and  that  his  testimony  was  wholly  voluntary. 

"  Calvin,  ending  his  life  in  despair,  died  of  a  most  shameful  and  disgust- 
ing disease,  which  God  h:is  threatened  to  rebellious  and  accursed  repro- 
bates, having  been  first  tortured  in  the  most  excruciating  manner,  and  con- 
sumed, to  which  fact  I  can  testify  most  certainly,  for  I,  being  present,  saw 
with  these  eyes  his  most  sad  and  tragical  death — exitum  et  exitium."f 

In  thus  presenting  to  our  readers  a  condensed  and  necessa- 
rily imperfect  summary  of  facts,  many  of  them  extracted 
from  the  public  and  official  acts  of  the  Genevan  council  and 
consistory  in  the  sixteenth  century,  we  would  not  be  under- 
stood as  wishing  to  reflect  upon  the  character  or  conduct  of 
the  present  professors  of  Calvinistic  doctrines,  many  of  whom 
are  men  estimable  for  their  civic  virtues.  It  is  not  our  fault 
that  the  truth  of  history  will  not  warrant  a  better  character 
of  Calvin.  He  was  the  most  subtle,  the  most  untiring,  and 
perhaps  the  most  able  enemy  of  the  Catholic  Church.  He 
played  a  public  and  conspicuous  part  in  the  great  religioso- 
political  drama  of  the  sixteenth  century ;  he  was  the  founder 
of  a  sect  more  distinguished   than  any  other,  perhaps,  for  its 


*  Audin,  vol.  ii,  p.  464,  seq. 

f  Johannes  Harennius,  apud  Petrum  Cutzenum.  We  have  endeavored 
to  give  above  a  literal  translation  of  his  testimony,  of  which  the  original  is 
in  Latin.     Ibid. 


392  REFORMATION    IN    GENEVA. 

inveterate  opposition  to  Catholicity.  Under  these  circura. 
stances,  his  life,  acts,  and  whole  character,  are  surely  public 
property ;  and  truth  and  justice  required  that  they  should  be 
given  to  the  public.  This  is  precisely  what  Audin,  and  the 
Protestant  historians  of  Geneva,  Galiffe,  and  Gaberel,  have 
done ;  and,  treading  in  their  footsteps,  we  have  only  given  a 
brief  abstract  of  the  result  of  their  labors.* 

Among  the  many  proofs  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  the 
true  Church  of  Christ,  not  the  least  striking  is  the  fact, 
vouched  for  by  authentic  history,  that  all  those  who  have  left 
her  bosom,  and  established  religious  sects,  were  men  of  either 
very  doubtful,  or  of  notoriously  wicked  and  immoral  charac- 
ters. It  is  contrary  to  the  order  of  God's  providence  to  have 
selected  men  of  this  stamp,  to  become  the  reformers  of  His 
Church.  This  would  derogate  from  his  sanctity,  and  would 
reflect  upon  a  religion  which  could  be  established,  or  rpformed^ 
by  such  instruments.  This  principle  being  once  admitted,  the 
inference  from  it  is  obvious.  Whenever  a  change  in  religion 
— call  it  reformation,  or  what  you  will — has  been  eflected  uy 
men  not  remarkable  for  their  sanctity,  the  fact  of  itself  pre- 
sents strong  presumptive  evidence  that  the  change  is  not 
from  God.  If  the  men  who  eSected  it  were  notoriously 
flagitious,  as  most  of  the  self-styled  reformers  of  the  sixteenth 
century  certainly  were,  then  the  presumption  grows  into  a 
moral  certainty.  Judged  by  this  test,  Calvinism  was  surely 
not  the  work  of  God. 

*  See,  in  Appendix  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  the  paper  entitled  ROMB 
AND  GENEVA— Note  D. 


BOASTING   THEORY    OF   THE   REFORMATION.  393 


CHAPTER     XV. 

INFLUENCE    OF    THE    REFORMATION    ON    LITERATURE. 

"  The  march  of  intellect  I  what  know  we  now 
Of  moral,  or  of  thought  and  sentiment, 
Which  was  not  known  three  humlred  years  ago? 
It  is  an  empty  boast,  a  vain  conceit 
Of  folly,  ignorance,  and  base  intent." 

Light  and  darkness — Boast  of  D'Aubigne — Two  sets  of  barbarians — Catho- 
lic and  Protestant  art — The  "painter  of  the  Reformation" — Two  wit- 
nesses against  D ' Aubigne — Schlegel — Hallam — "  Bellowing  in  bad  Latin  " 
— Testimony  of  Erasmus — Destruction  of  monasteries — Literary  drought 
— Luther's  plaint — Awful  desolation — An  "iron  padlock" — Early  Prot- 
estant schools — D  'Aubigne's  omissions — Bitrning  zeal — Light  and  flame — 
Zeal  for  ignorance — Burning  of  libraries — Rothman  and  Omar — Disputa- 
tious theology — Its  practical  results — Morbid  taste  —  The  Stagirite  — 
Mutual  distrust — Case  of  Galileo — Liberty  of  the  press — Old  and  new 
style — Religious  wars — Anecdote  of  Reuchlin — Italy  pre-eminent — Plaint 
of  Leibnitz — Revival  of  letters — A  shallow  sophism — A  parallel — Great 
inventions — Literary  ages — Protestant  testimony — Dollinger's  testimony 
of  the  reformers  themselves. 

It  is  one  of  the  proudest  boasts  of  the  Reformation  that  it 
gave  a  powerful  impulse  to  literature  and  the  arts.  Before  it, 
the  world  was  sunk  in  utter  darkness,  both  religious  and 
literary ;  after  it,  all  was  light  and  refinement.  Before  it, 
society  remained  stationary ;  after  it,  every  thing  was  in  a  state 
of  progression  and  improvement.  But  for  the  Reformation, 
we  would  still  have  been  immersed  in  worse  than  Egyptian 
darkness ;  we  would  have  had  neither  science  nor  literature ! 

Such  is  the  proudly  boasting  theory  which  has  been 
broached  and  maintained  by  many  superficial  admirers  of  the 
Reformation.  D'Aubigne  gravely  asserts  "  that  the  Reforma- 
tion not  only  communicated  a  mighty  impulse  to  literature, 
but  served  to  elevate  the  arts,  although  Protestantism  has 
often  been  reproached  as  their  enemy."*  He  laments  that 
"  many  Protestants  have  willingly  taken  up  and  borne  this 

*  Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  190, 


394        INFLUENCE    OF   TEE   REFORMATION    ON    LEARNING. 

reproach."*  After  devoting  three  pages  to  a  tissue  of  gratii 
itous  assertions  and  of  special  pleading  to  prove  the  "  reproach 
unmerited,"  he  winds  up  in  this  triumphant  strain :  "  Thus 
every  thing  progressed — arts,  literature,  purity  of  worship, 
and  the  minds  of  prince  and  people  "f  If  the  Reformation 
caused  "the  arts  and  literature"  to  progress  no  faster  noi 
better  than  it  did  "  the  purity  of  worship,  and  the  minds  of 
prince  and  people,"  we  greatly  fear,  from  the  many  stubborn 
facts  already  adduced  to  elucidate  the  character  of  this  lat- 
ter progression,  that  the  former  was  not  rapid,  nor  even 
real. 

The  Reformation  ftivorable  to  the  fine  arts  !  As  well  might 
you  assert  that  a  conflagration  is  beneficial  to  a  city  which  it 
consumes,  or  that  the  incursions  of  the  northern  barbarians, 
in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  were  favorable  to  architec- 
ture, painting,  sculpture,  and  the  other  fine  arts.  AVherever 
the  Reformation  appeared,  it  pillaged,  defaced  and  often  burnt 
churches  and  monasteries  ;  it  broke  up  and  destroyed  statues 
and  paintings  ;  and  it  often  burnt  whole  libraries.  Its  ruth- 
less vandalism  spared  none  of  the  glories  of  the  old  Catholic 
art.  Whatever  was  connected  with  the  Catholic  worship,  or 
could  serve  as  a  memorial  of  old  Catholic  piety,  was  wantonly 
destroyed. 

The  armies  of  Goths  and  Vandals,  who  overran  Italy  and 
sacked  Rome  fourteen  centuries  ago,  did  not  manifest  a  more 
ruthless  and  destructive  spirit  than  did  the  Lutheran  army 
of  the  Constable  Bourbon,  in  their  wanton  pillage  of  Rome 
in  1527,  after  the  battle  of  Pavia. 

"  Rome  had  been  taken  and  pillaged  b}^  the  Constable  Bourbon  :  his  army, 
which  was  composed  in  good  part  of  Lutherans,  had  filled  the  holy  city  with 
abominations.  The  soldiers  of  this  prince  had  changed  the  basilica  of  St. 
Peter  into  a  stable,  and  given  papal  bulls  as  litter  to  their  horses.  .  .  .  They 
burned  even  the  grass,  and  sold  the  ears  of  their  prisoners  for  their  weight 
in  gold.     The  eternal  city  would  have  been  destroyed,  had  not  God  cast  on 

*  D'Aubignr,  voL  iii,  p.  190.  +  Ibid.,  p.  192 


INFLUENCE  ON   ART.  395 

it  an  eye  of  pity.     He  made  use  of  the  pe,itilence,  which  this  horde  of  bar- 
barians had  spread  on  its  journey,  to  banish  them  from  Italy."* 

Wolfgang  Menzel  furnishes  the  following  summary  account 
of  the  sack  of  the  city  :f 

"  The  Lancers  ashamed  of  their  conduct,  demanded  to  be  led  against  the 
Pope,  and  astonished  Rome  suddenly  beheld  the  enemy  before  her  gates. 
Charles  de  Bourbon  was  killed  by  a  shot  from  the  city.  The  soldiery,  en- 
raged at  this  catastrophe,  carried  it  by  storm,  A.  D.  1527.  The  pillage 
lasted  fourteen  days.  The  commands  of  the  officers  were  disregarded,  and 
Frundsberg  fell  ill  from  vexation.  The  Lutheran  troopers  converted  the 
papal  chapels  into  stables,  dressed  themselves  in  the  cardinals'  robes,  and 
proclaimed  Luther  Pope.  Clement  was  besieged  in  the  Torre  di  San  Angelo 
and  taken  prisoner.  The  numbers  of  unburied  bodies,  however,  produced  a 
pestilence,  which  carried  off  the  greater  part  of  the  invaders." 

Even  the  splendid  creations  of  the  genius  of  a  Raphael, 
and  of  an  Angelo,  were  not  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  this  new 
northern  horde.  True,  all  this  destruction  took  place  in  time 
of  war;  but  its  horrors  had  been  increased  tenfold  by  the 
religious  fanaticism  to  which  the  Reformation  had  given  rise. 
We  shall  have  occasion  to  prove,  in  the  sequel,  that  similar 
enormities  were  perpetrated  in  time  of  peace,  and  under  the 
sole  pretext  of  religious  zeal. 

Thus  the  Reformation  destroyed  many  of  the  noblest  works 
of  art :  what  did  it  build  up  in  their  place  ?  Did  it  produce 
architects  like  Fontana,  Julio  Romano,  Bramante,  Michael 
Angelo,  and  Bernini  ?  Did  it  rear  edifices  to  compare  with 
those  splendid  Gothic  piles  scattered  over  Europe  by  the 
genius  of  Catholic  architecture  in  the  Middle  Ages  ?  Or  in 
any  thing  that  could  vie  with  St.  Peter's  church  at  Rome? 
Did  it  substitute  higher  or  nobler  melody  for  the  sublime 
Catholic  music  which  it  had  proscribed  ?  Did  it  give  birth 
to  painters  and  sculptors  who  could  rival  Leonardo  da  Vinci, 
Titian,  the  two  Caracci,  Domenichino,  Paul  Veronese,  Ra- 
phael, or  Angelo  ? 

*  Audin,  Life  of  Luther,  p.  289,  who  quotes  Gmcciardini — Sacco  di  Roma 
Cochlfeus,  De  Marillac,  and  Maimbourg,  1,  i. 
T  History  of  Germany  vol.  ii,  p.  247. 


396         INFLUENCE   OF   THE   REFORMATION    ON   LEARNING. 

D'Aubigiie  indeed,  boasts  of  the  pictorial  skill  of  Lucaa 
Kranach,  Holbein,  and  Albert  Durer.*  We  do  not  question 
the  genius  of  the  two  last  named :  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  they  learned  their  art  and  caught  its  inspiration  in  Cath- 
olic times.  Their  pencils  were  only  occasionally  employed 
on  Protestant  subjects.  They  were  great  artists  before  the 
Reformation  began,  and  they  continued  to  be  pre-eminent  in 
their  profession  in  spite,  rather  than  in  consequence,  of  its  in- 
fluence. As  for  Lucas  Kranach,  whom  our  author  triumph- 
antly styles  "  the  painter  of  the  Reformation  "  he  excelled 
chiefly  in  caricatures,  in  painting  Pope-asses  and  mofik-calves, 
Popes  surrounded  by  troops  of  demons,  and  priests  and  monks 
in  all  possible  ridiculous  garbs  and  attitudes.  We  are  willing 
to  concede  to  him  the  title  which  his  eulogist  has  awarded, 
and  which  we  consider  not  inappropriate.  The  Reformation 
is  heartily  welcome  to  all  the  credit  it  may  have  derived  from 
his  eminence  in  art. 

To  show  what  was  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  on 
literature  in  general,  we  will  adduce  the  testimony  of  two 
distinguished  writers  of  the  present  century,  against  whose 
authority  the  flippant  assertions  of  D'Aubigne  will  not  weigh 
a  feather  with  any  enlightened  or  impartial  man.  Frederick 
Von  Schlegel  and  Henry  Hallam  have  both  investigated  this 
subject  thoroughly,  and  have  given  to  the  world  the  result  of 
their  inquiry.  The  former  may  be  ranked  among  the  giants 
of  modern  literature;  he  has  given  a  powerful  impulse  to 
learning  and  to  Christian  philosophy  in  Germany,  and  through- 
out the  world.  A  German  himself,  and  proud  of  his  national 
literature,  he  has  examined  the  subject  of  which  we  are  treat- 
ing in  all  its  bearings.  Though  his  great  mind  had  escaped 
from  the  vagaries  and  endless  variations  of  Protestantism  in 
which  he  was  raised,  and  sought  repose  in  the  bosom  of 
Catholic  unity,  yet  it  was  as  free  from  undue  prejudice  as  it 
was  indefatigable  in  its  inquiry  after  truth.    We  have  already 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  192. 


SCHLEGEL  AND  HALLAM.  397 

seen  how  greatly  he  admired  the  genius  of  Luther,  it  whose 
mind,  however,  he  detected  a  tincture  of  insanity.  In  Lis 
writings,  he  speaks  of  the  Reformation,  always  with  caimnesa 
and  dignified  impartiality,  sometimes  even  with  praise  of  the 
good  of  which  it  may  have  been  incidentally  the  occasion. 

Hallam  was  a  Protestant,  who,  though  generally  impartial 
and  accurate  in  his  statements,  was  still  sometimes  betrayed 
into  error  by  his  ill  concealed  hostility  to  the  Catholic  Church. 
He  has  lately  published  a  History  of  Literature  during  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  the  two  centuries  preceding  and  fol- 
lowing. The  plan  of  this  work  necessarily  called  for  a 
thorough  investigation  of  the  very  subject  of  our  present 
chapter ;  and  he  has  accordingly  given  his  opinion  of  the 
literary  influence  of  the  Reformation  with  clearness  and  force. 
"We  make  these  remarks,  to  show  that  both  the  witnesses 
whom  we  are  about  to  bring  up  against  D'Aubigne's  theory, 
are  weighty  and  unexceptionable. 

Schlegel  very  properly  designates  the  epoch  of  the  Refor- 
mation as  the  barbaro-polemic. 

"  A  third  epoch  now  arose,  which,  from  the  general  spirit  of  the  age,  and 
the  tone  of  the  writings  which  exerted  a  commanding  influence  over  the 
times,  cannot  be  otherwise  designated  than  as  the  era  of  barbaro-polemic 
eloquence.  This  rude  polemic  spirit — which  had  its  origin  in  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  in  that  concussion  of  faith,  and,  consequently,  of  all  thought  and 
of  all  science,  which  Protestantism  occasioned — continued,  down  to  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  prevail  in  the  controversial  writings  and 
philosophic  speculations  both  of  Germany  and  England.  This  spirit  was 
not  incompatible  with  a  sort  of  deep  mystical  sensibility,  and  a  ctwtain  orig- 
inal boldness  of  thought  and  expression,  such,  for  instance,  as  Luther's  writ- 
ings display ;  yet  we  cannot  at  all  regard  in  a  favorable  light  the  general 
spirit  of  that  intellectual  epoch,  or  consider  it  as  one  by  any  means  adapted 
to  the  intellectual  exigencies  of  that  age."* 

He  concludes  his  lecture  on  this  epoch  in  the  following 
words  of  just  indignation: 

"  When  we  hear  the  Middle  Age  called  barbarous,  we  should  remembei 
that  that  epithet  applies  with  fiir  greater  force  to  the  truly  barbarous  era  of 

*  '•  Philosophy  of  History,"  vol.  ii,  p.  210,  211,  edit,  ut  supra. 


398         INFLUENCE   OF   THE   RKFOrtMATIOlS    ON    LEARNING. 

the  Reformation,  and  of  the  rehgious  wars  which  that  event  produced,  aud 
which  continued  down  to  the  period  when  a  sort  of  moral  and  political  pacif- 
ication was  re-established,  apparently  at  least,  in  society  and  the  human 
mind."* 

Hallam  gives  his  opinion  in  still  more  explicit  language. 
He  says : 

"  Nor,  again,  is  there  any  foundation  for  imagining  that  Luther  was  con- 
cerned for  the  interests  of  literature.  None  had  he  himself,  save  theological ; 
nor  are  there,  as  I  apprehend,  many  allusions  to  profane  studies,  or  any 
proof  of  his  regard  to  them,  in  all  his  works.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  probable 
that  both  the  principles  of  this  great  founder  of  the  Reformation,  and  the 
natural  tendency  of  so  intense  an  application  to  theological  controversy, 
checked  for  a  time  the  progress  of  philological  and  philosophical  literature 
on  this  side  the  Alps."f 

A  little  further  on,  he  thus  treats  of  the  general  literary 
influence  of  the  Reformation: 

"The  first  eflfects  of  the  great  religious  schism  in  Germany  were  not 
favorable  to  classical  literature.  An  all-absorbing  subject  left  neither  relish 
nor  leisure  for  human  studies.  Those  who  had  made  the  greatest  advances 
in  learning  were  themselves  generally  involved  in  theological  controversy, 
and,  in  some  countries,  had  to  encounter  either  personal  suffering  on  account 
of  their  opinions,  or  at  least  the  jealousy -of  a  church  (Protestant?)  that 
hated  the  advance  of  knowledge.  The  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Hebrew 
was  always  liable  to  the  suspicion  of  heterodoxy.  In  Italy,  where  classical 
literature  was  the  chief  object,  this  dread  of  learning  could  not  subsist 
But  few  learned  much  of  Greek  in  these  parts  of  Europe  without  some 
reference  to  theology,  especially  to  the  grammatical  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures.  In  those  parts  which  embraced  the  Reformation,  a  still  more 
threatening  danger  arose  from  the  intemperate  fanaticism  of  its  adherents. 
Men  who  interpreted  the  Scripture  by  the  Spirit  could  not  think  human 
learning  of  much  value  in  religion  ;  and  they  were  as  little  likely  to  perceive 
any  other  advantage  it  could  possess.  There  seemed,  indeed,  a  considerable 
peril  that,  through  the  authoiity  of  Karlstadt,  or  even  of  Luther,  the  lessons 
of  Crocus  and  Mossellanus  would  be  totally  forgotten.  And  this  would 
very  probably  have  been  the  case  if  one  man,  Melancthon,  had  not  perceived 

*  "  Philosophy  of  History,"  vol.  ii,  p.  216. 

f  "  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,  in  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth, 
and  seventeenth  centuries,"  in  2  vols.;  8vo,  vol.  i,  p.  165,  edit.  Harper  A 
Brotliers,  New  York,  1841. 


TESTIMONY    OF   ERASMUS.  399 

the  necessity  of  preserving  human  learning  as  a  bulwark  to  theology  itself 
against  the  wild  waves  of  enthusiasm."* 

In  another  place,  he  asserts  that  "  the  most  striking  effect 
of  the  first  preaching  of  the  Reformation  was  that  it  appealed 
to  the  ignorant."!  He  gives  the  following  opinion  in  regard 
to  the  character  of  Luther's  writings: 

"  But  from  the  Latin  works  of  Luther  few  readers,  I  believe,  will  rise 
without  disappointment.  Their  intemperance,  their  coarseness,  their  inele- 
gance, their  scurrilitj^,  their  wild  paradoxes,  that  menace  the  foundations  of 
religious  morality,  are  not  compensated,  so  far  at  least  as  my  slight  acquaint- 
ance with  them  extends,  by  much  strength  or  acuteness,  and  still  less  by 
any  impressive  eloquence.  Some  of  his  treatises,  and  we  may  instance  his 
reply  to  Henry  VIIL,  or  the  book  against  'the  falsely  named  order  of 
bishops,'  can  be  described  as  little  else  than  heUowing  in  bad  Latin.  Neither 
of  these  books  displays,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  any  striking  ability." 

"It  is  not  to  be  imagined,"  he  continues,  "that  a  man  of  his  vivid  parts 
fails  to  perceive  an  advantage  in  that  close  grappling,  sentence  by  sentence, 
with  an  adversary,  which  fills  most  of  his  controversial  writings :  and  in 
scornful  irony  he  had  no  superior.  His  epistle  to  Erasmus,  prefixed  to  his 
treatise  De  Servo  Arbitrio,  is  bitterly  insolent  in  terms  as  civil  as  he  could 
use.  But  the  clear  and  comprehensive  line  of  argument  which  enlightens 
the  reader's  understanding  and  resolves  his  difficulties,  is  always  wanting. 
An  unbounded  dogmatism,  resting  on  the  infallibility,  practically  speaking, 
of  his  own  judgment,  pervades  his  writings;  no  indulgence  is  shown,  no 
pause  allowed  to  the  hesitating ;  whatever  stands  in  the  way  of  his  decisions — 
the  fathers  of  the  Church,  the  schoolmen  and  philosophers,  the  canons  and 
councils — is  swept  away  in  a  current  of  impetuous  declamation  :  and,  as 
every  thing  contained  in  Scripture,  according  to  Luther,  is  easj^  to  be  under- 
stood, and  can  only  be  understood  in  his  sense,  every  deviation  from  his 
doctrine  incurs  the  anathema  of  perdition.  Jerome,  he  says,  far  fi-om  being 
rightly  canonized,  must,  but  for  some  special  grace,  have  been  damned  for 
his  interpretation  of  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  That  the  Zuinghans, 
as  well  as  the  whole  Church  of  Rome,  and  the  Anabaptists,  were  shut  out 
by  their  tenets  from  salvation,  is  more  than  insinuated  in  numerous  passages 
of  Luther's  writings.  Yet  he  had  passed  himself  through  several  changea 
of  opinion.  In  1518,  he  rejected  auricular  confession;  in  1520,  it  was  both 
useful  and  necessary ;  not  long  afterwards,  it  was  again  laid  aside.     I  hav« 


*  "  IntroducHon  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,"  etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  181,  J 19 
t  Ibid.,  p.  192,  5 12. 


400         INFLUENCE   OF   THE   REFORMATION    ON    LEARNING. 

found  it  impossible  to  understand  or  to  reconcile  his  tenets  concerning  faiih 
and  works,  etc."* 

"We  might  rest  the  whole  case  on  the  authority  of  the  two 
learned  witnesses  just  named:  but  we  will  proceed  to  show 
that  their  opinion  is  correct,  because  clearly  founded  on  the 
facts  of  history,  and  on  the  testimony  of  writers  contemporary 
with  the  Reformation  itself.  Erasmus  was  the  most  distin- 
guished literary  character  of  Germany  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. He  was  an  eye-witness  of  the  earlier  scenes  in  the 
great  drama  of  the  Reformation.  He  will  scarcely  be  sus- 
pected, when  it  is  known  that  he  was  the  intimate  friend  and 
correspondent  of  Melancthon  and  of  other  leading  reformers, 
towards  whose  party  he  was  charged  with  leaning.  He  was 
certainly  a  competent  judge  of  the  literary  influence  of  the 
change  in  religion,  and  he  was  not  disposed  to  undervalue 
that  influence,  even  after  his  rupture  with  Luther. 

The  Reformation  had  been  enlightening  the  world  for 
about  ten  years,  when  Erasmus  wrote :  "  Wherever  Luther- 
anism  reigns,  there  literature  utterly  perishes."t  In  the  same 
year,  1528,  he  employed  the  following  language  in  one  of  his 
letters :  "  I  dislike  these  gospelers  on  many  accounts,  but 
chiefly  because,  through  their  agency,  literature  everywhere 
languishes,  disappears,  lies  drooping,  and  perishes :  and  yet, 
without  learning,  what  is  a  man's  life  ?  They  love  good  cheer 
and  a  wife ;  for  other  things  they  care  not  a  straw."J  In  a 
letter  to  Melancthon,  he  states  that  "  at  Strasburg  the  Prot- 
estant party  had  publicly  taught,  in  1524,  that  it  was  not 
right  to  cultivate  any  science,  and  that  no  language  should  be 
studied  except  the  Hebrew."§ 

*  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,"  etc.,  vol.  i,  pp.  197,  198,  \  26. 

f  "Ubicumque  regnat  Lutheranismus,  ibi  literarum  est  interitus."  Epist. 
mvi,  anno  1528.     Apud  Hallam  ut  sup.,  vol.  i,  p.  165. 

\  "  Evangelicos  istos,  cum  multis  aliis,  tum  hoc  nomine  praecipuo  odi,  quod 
per  COS  ubique  languent,  fugiunt,  jacent,  intereunt  bonae  literal,  sine  quibus 
Quid  est  hominum  vita  ?  Amant  viaticum  et  uxorem  ;  cajtera  pili  non  fa- 
cmnt." — Epis.  dccccxlvi,  eod.  anno.     Apud  Hallam,  vol.  i,  p.  165. 

{  Epist.  714  ad  Melancthonem. 


DESTRUCTION    OF   MONASTERIES.  401 

These  grave  charges  of  Erasmus  were  never  answered,  be- 
cause thej  were,  it  would  seem,  too  clearly  founded  in  truth 
to  admit  of  a  reply.  Had  not  Luther  himself,  the  founder  of 
the  Eeformation,  in  his  appeal  to  the  German  nobility,  as 
early  as  1520,  openly  taught  that  the  works  of  Plato,  Cicero, 
Aristotle,  and  of  all  the  ancients,  should  be  burnt,  and  that 
the  time  which  was  not  devoted  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures 
should  be  employed  in  manual  labor?*  And  we  shall  soon 
see  that  many  of  Luther's  disciples  took  him  at  his  word,  and 
that  the  early  history  of  the  Reformation  more  than  justifies 
the  accusations  of  Erasmus. 

One  of  the  first  efiects  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany  was 
the  secularization  and  destruction  of  the  monasteries,  and  the 
expulsion  of  the  bishops  from  their  sees.  This  measure  of 
violence  was  of  itself  most  disastrous  to  literature.  In  Cath- 
olic times  there  were  flourishing  schools  established  in  all  the 
principal  monasteries,  as  well  as  near  all  the  cathedral  and 
many  of  the  parochial  churches.  Literature  had  been  ever 
cultivated  under  the  shadow  of  the  Catholic  churches.  Popes 
and  councils,  almost  without  number,  had,  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  enforced  the  obligation  of  establishing  such  schools 
throughout  Christendom.f  In  those  Catholic  institutions, 
reared  in  Catholic  times,  and  by  the  express  injunction  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  all  the  distinguished  men  of  Germany  in 
the  sixteenth  century  had  been  educated :  Reuchlin,  Erasmus, 
Luther,  Melancthon,  (Ecolampadius,  Bucer,  Eck,  Emser, 
Zuingle,  and  others.  The  Reformation  was  thus  indebted 
to  these  very  Catholic  schools  for  all  its  leading  champions. 

When  the  monasteries  were  destroyed,  and  the  cathedral 
churches  desecrated  and  dismantled,  all  those  flourishing  liter- 
ary institutions  were  abolished :  and  the  funds  for  their 
support,  accumulated  by  the  liberality  of  previous  ages,  were 
devoured  by  the  avarice  of  the  reform  party.     Hundreds  of 

*  Epist.  ad  nobiles  Germanicae,  anno  1520.     See  Robelot,  p.  358. 

•  For  more  facts  on  this  subject,  we  take  the  hberty  to  refer  our  readers 
to  the  essay  on  schools  and  universities  in  the  Dark  Ages,  in  our  Miscellanea 

VOL.  I.— 34 


402         INFLUENCE   OF   THE   REFORMATION    ON    LEARNINQ. 

flourishing  colleges  and  academies  of  learning  were  tliua 
destroyed  at  one  stroke,  No  wonder  "literature  drooped 
and  perished  wherever  Lutheranism  reigned!"  The  foun 
tains  of  Catholic  learning,  ever  open  and  flowing  by  the  side 
of  the  Catholic  Church  and  monastery,  having  been  thus 
suddenly  dried  up,  all  Germany  was  made  desolate  with  a 
literary  drought  and  sterility.  Did  the  Reformation,  during 
the  first  fifty  years  of  its  history,  give  birth  to  even  one  great 
literary  character,  if  we  except  those  who  had  been  reared 
under  Catholic  auspices  ?  If  it  did,  we  have  yet  to  learn  his 
name  and  his  claims  on  the  gratitude  of  mankind.* 

Luther  himself  was  appalled  at  the  extent  of  the  desolation 
which  his  own  recklessness  had  caused.  In  his  own  charac- 
teristic style,  he  poured  forth  a  plaintive  jeremiad,  mingled 
with  bitter  invective  and  reproach  against  the  leaders  of  the 
Protestant  party.  He  lashed  without  mercy  the  avarice  of 
the  princes,  who,  after  having  devoured  the  substance  of  the 
Church  and  the  funds  of  the  Catholic  schools,  closed  their 
purses,  and  refused  to  contribute  to  the  erection  of  establish- 
ments to  replace  those  they  had  thus  wantonly  annihilated. 

"  Others,"  he  says,  "  close  their  hands,  and  refuse  to  provide  for  their  pas- 
tor and  preacher,  and  even  to  support  them.  If  Germany  will  act  thus,  I 
am  ashamed  to  be  one  of  her  children,  and  to  speak  her  language  :  and  if  I 
were  permitted  to  impose  silence  on  my  conscience  (!),  I  would  call  in  the 
Pope,  and  assist  him  and  his  minions  to  forge  new  chains  for  us,  to  subject 
us  to  new  tortures,  and  to  injure  us  more  than  before." 

"Formerly,"  he  continues,  "when  we  were  the  slaves  of  Satan,  when  we 
profaned  the  blood  of  Christ,  all  purees  were  open.  Money  could  be  pro- 
cured for  endowing  churches,  for  raising  seminaries,  for  maintaining  super- 
stitions. Then  nothing  was  spared  to  put  children  in  the  cloister,  to  send 
them  to  school ;  but  now,  when  we  must  raise  pious  academies,  and  endow 
the  chui-ch  of  Jesus  Christ — endow,  did  I  say,  no,  but  assist  in  preserving 
her,  for  it  is  the  Lord  who  has  founded  this  church,  and  who  watches  ovet 

*  The  first  tliat  we  know  of,  are  Scaliger,  Casaubon,  and  Grotius,  who 
flourished  a  hundred  years  after  the  beginning  of  the  Reformation,  the  two 
last  of  whom  were  almost  Catholics,  as  we  have  already  shown.  Of  Tychc 
Brahe  and  Kepkr,  we  will  speak  a  little  further  on. 


LITERARY    DESOLATION.  403 

her — now  that  we  know  the  divine  word,  and  that  we  have  learned  to  honor 
the  word  of  our  Martyr-God,  the  purses  are  closed  with  iron  padlocks !  No 
one  wishes  to  give  any  thing!  The  children  are  neglected,  and  no  one 
teaches  them  to  serve  God,  to  venerate  the  blood  of  Jesus,  while  they  are 
joyfully  immolated  to  Mammon.  The  blood  of  Jesus  is  trampled  under 
foot !  And  these  are  Christians  !  No  schools  !  no  cloisters !  '  The  grass  is 
withered,  and  the  flower  is  fallen.'  Nowadays,  when  these  carnal  men  are 
secure  from  the  apprehensions  of  seeing  their  sons  abandon  them,  and  their 
daughters  enter  the  convent,  deprived  of  their  patrimonies,  there  is  no  one 
who  cultivates  the  understanding  of  children! — 'What  would  they  learn,' 
say  they,  '  when  they  are  to  be  neither  priests  nor  monks  ?'  "* 

He  made  a  strong  appeal  to  the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany,  to  induce 
them  to  found  schools  and  academies.  He  told  them  that  it  was  "  their  duty 
to  oblige  the  cities  and  villages  to  raise  schools,  found  masterships,  and  sup- 
port pastors,  as  they  are  bound  to  make  bridges  and  roads,  and  to  raise  pub- 
lic edifices.  I  would  wish,  if  possible,"  he  adds,  "  to  leave  these  men  without 
preacher  and  pastor,  and  let  them  live  like  swine.  There  is  no  longer  any 
fear  or  love  of  God  among  them.  After  throwing  off  the  yoke  of  the  Pope, 
every  one  wishes  to  live  as  he  pleases.  But  it  is  the  duty  of  all,  especially 
of  the  prince,  to  bring  up  youth  in  the  fear  and  love  of  the  Lord,  and  to 
provide  them  with  teachers  and  pastors.  If  the  old  people  care  not  for  these 
things,  let  them  go  to  the  d — 1.  But  it  would  be  a  shame  for  the  govern- 
ment to  let  the  j^outh  wallow  in  the  mire  of  ignorance  and  vice."f 

This  attempt  to  compel  the  people  to  support,  by  heavy 
taxation,  institutions  which  had  been  hitherto  reared  and 
maintained  by  Catholic  charity,  seems  to  have  proved  little 
acceptable  either  to  princes  or  people.  Luther's  voice,  which 
had  been  omnipotent  when  it  preached  up  destruction  and 
spoliation,  now  fell  powerless,  when  it  was  at  length  tardily 
raised  to  enforce  the  necessity  of  liberal  contribution  for  the 
rearing  of  institutions  to  replace  those  which  had  been  wan- 
tonly destroyed.  When  his  eloquence  filled  men's  pockets, 
it  was  effectual  for  persuasion  ;  when  it  was  employed  to 
empty  them,  it  was  a  different  matter  altogether :  the  purses 
of  his  hearers  were  closed  with  "the  iron  padlock"  which  he 
himself  had  constructed ! 


*  See  Ad.  Menzel,  (a  Protestant,)  ut  supra,  tom.  i,  p.  231.     Apud  Audin. 
f  Luther,  Werke,  edit.  Altenberg,  tom.  iii,  519.     Picinhardt — Sammthche 
Reformations  predigten,  tom.  iii,  p.  445. — Ibid, 


404         INFLUENCE   OF   THE   REFORMATION    ON   LEARNING. 

Few  and  feeble  were  the  efforts  made  by  early  Protestant 
ism  to  rear  schools  and  colleges.  Erasmus  bears  evidence  tc 
their  utter  failure  even  when  they  were  made.     He  says : 

"  These  gospelers  also  hate  me,  because  I  said  that  their  gospel  cooled 
down  the  love  of  literature.  In  reply  they  point  to  Ni'irenbei-g,  where  the 
professors  of  polite  literature  are  liberally  rewarded.  Be  it  so  ;  but  if  you 
ask  the  inhabitants,  they  will  tell  you  that  these  professors  have  few  scholars, 
and  that  the  masters  are  as  indisposed  to  teach,  as  the  students  to  learn ; 
so  that  the  scholars,  no  less  than  the  professors,  luill  have  to  he  paid  for  their 
attendance.  I  know  not  what  will  result  from  all  these  city  and  village 
schools ;  hitherto  I  have  not  met  with  any  one  who  profited  by  them."* 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  D'Aubigne  passes  over  alto- 
gether, or  how  very  delicately  he  alludes  to  these  stubborn 
facts  in  reference  to  the  literary  tendency  of  the  Reformation. 
They  did  not  suit  his  taste,  and  did  not  therefore  come  within 
the  scope  of  his  partisan  history!  He  speaks  with  great 
praise  of  the  effort  made  by  Luther  to  have  schools  established 
throughout  Germany  by  law ;  but  he  carefully  refrains  from 
telling  his  readers  of  the  literary  desolation  which  Luther  so 
strongly  deplored,  though  himself  had  brought  it  about !  He 
omits  entirely,  or  strives  to  palliate  the  destructive  spirit  of 
early  Protestantism,  which,  with  more  than  vandalic  fury, 
swept  away  from  the  face  of  the  earth  schools  and  academies, 
and  burnt  monasteries  and  libraries,  both  public  and  private. 
A  volume  might  be  filled  with  instances  of  this  violence :  we 
will  select  a  few  by  way  of  supplying  somewhat  the  mani- 
fold omissions  of  our  very  romantic  historian. 

When  on  his  way  to  the  diet  of  Worms,  in  1521,  Luther 
passed  through  the  town  of  Erfurth,  in  the  Augustinian  con- 
vent of  which  place  he  had  passed  many  years  of  his  early 
life.  The  people  received  him  with  open  arms.  He  made  a 
most  inflammatory  harangue  in  the  parish  church,  where  he 
was  wont  to  preach  of  old ;  and  so  great  was  the  effect  of  his 
eloquence,  that  "a  few  weeks  after  his  departure,  the  popu'ace 

*  "In  Pseudo-Evangelicos." — Epist.  xlvii,  hb.  xxxi,  edit.  London,  F)*«h- 
er. — Ibid. 


BURNING    BOOKS    AND    PAINTINGS.  405 

made  a  furious  attack  on  the  residence  of  the  canons,  and  de- 
stroyed every  thing  they  met  with — hooks,  images,  paintings, 
furniture,  beds,  the  feathers  of  which  fell,  like  a  thick  snow, 
on  the  streets,  and  obscured  for  a  moment  the  brightness  of 
the  day."* 

This  was  but  one  out  of  a  hundred  examples  of  similar 
outrage,  enacted  not  only  under  the  eyes  of  Luther,  but  often 
with  his  connivance  and  consent.  The  work  of  destruction 
went  on,  until  there  was  scarcely  left  in  all  Protestant  Ger- 
many one  of  the  many  splendid  monuments  reared  by  the  old 
Catholic  literature  and  art. 

"  Those  illuminated  manuscripts — those  ancient  crucifixes,  carved  in  wood 
and  ivory — those  episcopal  rings,  the  gifts  of  Popes  and  emperors — those  rich 
vestments,  painted  glass,  gold  and  silver  ciboria — in  a  word,  all  the  relics  of 
the  middle  ages,  which  are  exhibited  in  the  rich  museums  of  Germany,  were 
in  great  part  the  property  of  the  convents.  To  get  possession  of  them,  the 
monks  were  secularized.  After  three  centuries,  nothing  better  calculated  to 
give  us  an  idea  of  German  art  at  that  period  has  been  thought  of,  than  to 
exhibit  the  remains  of  those  whom  the  reformers  robbed  when  living,  and 
calumniated  when  dead  !  "f 

And  yet  these  are  but  a  scanty  remnant  of  those  vast  liter 
ary  and  artistic  treasures  which  the  Reformation  utterly 
destroyed ! 

In  Switzerland,  as  elsewhere,  violence  was  the  order  of  the 
day.  The  Reformation  triumphed  amidst  the  ruins  with 
which  it  everywhere  strewed  the  earth  ! 

"Zuingle  ascended  the  pulpit,  and  declaimed  against  images,  which,  he 
said,  were  condemned  by  the  law  of  Moses  and  the  gospel,  as  this  latter  did 
not  revoke  the  command  of  the  Hebrew  legislator.  Not  only  were  paintings 
and  statues  mutilated  and  destroyed  wherever  the  Eeformation  gained  parti- 
sans, but  the  flames  were  fed  by  the  manuscripts  in  which  generations  of 
monks  had,  in  the  solitude  of  their  cloi.sters,  endeavored  to  represent,  in  colors 
that  time  could  not  efface,  the  principal  scenes  of  human  redemption.  Even 
in  private  houses  the  hammer's  stroke  fell  on  those  painted  windows  which 
modern  art  endeavors  unsuccessfully  to  revive."|; 

*  Luthen  0pp.,  tom.  i,  fol.  70i,  edit.  Altenb.     Apud  Audin,  p.  158. 
f  Audin,  p.  365. 

I  Idem,  ibid.,  p.  204.     See  als)  Erasmus,  lib.  xix,  epist.  iv. 
26 


406         INFLUENCE   OF   THE   REFORMATION    JN   LEARNING. 

D'Aubigne  furnishes  us  with  a  curious  instance  of  thie 
destructive  fanaticism  at  Zurich.  The  hero  of  the  story  is 
Thomas  Plater,  whom  he  euhigizes  to  the  skies,  though  he 
feebly  disapproves  of  his  conduct  in  the  incident  in  which  he 
was  the  actor. 

"  The  light  of  the  gospel  quickly  found  its  way  to  his  heart  (!).  One  morn 
ing,  when  it  was  very  cold,  and  fuel  was  wanted  to  heat  the  school-room 
stove,  which  it  was  his  office  to  tend,  he  said  to  himself:  'Why  need  I  be  at 
a  loss  for  wood  wlien  there  are  so  many  idols  in  the  church  ? '  The  church 
was  then  empty,  though  Zuingle  was  expected  to  preach  (!),  and  the  bells 
were  already  ringing  to  summon  the  congregation.  Plater  entered  with  a 
noiseless  step,  grappled  an  image  of  St.  John,  which  stood  over  one  of  the 
altars,  carried  it  oflF,  and  thrust  it  into  the  stove,  saying,  as  he  did  so,  '  Down 
with  thee,  for  in  thou  must  go.'  Certainly  neither  Mj^conius  nor  Zuingle 
would  have  applauded  such  an  act."* 

What !  when  "  the  light  of  the  gospel  had  found  its  way  to 
his  heart!"  Who  could  blame  him  for  following  this  light, 
and  even  for  kindling  it  into  a  flame?  Our  author  also 
informs  us  of  the  fanatical  hatred  of  learning  entertained 
by  Karlstadt  and  the  prophets,  who  headed  the  revolt  of  the 
peasants. 

"  But  soon  after  this,  Karlstadt  went  to  still  greater  lengths ;  he  began  to 
pour  contempt  upon  human  learning ;  and  the  students  heard  their  aged 
tutor  advising  them,  fi'om  his  rostrum,  to  return  to  their  homes,  and  resume 
the  spade,  or  follow  the  plow,  and  cultivate  the  earth,  because  man  was  to 
eat  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow !  George  Mohr,  master  of  the  boys' 
school  at  Wittenberg,  carried  away  by  a  similar  madness,  called  from  his 
window  to  the  burghers  outside  to  come  and  reinove  their  children.  Where 
indeed  was  the  use  of  their  continuing  thtir  studies,  since  Storck  and  StiJbner 
had  never  been  at  the  university,  and  yet  were  pro|)hets?  A  mechanic  was 
Just  as  well,  nay,  perliaps  better  quahfied  than  all  the  divines  in  the  world, 
to  preach  the  gos[)el !  "f 

Who  can  calculate  the  mischief  these  doctrines  did  to 
literature?  Who  can  estimate  the  literary  treasures  which 
were  annihilated  in  the  bloody  war  of  the  peasants,  led  on 
by  men   who  openly  avowed   their   nostility   to   all   human 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  iii,  p.  253.  f  Ibid.,  p  61. 


HATRED    OF    LEARNING  407 

learning?  In  the  ravages  of  Germany,  perjietral td  ly  the 
hostile  armies,  before  the  revolt  was  finally  stifled  in  their 
own  blood,  scenes  of  destruction  were  enacted,  which  would 
have  put  to  the  blush  the  Gothic  armies  of  old ! 

Another  class  of  religionists,  the  Anabaptists,  to  whose 
fanaticism  the  principles  of  the  Reformation  had  manifestly 
led,  were  no  less  inimical  to  learning.  Having  seized  on  the 
city  of  Munster,  from  which  they  had  expelled  the  prince 
bishop,  they  issued  an  order  to  devastate  the  churches,  which 
was  accordingly  done.  They  then  went  further.  In  the  mad 
intoxication  of  triumph,  "  a  manifesto,  published  by  Roth- 
mann,  decided  that  as  there  was  only  one  book  necessary  to 
salvation — the  Bible — all  others  should  be  burned,  as  useless 
or  dangerous.  Two  hours  afterwards,  the  library  of  Rudolph 
Langius,  consisting  almost  entirely  of  Greek  and  Latin  manu- 
scripts, perished  in  the  flames."*  The  Caliph  Omar,  for  a 
similar  reason,  had  ordered  the  great  library  of  Alexandria 
to  be  burned,  A.D.  632. — A  fine  example  truly,  and  faith- 
fully followed! 

But  it  was  not  merely  by  acts  of  violence  that  the  Refor- 
mation injured  the  cause  of  literature;  it  brought  into  action 
many  other  influences  highly  prejudicial  to  the  progress  of 
learning.  We  shall  briefly  advert  to  some  of  the  principal 
of  these,  and  will  begin  with  that  already  referred  to  by 
Hallam. 

The  Reformation  fevered  the  minds  of  men  with  religious 
controversy.  It  drew  ofi"  the  votaries  of  literature  from  the 
academic  groves  and  the  Pierian  springs,  into  the  arid  and 
thorny  paths  of  disputatious  theology.  Though  many  of  the 
theological  disputants,  who  appeared  on  the  arena  at  the 
period  of  the  Reformation,  obtained  temporary  credit  for 
themselves  and  their  cause  by  their  writings,  yet  it  is  certain 
that  the  literary  world,  at  least,  would  have  been  more  bene- 
fited, had  they  devoted  their  mental  energies  to  the  prosecution 

*  See  Histoirc  der.  Anabaptistes,  par  Catrou,  Liv.  ii ;  and  Audin,  p.  460, 


408         INFLUENCE    OF   THE   REFORMATION    ON   LEARNING. 

of  scientific  studies.  Tliere  is  no  doubt,  that  from  this  cause 
the  ranks  of  the  literati,  both  among  Catholics  and  Protestants, 
were  much  thinned;  and  that  in  consequence  the  ardor  for 
literary  pursuits  was  greatly  abated.  Had  the  world  con 
tinued  in  religious  unity,  and  had  no  acrimonious  controversies 
arisen,  such  men  as  Luther,  Bucer,  Melancthon,  Eck,  Emser, 
and  Bellarmine,  might  have  been  able  to  contribute  their  full 
share  to  the  progress  of  letters. 

To  show  how  this  cause  practically  operated  to  the  detri- 
ment of  literature,  we  will  furnish  a  few  facts,  selected  almost 
at  random  from  many  of  the  same  kind.  We  have  seen  how 
the  fanaticism  of  the  Anabaptists  destroyed  manuscripts  and 
burnt  an  extensive  library  in  the  city  of  Munster.  It  is  curi- 
ous to  trace  the  beginning  of  this  fanaticism,  and  to  mark  its 
influence  on  literature  in  that  city.  Before  the  appearance 
of  Luther,  Munster  enjoyed  peace  and  tranquillity,  and  culti- 
vated learning  with  great  success.  Shortly  after  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Reformation,  the  scene  changed  altogether. 
Says  Audin : 

"It  suddenly  became  a  citj'  of  trouble  and  disorder — was  restless  and 
uneasy  under  its  obscurity,  and  aspired  to  be  the  rival  of  Wittenberg.  It 
was  a  rich  and  commercial  city,  and  had  cultivated  literature  with  success. 
Its  university  had  merited  the  attention  of  the  literary  world.  It  loved 
antiquity,  especially  Greece,  whose  poets  it  publi.shed  and  elucidated.  This 
was  the  passion  until  the  disciples  of  Luther  entered  its  gates,  when  this 
demi-classic  city — half  Greek  and  half  Latin,  by  its  morals  and  instincts- 
involved  itself  in  theological  disputes,  and  abandoned  the  study  of  Cicero 
and  Homer,  to  become  interpreter  of  the  sacred  volume.  It  is  needless  to 
say,  that  it  found  in  these  inspired  writings  many  things  that  our  fathers 
never  droamed  of.  Then  all  the  classic  divinities  abandoned  Munster,  as 
the  swallows  fly  away  in  winter,  only  that  they  did  not  intend  to  return. 
In  their  place,  an  acrimonious  and  punctilious  theology  destroyed  the  pesuje 
of  scholars,  masters,  and  people.  The  revolutionary  progress  of  sectarians 
is  always  the  same."* 

Whoever  will  read  attentively  the  history  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, will  be  struck  with  the  truth  of  this  last  remark.     In 


*  Audin,  "  Life  of  Luther,"  p.  458. 


HOSTILE    INFLUENCE.  409 

almost  every  city  in  Germany  where  the  reformers  made 
their  appearance,  they  produced,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
the  same  disastrous  revolution  in  literary  taste,  which  they 
effected  in  Munster.  Even  Charles  Villers,  one  of  the  most 
unscrupulous  advocates  of  the  Reformation,  admits  that  "  the 
attention  of  the  literary  world  was  turned  away,  for  more 
than  a  century  (after  the  Reformation)  unto  miserable  dis- 
putes about  dogmas,  and  confessions  of  faith,"*  Controversy 
was  not  only  carried  on  between  the  champions  of  Catholicity 
and  of  Protestantism,  but  it  raged  violently  in  the  bosom  of 
the  reform  party  itself.  Men,  who  might  have  been  of  im- 
mense service  to  the  republic  of  letters,  thus  wasted  their 
energies  in  sectarian  contentions.  For  more  than  six  years  a 
violent  dispute  was  carried  on  between  the  Lutherans  and 
Calvinists  on  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist,  and  at  the  close 
of  it,  they  were  more  widely  separated  than  ever.  Leibnitz 
tells  us,  that  a  single  controversy  between  two  Protestant 
divines  of  Leipsic,  on  the  peremptory  period  of  repentance^ 
gave  rise  to  more  than  fifty  treatises  in  Latin  and  German.f 

The  eagerness  for  religious  controversy  among  the  earlier 
Protestants  of  Germany,  forcibly  reminds  us  of  the  picture 
which  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  draws  of  a  similar  rage  of  dispu- 
tation on  the  subject  of  the  Trinity,  among  the  sectarians  of 
Constantinople  under  the  Emperor  Theodosius  the  Great. 
"  If  you  wish  to  change  a  piece  of  money,"  says  he,  "  you  are 
first  entertained  with  a  long  discourse  on  the  difference  of  the 
Son  who  is  born,  and  of  the  Son  who  is  not  born.  If  you 
ask  the  price  of  bread,  you  are  answered,  '  that  the  Father  is 
greater,  and  that  the  Son  is  less ;'  and  if  you  ask,  when  will 
the  bath  be  warm  ?  you  are  seriously  assured,  '  that  the  Son 
was  created.'  "J 

It  is  a  singular  fact,  that  notwithstanding  the  invectives  oJ 
Luther  against  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  it  was  still  retained 

*  Essai  sur  I'lnfluence,  etc.,  ut  sup.,  p.  276. 

f  Commercii  Epist.  Leibnitzian.a,  Selecta  Specimina — Hanovera&.  1805t 
Epist.  xcv.  \  Apud  Robelot,  p.  390,  sup.  cit. 

VOL.  I. — 35 


410         INFLUENCE   OF   THE  REFORMATION    ON   LEARNING. 

in  most  of  the  Protestant  universities  of  Germany,  and  even 
made  the  standard  of  disputation.  Melancthon  published 
commentaries  on  the  writings  of  the  Stagirite,  and  the 
authority  of  the  latter  was  greatly  respected  by  the  German 
Protestant  universities,  as  late  as  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Ramus  was  refused  a  professorship  at  Geneva,  be- 
cause he  would  not  adopt  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  which 
was  still  taught  in  this  cradle  of  Calvinism.*  "While  Prot- 
estant Germany  was  thus  sternly  upholding  the  system  of 
philosophy  which  Luther  had  decried  and  endeavored  to  ban- 
ish from  Christendom,  the  new  school  of  the  Platonic  phi- 
losophy was  established  in  Italy,  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Medici.  All  the  invectives  of  the  reformers  against  the  subtle 
disputations  of  the  schoolmen,  who  had  adopted  the  Aristote- 
lian philosophy,  thus  recoiled  on  the  heads  of  their  own  party. 
The  mutual  distrust  and  suspicion,  which  the  Reformation 
sowed  in  the  minds  of  men,  constituted  another  serious  ob- 
stacle to  the  progress  of  letters.  Competition  and  emulation 
often  elicit  talent  and  promote  improvement;  but  when  this 
feeling  degenerates  into  a  suspicious  jealousy  and  mutual 
hatred,  it  greatly  retards  advancement  in  learning.  Whatso- 
ever new  systems  of  literature  or  of  philosophy  were  broached 
by  one  religious  party,  were  often  rejected,  through  a  mere 
spirit  of  opposition,  by  the  other.  When  mankind  were  united 
in  religious  faith,  they  worked  in  unison  for  the  promotion  of 
learning :  when  they  were  split  up  into  religious  parties,  they 
often  mutually  thwarted  and  hindered  one  another.  The 
endless  variations  and  vagaries  of  Protestantism,  on  the  one 
hand,  led  to  a  skepticism,  which  sneered  at  every  system 
which  savored  of  antiquity,  no  matter  how  well  grounded ; 
and  the  cautious  dread  of  innovation  by  the  Catholic  Church, 
on  the  other,  caused  her  sometimes  to  view  with  sus^picion, 
at  least  for  a  time,  new  systems  of  philosophy  which  were 
sustained  by  respectable,  if  not  conclusive  arguments. 

*  Beza,  Epist.  xxxvi,  p.  202.     Apud  Robelot,  p.  362. 


LITERARY   JEALOUSY/  411 

An  example  of  the  former  feeling — of  skepticism — is  given 
by  the  French  philosopher  Maupertuis,  who  tells  us  that  it 
required  a  half  century  to  satisfy  the  learned  as  to  the  truth 
of  the  principle  of  attraction,  which  was  at  first  viewed  as 
reviving  a  feature  of  the  odious  occult  sciences,  so  extensively 
cultivated  in  previous  centuries.*  A  remarkable  instance  of 
the  dread  of  innovation  on  the  part  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
is  presented  by  the  well  known  case  of  Galileo.  The  wanton 
abuse  of  the  Scriptures,  for  the  support  of  a  thousand  con- 
flicting opinions,  by  the  disciples  of  the  Reformation,  had 
rendered  every  sj^ecies  of  innovation,  which  was  attempted 
to  be  proved  by  their  authority,  an  object  of  apprehension 
on  the  part  of  Rome.  It  may  be  confidently  asserted,  that, 
but  for  the  distrust  sowed  by  the  Reformation,  and  for  the 
attempt  made  by  Galileo  to  prove  his  system,  not  merely  as  a 
specious  theory  but  as  incontestably  true,  by  the  authority  of 
the  written  word,  he  would  never  have  been  molested. 

Some  time  before  the  days  of  Galileo,  Cardinal  Nicholas 
de  Cusa  had  openly  defended  the  system  of  Philolaus  and 
Pythagoras,  on  the  motion  of  the  earth ;  and  no  one  then 
thought  of  opposing  the  theory  on  religious  grounds.  Nearly 
a  century  before  Galileo,  Nicholas  Copernicus,  a  Catholic 
priest,  had  openly  advocated  the  same  theory :  and  he  was 
not  only  not  opposed,  but  Pope  Paul  Ill.f  approved  of  the 
dedication  to  himself  of  his  great  work  on  the  revolutions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies.J  How  are  we  then  to  explain  that  a 
system,  which  was  thus  openly  maintained  for  nearly  a  cen- 
tury by  cardinals  and  prelates  at  Rome  itself,  where  Coper- 
nicus had  been  professor  of  astronomy — and  all  this,  without 

*  Apud  Robelot,  p.  355. 

f  A  copy  of  the  original  work  of  Copernicus  is  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum.  It  was  printed  at  Niirenberg  by  John  Petreius,  at  the  expense 
of  Nicholas  Schomberg,  the  cardinal  of  Capua.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
volume  is  printed  a  laudatory  letter  of  the  cardinal  to  Copernicus,  dated 
Kome,  1st  of  November,  1536. 

I  "De  Orbium  Coelestium  Revolutionibus."     Folio— 1543,  p.  196. 


■412         INFLUENCE   OF   THE   REFORMATION    ON    LEARNING. 

any  opposition  from  the  Roman  court — was  afterwards  vie^ved 
with  some  suspicion,  when  too  warmly  advocated  on  scrip 
tural  grounds  by  Galileo  ? 

The  reason  is  manifest :  the  wanton  abuse  of  the  Scriptures 
by  the  partisans  of  the  Reformation  had  made  Rome  suspi 
clous  of  every  thing  which  savored  of  novelty.  Ambitious 
rivals,  whom  the  literary  fame  of  Galileo  had  eclipsed,  had 
also  represented  his  system  in  an  odious  and  false  light 
to  the  Roman  court :  they  had  painted  it  as  opposed  to  the 
Scriptures,  to  the  testimony  of  which  Galileo  himself  on  the 
other  hand  as  confidently  appealed.  The  whole  issue  was 
thus  made  on  scriptural  grounds.  Rome  took  the  alarm,  and, 
without  condemning  the  system  of  Galileo  as  false,  enjoined 
fiilence  on  the  disputants.  Galileo  remained  in  Rome  from 
February  to  July,  1633,  a  space  of  more  than  five  months, 
during  which  time  he  resided  at  the  spacious  palace  of  his 
special  friend,  the  Tuscan  ambassador,  who  was  his  surety 
during  the  trial.  For  only  four  days  at  most,  even  according 
to  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Drinkwater,  his  Protestant  historian, 
was  he  in  nominal  confinement ;  being  "  honorably  lodged  in 
the  apartments  of  the  fiscal  of  the  Inquisition."* 

The  reckless  abuse  of  the  Scriptures  by  the  Reformation, 
and  the  distrust  thereby  occasioned,  are  thus  alone  responsible 
for  this  temporary  check  to  scientific  improvement  in  the 
person  of  Galileo.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  as  an  offset  to  the 
case  of  the  Italian  philosopher,  did  not  the  Protestant  astrono- 
mer, Tycho  Brahe,  invent,  on  scriptural  grounds,  a  system,  at 
variance  with  the  Copernican,  and  now  universally  rejected, 
though  then  popular  among  Protestants  ?  And  was  not  his 
great  disciple  Kepler,  as  well  as  himself,  persecuted  by  Prot- 
estants, for  his  valuable  discoveries  in  astronomy  ?f 

*  Drinkwater — Life  of  Galileo,  p.  58,  and  p.  64.  See  on  this  subject  an 
able  article  in  the  Dublin  Review,  lately  republished  in  Cincinnati  in  pamph- 
let form.     It  exhausts  the  subject. 

f  Kepler  and  Tycho  Brahe,  the  former  a  German,  the  latter  a  Dane,  were 
iptimate  Iriends  and  associates.      They  were  both  employed  as  imperial 


GALILEO   AND    KEPLER.  413 

Tlie  authority  of  an  unexceptionable  witness,  Henry  Hal- 
[am,  strongly  coniirms  the  view  just  taken  of  the  case  of  Gali- 
leo. He  says :  "  For  eighty  years,  it  has  been  said,  this  theory 
of  the  earth's  motion  had  been  maintained,  without  censure ; 
and  it  could  only  be  the  greater  boldness  of  Galileo  in  its 
assertion  which  drew  down  upon  him  the  notice  of  the 
Church."*  In  a  note,f  he  disproves  the  assertion  of  Drink- 
water — "  that  Galileo  did  not  endeavor  to  prove  his  system 
compatible  with  Scripture ;"  and  adds :  "  it  seems,  in  fact,  to 
have  been  this  over  desire  to  prove  his  theory  orthodox,  which 
incensed  the  Church  against  it.  See  an  extraordinary  article 
on  this  subject  in  the  eighth  number  of  the  Dublin  E,eview."J 
Guicciardini,  an  ardent  disciple  of  Galileo,  in  a  letter  dated 
March  4th,  1616,  says,  "  that  he  had  demanded  of  the  Pope 
and  the  Holy  Office  to  declare  the  system  of  Copernicus 
founded  on  the  Bible."  At  Rome,  Galileo  was  treated  most 
kindly  by  the  Pope  and  the  cardinals,  as  he  himself  testifies 
in  a  letter  to  his  disciple  Receneri,  written  in  1633.§ 

The  restrictions  on  the  liberty  of  the  press  were  also  often 
injurious  to  the  progress  of  learning.  Protestant  govern- 
ments in  Europe  have  been,  and  are  even  at  this  day,  deserv- 
ing of  at  least  as  much  censure  on  this  subject  as  those  of 
Catholic  countries.  The  supposed  necessity  for  a  censorship 
of  the  press,  frequently  originated  in  the  wanton  abuse  of  it 

astronomers  by  the  Emperor  Rudolph  II.,  after  having  been  but  little  appre- 
ciated, if  not  severely  treated  by  their  Protestant  brethren  in  their  own 
countries.  Of  Kepler  W.  Menzel  writes  as  follows  :  "  His  discovery  was 
condemned  by  the  Tubingen  university  (Protestant)  as  contrary  to  the  Bible. 
He  was  about  to  destroy  his  work,  when  an  asylum  was  granted  to  him  at 
Graetz,  which  he  afterwards  quitted  for  the  imperial  court.  He  was,  not- 
withstanding his  Lutheran  principles,  tolerated  by  the  Jesuits,  wlw  Tcnew  how 
to  value  scientific  hiowledge.  He  was  persecuted  solely  in  his  native  country, 
where  he  with  difficultj'^  saved  his  mother  from  being  buVnt  as  a  witch."— 
History  of  Germany,  vol.  ii,  p.  308,  note ;  Bohn's  edition. 

*  History  of  Literature,  etc.,  vol.  ii,  p.  248.  f  Ibid.,  p.  249. 

I  See  also  the  article  Sciences  Humaines  in  Bergier's  Dictionarj'^,  which 
sheds  much  light  on  this  whole  transaction. 

\  Published  in  the  "  Mercure  de  France,"  July  17,  1784. 


414        INFLUKNCE    OF    THE    REFORIIATION    ON    LEARNING. 

by  those  who  had  adopted  the  principles  of  the  Reformation. 
But  for  the  mutual  distrust  which  this  revolution  caused  to 
arise  in  the  minds  of  men,  the  press  would  have  been  free,  or 
at  least  much  less  restricted  than  it  really  was.  "We,  in  fact, 
read  of  little  or  no  restriction  on  the  liberty  of  the  press,  until 
some  time  after  the  Refornjation ;  though  the  art  of  printing 
had  been  in  successful  operation  for  more  than  half  a  century. 
Thus  the  Reformation  is  fairly  chargeable,  at  least  in  a  great 
measure,  with  having  originated,  or  at  least  occasioned  that 
very  censorship  of  the  press,  which  is  so  often  the  burden  of 
the  invectives  of  its  partisans  against  the  Catholic  Church. 

But  perhaps  the  most  singular  instance  of  the  obstacles 
thrown  in  the  way  of  literary  improvement  by  the  Reforma- 
tion, is  that  furnished  by  the  obstinate  resistance  of  the  Prot- 
estant governments  of  Europe,  to  the  change  in  the  Calendar, 
introduced  by  Pope  Gregory  XIIL,  in  the  year  1582.  The 
correction  of  the  Calendar  was  founded  on  the  clearest  and 
most  incontestable  principles  of  astronomy ;  and  yet,  solely 
because  the  improvement  emanated  from  Rome,  England  re- 
''used  to  adopt  it  for  one  hundred  and  seventy  years — until 
1752  ;  Sweden  adopted  the  new  style,  a  year  later,  in  1753, 
and  the  German  states,  the  very  cradle  of  the  Reformation, 
only  in  1776  !  As  a  distinguished  writer  has  caustically  re- 
marked, the  Protestant  potentates  preferred  "  warring  with 
the  stars  to  agreeing  with  the  Pope !" 

The  long  and  bloody  religious  wars,  which  the  Reformation 
caused  in  Germany,  were  another  very  serious  hinderance  to 
the  progress  of  learning.  These  wars  continued  at  intervals 
for  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  until  the  treaty  of 
Westphalia  in  1648;  and  they  filled  all  Germany  with  wide- 
spread desolation.  The  war  of  extermination  against  the 
peasants,  the  bloody  war  against  the  Anabaptists,  the  wars 
of  Charles  V.,  and  the  Protestant  princes  of  Gerriary;  and 
finally,  the  terrible  thirty  years'  war — from  1618  to  1648 — • 
between  the  Catholic  party  headed  by  the  house  of  Austria, 
and  the  Protestant  party  led  on  chiefly  by  the  kings  of  Swe- 


ITALY    LEADS    THE    WAY ENGLAND   BEHIND.  415 

Jen  ;  made  all  Germany  a  scene  of  turmoil,  confusion,  and 
bloodshed.  How  many  of  the  monuments  of  ancient  litera- 
ture and  art  were  swept  away  during  all  this  bloody  strife ! 
How  many  cities  were  desolated,  libraries  burnt,  and  men  of 
eminence  slain !  In  the  midst  of  a  bloody  civil  war,  with 
danger  constantly  at  their  very  door,  men  had  neither  leisure 
nor  inclination  to  apply  to  literary  pursuits.  Apollo  courts 
peace :  he  seldom  wears  laurels  stained  with  blood. 

We  may  safely  affirm,  that,  for  the  reasons  hitherto  alleged, 
and  more  particularly  the  last,  the  Reformation  retarded  the 
literary  progress  of  Germany  for  more  than  a  century.  Any 
candid  man  will  be  convinced  of  this,  who  will  compare  the 
literary  history  of  Germany  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
with  what  it  became  in  the  seventeenth  and  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  At  the  dawn  of  the  Reformation 
German  literature  was  in  a  most  promising  condition.  Greek 
Latin,  and  Hebrew  learning  had  revived,  and  they  were  be 
ginning  to  be  cultivated  with  success.  Reuchlin,  Budseus 
and  Erasmus  had  filled  Germany  with  literary  glory. 

An  anecdote  of  Reuchlin,  related  by  D'Aubigne,  may  serve 
to  give  us  some  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  Greek  literature 
was  then  carried  in  Germany.  In  1498 — twenty  years  before 
the  Reformation — he  was  sent  to  Rome  as  ambassador  from 
the  electoral  court  of  Saxony. 

"  An  illustrious  Greek,  Argyropylos,  was  explaining  in  that  metropolis,  to 
a  numerous  auditory,  the  wonderfi.il  progress  his  nation  had  formerly  made 
in  literature.  The  learned  ambassador  went  with  his  suite  to  the  room 
where  the  master  was  teaching,  and  on  his  entrance  saluted  him,  and  la- 
mented the  misery  of  Greece,  then  languishing  under  Turkish  despotism. 
The  astonished  Greek  asked  the  German  :  '  Whence  came  you,  and  do  you 
understand  Greek?'  Reuchlin  replied  :  'I  am  a  German,  and  am  not  quite 
ignorant  of  your  language.'  At  the  request  of  Argyropylos,  he  read  and  ex- 
plained a  passage  of  Thucydides,  which  the  professor  happened  to  have  be- 
fore him  ;  upon  which  Argyropylos  cried  out  in  grief  and  astonishment : 
'  Alas !  alas !  Greece  cast  out  and  fugitive,  is  gone  to  hide  herself  beyond 
the  Alps!'"* 


*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  96. 


416        INFLUENCE    OF   THE   REFORMATION    ON    LExVRNIN3. 

Had  Argyropylos  visited  Germany  a  century  later,  he 
would  have  found  that  "  fugitive  Greece  which  had  hid  her- 
self beyond  the  Alps,"  had  been  ruthlessly  driven  from  her 
cherished  sheltei  in  Germany,  by  the  myrmidons  of  the 
Reformation ! 

At  the  commencement  of  the  Reformation,  many  German 
princes  were  liberal  patrons  of  learning.  Among  these,  the 
most  conspicuous,  were  the  Emperor  Maximilian ;  Frederick, 
elector  of  Saxony,  who  founded  the  university  of  Wittenberg 
in  1502;  Joachim,  elector  of  Brandenberg,  who  established 
the  university  of  Frankfort  on  the  Oder,  in  1506 ;  Albert, 
archbishop  of  Mentz;  and  George,  duke  of  Saxony.*  But 
the  troubles  occasioned  by  the  doctrines  of  the  reformers 
caused  the  German  princes  to  turn  their  attention  more  to 
camps  and  battle  fields,  than  to  the  seats  of  learning  and  the 
patronage  of  learned  men. 

Italy  had  led  the  way  in  literary  improvement.  Hallam 
says  :  "  The  difference  in  point  of  learning  between  Italy  and 
England  was  at  least  that  of  a  century :  that  is,  the  former 
was  more  advanced  in  knowledge  of  ancient  literature  in 
1400  than  the  latter  was  in  1500."j  In  another  place,  speak- 
ing of  the  relative  encouragement  of  literature  by  Italy  and 
Germany,  he  has  this  remarkable  passage :  "  Italy  was  then 
(in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century),  and  perhaps  has 
heen  ever  since,  the  soil  where  literature,  if  it  has  not  always 
most  flourished,  has  stood  highest  in  general  estimation." J — 
This  avowal  is  the  more  precious  as  coming  from  a  decided 
Protestant,  and  an  Englishman. 

Speaking  of  the  history  of  literature  from  the  year  1520  to 
1550,  he  pays  the  following  just  tribute  to  the  literary  ascend- 
ency of  Italy: 

"  Italy,  the  genial  soil  where  the  literature  of  antiquity  had  heen  first  cul- 
tivated, still  retained  her  superiority  in  the  fine  perceptions  of  its  beauties, 
and  in  the  power  of  retracing  them  by  sjiirited  imitation.     It  was  the  land 

*  See  Hallam — History  of  Literature,  etc.,  sup.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  159. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  145,  }  8.  I  Ibid.,  p.  159,  ^  48. 


PROGRESS    INTERRUPTED.  417 

of  taste  and  sensibility ;  never  surely  more  so,  than  in  the  age  of  Raphael 
as  well  as  Ariosto."* 

Literary  societies  for  the  promotion  of  learning  were  formed 
much  later  in  Germany  than  in  Italy  and  France.  It  was 
only  in  1617,  that  the  "  Fruitful  Society,"  the  first  that  ever 
existed  in  Germany,  was  established  at  Weimar.f  The  ex- 
ample of  Italy  would  have  been  in  all  probability  much  sooner 
followed,  had  not  the  Reformation  engaged  the  public  atten- 
tion in  other  pursuits.  The  spirit  of  Reuchlin  and  of  Erasmus 
had  disappeared :  their  refined  taste  was  superseded  by  that 
which  Schlegel  so  happily  designates  the  barbaro-polemic; 
and  the  result  was  the  retarding  of  literary  improvement  in 
the  deplorable  manner  which  we  have  stated. 

From  the  dawn  of  the  Reformation  to  the  reign  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great — a  period  of  more  than  two  hundred  years — 
Germany  was  behind  the  other  principal  countries  of  Europe 
in  learning:  it  required  full  two  hundred  years  for  her  to 
recover  from  the  rude  shock  her  literature  had  received  from 
the  hands  of  the  reformers!  In  1715,  the  great  Leibnitz 
feelingly  deplored  this  literary  desolation  of  his  country.J 
He  says  in  another  place,  that  the  relish  for  philosophical 
pursuits  was  so  rare  in  Germany,  "  that  he  could  not  find  any 
person  in  his  country,  who  had  a  taste  for  philosophy  and 
mathematics,  and  with  whom  he  could  converse."§  Even  as 
late  as  1808,  Jacobi,  another  Protestant  writer,  draws  a  fright- 
ful picture  of  the  moral  and  literary  condition  of  the  German 
Protestant  universities  during  his  time.|| 

Still,  it  is  very  common  to  find  it  boldly  asserted  from  the 
pulpit  and  through  the  press,  that  the  revival  of  letters  in 
Europe  was  brought  about  by  the  Reformation !  Nothing 
could  be  more  unfounded  in  fact,  and,  indeed,  more  utterly 

*  History  of  Literature,  vol.  i,  p.  173,  ^  1-  f  Mem.,  vol.  ii,  p.  172, 

I  See  his  letter  to  M.  Bigiion,  22d  June,  1715 — Commercii  Epist.  Leib« 
nitz.     Selecta  Specimina. — Epist.  xciv. — Apud  Robelot. 

5  Letter  to  M.  de  Beauval — ibid.     Ep.  xxv. 

II  See  his  testimony  in  Robelot,  p.  421,  422. 


418        INFLUENCE    OF   THE    REFORMATION    ON    LEARNING. 

absurd,  than  this  assertion.  To  Italy,  under  the  fostering  pro- 
tection of  her  Medici,  her  Gonzagas,  her  Estes,  and,  above  all, 
of  her  Popes,  and  more  especially  of  Nicholas  V.  and  Leo  X., 
do  we  in  a  great  measure  owe  the  revival  of  learning  in 
Europe.  All  persons  of  any  information  admit  this  fact. 
Roscoe,  an  English  Protestant,  has  written  an  extensive  work 
to  do  honor  to  the  pontificate  of  Leo  X.,  which  he  proves  to 
have  been  the  golden  age  of  learning.*  Hallam  also  pays  a 
splendid  tribute  to  this  second  Augustan  age  of  literature.f 
A  light  then  shot  up  in  Italy — in  Rome  its  brightness  was 
most  dazzling — which  illumined  the  whole  world.  Nor  was 
this  the  first  time  that  Rome  had  led  the  way  in  improvement 
and  civilization. 

The  literary  impulse  having  been  thus  powerfully  given, 
all  Europe  was  rapidly  advancing  in  learning.  The  progress 
was  steady  and  healthy.  On  a  sudden,  the  storm  of  the 
Reformation  broke  in  upon  the  tranquillity  of  Europe,  which 
was  peacefully  and  calmly  engaged  in  literary  pursuits.  The 
result  was  almost  the  same  as  that  of  a  violent  and  long-con 
tinned  storm  on  a  beautiful  garden,  fragrant  with  flowers  and 
rich  in  fruits.  The  fruits  of  previous  toil  were  rudely  shaken 
down  ere  they  had  become  mature ;  the  flowers  were  blighted ; 
and  the  garden  was  changed  into  a  desert ! — If  literature  was 
still  preserved,  it  was  in  spite  of  the  Reformation. 

The  usual  argument  of  those  who  maintain  that  the  Refor- 
mation was  the  cause  of  the  literary  resurrection  of  Europe, 
is  founded  on  a  comparison  of  the  condition  of  Europe  before, 
with  what  it  became,  after  the  Reformation.  Literature  was 
in  a  more  flourishing  condition  after  than  hofore  the  sixteenth 
century:  therefore^  the  Reformation  caused  the  change  for 
tlib  better.  Never  was  there  a  more  shallow  sophism.  It 
belongs  to  the  category:  jpost  Tioc^  ergo  propter  hoc.X     To 

*  Roscoe — Life  and  Pontificate  of  Leo  X.,  sup.  cit. 
f  History  of  Literature,  vol.  i,  p.  148,  seqq.     See  also  Audin,  Life  of  Lu 
ther,  p.  124,  seqq. 

t  "Aftt)-  this :  therefore  on  account  of  this." 


INVENTIONS   AND    IMPROVEMENTS.  419 

estimate  aright  the  influence  of  the  Reformation  on  learning, 
we  should  compare  the  literary  state  of  Europe  before  it, 
with  what  it  would  have  heen  afterwards,  if  the  Reformation 
had  not  intervened:  or,  more  properly,  we  should  compare 
the  progress  which  Europe  really  made  after  the  Reforma- 
tion, especially  in  Protestant  countries,  with  what  it  would 
have  made,  but  for  the  agitations  caused  by  this  revolution. 
Abiding  by  this  fair  test,  we  fearlessly  assert,  on  the  authority 
of  the  facts  and  evidence  above  adduced,  that  the  literary 
influence  of  the  Reformation  was  most  disastrous.* 

We  do  not  pretend  to  deny  that  Protestantism  has  produced 
many  illustrious  literary  characters.  Catholicism  has  produced 
at  least  as  great  men,  and  many  more  of  them.  Galileo  and 
La  Place  may  compare  advantageously  with  Huygens  and 
Newton :  while  Copernicus  far  outshines  Tycho  Brahe.  The 
latter,  though  a  Protestant,  was  encouraged  chiefly  by  Catho- 
lic potentates  of  Germany.  Among  philosophers,  if  Bacon 
and  Descartes  were  weighed  in  the  balance,  the  latter  would 
probably  preponderate.  It  would  lead  us  too  far,  to  continue 
this  comparison  through  all  its  details.  But  we  may  ask, 
whether  the  annals  of  Protestant  literature  can  produce 
brighter  names  than  Cardinal  Ximenes,  Cervantes,  Lope  de 
Vega,  Herrera,  and  Calderon,  in  Spain;  Bossuet,  Fenelon, 
Racine,  Moliere,  and  Legendre,  in  France ;  Raphael,  Michael 

*  These  remarks  are  made  in  the  hypothesis,  that  the  fact  is  as  stated  by 
the  admirers  of  the  Reformation;  namely,  that  the  literary  condition  of 
Europe  was  really  and  immediately  improved  in  those  countries  where  it 
gained  a  foothold.  We  may  well  deny  this  fact,  particularly  in  regard  to 
Germany,  with  which  our  present  business  principally  lies.  Comparing  the 
literary  state  of  Germany  during  the  fifty  years  preceding  Luther's  revolt, 
with  what  it  became  during  the  fifty  years  following,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
there  was  a  remarkable  falling  off,  both  in  literary  taste  and  in  literary 
progress.  Instead  of  advancing,  Germany  clearly  receded  in  the  literary 
race,  not  merelj'  for  a  half,  but  for  more  than  a  whole  century  after  the 
Eeforn\ation.  The  facts  alleged  above  clearly  prove  this ;  else  they  have  no 
meaning  whatsoever.  So  that  the  theory  which  we  are  discussing  is  erroneoui 
in  point  of  fact,  as  well  as  of  logic. 


420         LNFLUExXCE   OF   THE   REFORMATION    ON   LEARNING. 

Angelo,  Vidii,  Tasso,  Muratori,  Tirabosclii,  Boscovitch,  and 
a  countless  host  of  others  in  Italy;  rrp4erick  von  Schlegel, 
Moeller,  Dbllinger,  and  Gbrres  in  Germany ;  and  Pope, 
Dryden,  Lingard,  and  Moore  in  England  and  Ireland? 
These  are  but  a  few,  selected  almost  at  random,  from  the 
long  list  of  Catholic  literati. 

In  regard  to  the  older  inventions  which  have  proved  of 
great  and  permanent  utility  to  mankind,  a  far  greater  number 
was  made  by  Catholics  than  by  Protestants.  The  mariner's 
compass,  gunpowder,  the  art  of  printing,  clocks  and  watches, 
as  well  as  steamboat  navigation,*  were  all  discovered  or 
invented  by  Catholics.  To  them  also  belongs  the  glory  of 
having  discovered  America,  and  of  having  first  doubled  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  penetrated  to  the  Indies.  The  micro- 
scope, the  telescope,  the  thermometer,  the  barometer,  were  all 
invented  by  Catholics.  The  chief  great  discoveries  in  astron- 
omy— that  of  Jupiter's  satellites,  of  spots  in  the  sun,  and  of 
most  of  the  new  planets  or  asteroids — were  made  by  Catholics. 
Modern  poetry  was  first  cultivated  successfully  in  Italy  by 
Dante  and  Petrarch ;  and  Blair  himself  admits,  that  in  his- 
torical writing  the  Italians  probably  excel  all  other  people. 

The  paper  on  which  we  write,  the  general  use  of  window 
glass  and  the  art  of  staining  it,  the  weaving  of  cloth,  the  art 
of  enameling  on  ivory  and  metals,  the  discovery  of  stone 
coal,  the  sciences  of  galvanism  and  mineralogy;  and  many 
other  inventions  and  improvements  were  first  introduced  by 
Catholics:  most  of  them,  too,  in  the  "dark"  ages.  And  it 
may  be  maintained  on  the  faith  of  genuine  history,  that 
during  the  three  hundred  years  preceding  the  Reformation, 
probably  more  great  and  important  inventions  were  made, 
than  during  the  three  hundred  centuries  succeeding  that  revo- 

*  Blasco  de  Garay,  a  Spaniard,  made  the  first  successful  experiment  in 
steam  navigation,  in  the  harbor  of  Barcelona,  in  the  year  154:o.  Eighty-five 
years  later,  Brancas  followed  up  the  discovery  in  Italy. — See  "A  Year  in 
Spain,"  by  an  American  Protestant,  vol.  i,  p.  47,  seq.  Note  — Edit.  New 
York,  1830. 


PROTESTANT    TESTIMONY.  421 

lutioD.  Still  we  are  to  be  told,  that  we  owe  all  our  literature 
and  improvement  to  the  Reformation ! 

"We  may  here  also  remark,  that  the  two  greatest  epochs  of 
modern  literature — that  of  Leo  X.  and  of  Louis  XIV. — both 
occurred  in  Catholic  countries  and  under  Catholic  auspices. 
The  age  of  Frederick  the  Great,  in  Germany,  was  nearly 
allied  in  character  with  that  which  immediately  followed  it 
under  the  influence  of  the  infidels  of  France :  while  the  liter- 
ary glories  of  Queen  Anne's  reign  in  England,  were  equaled, 
if  they  were  not  surpassed,  by  those  of  the  much  earlier  age 
of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  in  Spain. 

It  is  a  very  common  charge  against  the  Catholic  Church 
that  she  keeps  her  people  in  ignorance ;  and  to  prove  this  ac- 
cusation, an  appeal  is  made  to  the  condition  of  Catholic  coun- 
tries, in  which,  it  is  said,  the  common  people  are  not  educated. 
Let  us  see  what  a  living  author,  and  an  unexceptionable  wit- 
ness, because  a  Protestant  and  a  Scotchman,  says  upon  this 
very  subject.  He  relates,  too,  what  he  himself  saw  and  had 
full  opportunities  of  examining.  We  allude  to  Laing,  whose 
"Notes  of  a  Traveler"  are  well  known  in  the  literary  world. 
He  writes : 

"  In  Catholic  Germany,  in  France,  and  even  in  Italy,  the  education  of  the 
common  people  in  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  music,  manners,  and  morals, 
is  at  least  as  generally  diffused  and  as  faithfully  promoted  by  the  clerical 
body  as  in  Scotland.  It  is  by  their  own  advance,  and  not  by  keeping  back 
the  advance  of  the  people,  that  the  popish  priesthood  of  the  present  day 
seek  to  keep  ahead  of  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  community  in  Catho- 
lic lands :  and  they  might  perhaps  retort  on  our  Pi-esbyterian  clergy, 
and  ask  if  they  too  are  in  their  countries  at  the  head  of  the  intellectual 
movement  of  the  age  ?  Education  is  in  reality  not  only  not  repressed,  but 
is  encouraged  by  the  Popish  Church,  and  is  a  mighty  instrument  in  its 
hands,  and  ably  used.  In  every  street  in  Ptome,  for  instance,  there  are,  at 
short  distances,  public  primary  schools  for  the  education  of  the  children  of 
the  lower  and  middle  classes  in  the  neighborhood.  Rome,  with  a  popula- 
tion of  one  hundred  and  fifty-eight  thousand  six  hundred  and  seventy- 
eight  souls,  has  three  hundred  and   seventy-two  primary  schools,*  with 

*  This  number  is  perhaps  somewhat  below  the  mark.     According  to  the 
27 


422         INFLUENCE    OF   THZ    REFORMATION   ON   LEARNING. 

four  hundred  and  eiglity-two  teachers,  and  fourteen  thousand  childrer 
attending  them.  Has  Edinburgh  so. many  schools  for  the  instruction  of  those 
classes  ?  I  doubt  it.  Berlin,  with  a  population  about  double  that  of  Rome, 
has  only  two  hundred  and  sixty-four  schools.  Rome  has  also  her  univer- 
sity, with  an  average  attendance  of  six  hundred  and  sixty  students  :  and  the 
papal  states,  with  a  population  of  two  and  a  half  millions,  contain  seven 
universities.     Prussia,  with  a  population  of  fourteen  millions,  has  but  seven." 

The  value  of  this  splendid  testimony  is  greatly  enhanced, 
when  we  reflect  tluit  ScotUind  and  Prussia  are  the  boasted 
lands  of  common  schools.  Protestants,  it  would  seem,  can 
hoast  more  on  what  they  have  done  for  literature ;  but  Cath- 
olics can  do  more  without  making  so  great  a  parade. 

We  will  conclude  this  chapter  with  the  able  analysis  of  Dr. 
Dollinger's  researches  into  the  literary  influence  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, as  presented  by  the  Dublin  Review,  in  the  paper 
which  we  have  already  quoted.  From  its  perusal  the  reader 
may  gather  what  the  reformers  themselves  and  their  own  im- 
mediate disciples  thought  on  this  subject;  and  they  surely 
must  be  considered  unexceptionable  witnesses,  especially  when 
they  testify  against  themselves. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  THE  CONDI- 
TION  OF   LITERATURE    AND    SCIENCE. 

"To  those  who  judge  by  the  commonly  received  notions,  this  inquiry,  we 
doubt  not,  will  appear  perfectly  idle,  perhaps  absurd.  To  move  a  di/ubt 
upon  the  subject  is  to  return  to  the  first  principles — to  call  evidence  itself 
in  question.  The  very  name  of  the  Reformation  is  popularly  regarded  as 
synonj^raous  with  enlightenment  and  progress,  and  from  it  is  commonly 
dated  the  origin  of  what  is  called  the  great  intellectual  ^lovement  of  the 
modern  world.  How  far  the  character  is  merited,  let  it  be  determined  from 
the  statements  of  the  reformers  themselves. 

"  (1.)  The  Sciences  and  Profane  Literature. — Perhaps  it  would  be 
wrong  to  insist  too  much  upon  the  testimony  of  Erasmus ;  but  it  is  impos- 
sible to  read  his  indignant  denunciations  of  Luther,  as  condemning  the 

Crams,  or  Roman  Almanac  for  1834,  Rome  then  had  three  hundred  and 
eighty-one  free  schools  ;  and  we  presume  the  number  has  not  since  decreased, 
as  we  know  the  population  has  been  steadily  increasing.  Many  of  tiiese 
schools  are  supported  by  private  charity,  while  those  of  Protestant  counliies 
ai'e  maintained  only  by  burdensome  taxation 


DOLLINGER's  AU.IIORITIES.  423 

whole  philosophy  of  Aristotle  as  diabolical,  declaring  '  all  science,  ^^^hether 
practical  or  speculative,  to  be  damnable,  and  all  the  speculative  sciences  to 
be  sinful  and  erroneous ;'  his  denunciation  of  Farel  of  Geneva  as  '  represent- 
ing all  human  learning  as  an  invention  of  the  devil ;'  his  furious  tirade 
against  the  whole  reforming  body,  as  '  both  publicly  and  privately  teaching, 
that  all  human  learning  is  but  a  net  of  the  devil' — his  reiterated  assertions, 
that '  wherever  Lutheranism  flourishes,  study  begins  to  grow  cold,'  that 
'where  Lutheranism  reigns,  learning  comes  to  ruin' — his  contrasts  of 
the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  seats  of  learning — without  feeling 
that  the  pretensions  of  modern  historians,  as  to  the  services  rendered  to 
learning  by  the  Reformation,  are  not  entirely  bej^ond  question.  And,  on  a 
nearer  examination,  we  find  that  these  denunciations  of  Erasmus  are  liter- 
ally borne  out  by  the  facts.  Melancthon  himself,  notwithstanding  his  own 
literary  tastes,  is  found  to  admit  their  justice.  Glarean,  a  Swiss  reformer, 
maintains  a  long  argument  against  a  party  of  his  fellow  Lutherans,  who  held 
that  *  there  was  no  need  to  study  Greek  and  Latin,  German  and  Hebrew 
being  quite  sufficient.'  Gastius  records  the  prevalence  of  a  still  more  ex- 
travagant opinion  among  the  evangelical  ministers,  (complusculos  evangelii 
ministros,)  '  that  it  was  even  unlawful  for  those  destined  to  the  preaching  of 
the  gospel  to  study  any  part  of  philosophy  except  the  sacred  Scripture  alone.' 
In  the  Bostock  university,  the  celebrated  Arnold  Bliren  was  suspected  of 
infidelity,  because  he  placed  Cicero's  philosophical  works  in  the  hands  of  his 
pupils,  as  a  text-book ;  and  in  Wittenberg  itself,  the  Rome  of  Lutheranism, 
it  was  publicly  maintained  by  George  Mohr,  and  Gabriel  Didymus,  that 
'scientific  studies  were  useless  and  destructive  (verderblich),  and  that  all 
schools  and  academies  should  be  abohshed.'  And  it  is  actually  recorded, 
that  in  pursuance  of  this  advice,  the  school-house  of  Wittenberg  was  con- 
verted into  a  bakery !  '  It  is  with  reluctance,'  writes  the  celebrated  Brassi- 
kanus,  one  of  Melancthon's  disciples  at  Tiibingen,  '  I  am  forced  by  truth  to 
say,  that  a  distaste  for  letters  exists  among  men  of  genius,  and  to  such  a 
degree,  even  in  the  greatest  cities  of  Germany,  that  it  has  become  a  mark 
of  nationalism  to  hate  learning,  and  an  evidence  of  prudence  and  statesman- 
ship to  condemn  all  study.'  What  must  have  been  the  evidence  of  the  evi) 
to  have  extorted  such  an  admission  !  Under  these  influences  science  fell 
completelj'  into  disrepute.  Nicholas  Gerbel  could  not  find  '  any  period  in 
history  where  the  sciences  were  at  a  lower  ebb  than  the  present.'  '  In  the 
last  century,  the  least  cultivated  man,'  writes  Eusebius  Menius,  'would 
have  been  ashamed  not  to  be  expert  in  mathematics  and  physics ;  but  nowadays 
one  can  not  but  see  that  (to  our  shame  in  the  sight  of  posterity)  these  sciences 
are  completely  despised,  and  that,  out  of  a  great  number  of  students,  but  few 
would  ever  know  what  once  mere  boys  would  have  been  perfectly  familiar 
with.'     And  so  universal  and  deep-rooted  had  this  hatred  of  science  become, 


424         INFLUENCE   OF   THE    REFORMATION    ON    LEARNING. 

that  'from  the  rcvihngs  of  science,  which  echo  in  ahnost  everj^  church  in 
Germany,  and  the  coarse  invectives  against  which  issue  from  the  press,' 
Moller,  in  his  commentary  on  Malachy,  'can  anticipate  nothing  but  the  com 
plete  downfliU  of  the  sciences,  the  re-introduction  of  the  most  immeasurable 
barbarism  into  the  Church,  and  unlimited  license  for  daring  spirits  to  deal 
with  the  Christian  doctrine  as  they  may  think  fit.' 

"(2.)  Theological  Studies. — The  same  distaste  extended  even  to  sacred 
studies.  It  will  not  b3  matter  of  surprise  that  Luther's  hatred  of  the  scho- 
lastics should  have  driven  them  at  once  and  forever  from  the  schools  of  the 
new  learning.  But  it  will  sound  oddl}^  in  the  ears  of  a  Protestant  of  the 
present  day,  that  the  Scriptures  themselves  should  have  fallen  into  disrepute, 
even  among  students  of  divinity,  and  even  in  Luther^s  own  university  of 
Wittenberg.  Yet  we  learn  from  an  unimpeachable  witness,  a  professor  at 
Wittenberg  itself,  that  'so  great  is  the  contempt  of  God's  word,  tliat  even 
students  of  divinity  fly  from  a  close  study  and  investigation  of  the  Bible,  as  if 
they  were  sated  and  cloyed  therewith ;  and  if  they  have  but  read  a  chapter 
or  two,  they  imagine  that  they  have  swallowed  the  wliole  of  the  divine 
wisdom  at  a  draught;'  and  Melchior  Petri,  minister  at  Radburg,  in  1569, 
'is  driven  to  confess  that  things  have  come  to  such  a  pass  among  Lutherans, 
that  as  Luther  himself  had  set  at  naught  the  authorities  of  the  entire  of  the 
fathers,  so  his  disciples  place  their  Father  Luther  far  beyond,  not  merely  the 
fathers,  but  even  the  Scripture  itself,  and  rely  exclusively  upon  him.' 

"  The  author  enters  minutely  into  the  claim  of  priority  in  the  foundation 
if  schools  of  biblical  criticism,  and  the  introduction  of  the  critical  study  of 
Scripture  set  up  in  favor  of  the  reformers.  Nor  does  it  bear  the  test  of  in- 
vestigation a  whit  better  than  the  claims  which  we  have  been  discussing. 
Though  we  find  so  much  stress  laid  by  them  upon  the  study  of  the  Hebrew 
text,  j-et  it  turns  out  that  not  a  single  edition  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  was 
printed  in  Germany  during  this  entire  period.  How  few  copies  of  the 
editions  printed  at  (the  still  popish)  Venice  between  1518  and  1544,  and  of 
the  Paris  ones  of  Robert  Stephens,  found  their  way  into  Germany,  may  be 
inferred  from  the  exceeding  rarity  of  these  editions ;  and  although  the  Basle 
edition  of  Sebastian  Munster  (1536)  may  have  had  somewhat  more  circula- 
tion, j'ct  the  first  edition  of  the  Hebrew  text  which  appeared  in  Protestant 
Germany,  dates  near  the  close  of  the  century  after  the  commencement  of 
Luther's  career.  In  like  manner,  there  does  not  appear  to  have  been  any 
edition  of  the  Greek  New  Testament  in  Germany  for  forty  years  after  the 
same  period.  Contrast  with  this  disgraceful  indifference,  the  sixteen  editions 
of  the  Hebrew  text  printed  in  Venice  alone  before  the  3'ear  1559,  and  the 
ten  editions  of  the  Greek  text  which  appeared  at  Paris  before  1551,  and  say 
to  which  side  the  priority  in  justice  belongs !  Well  may  Dr.  Dollinger, 
with  such  a  contrast  before  him,  appeal  to   Melancthon's  lamentation  80 


DECAY    OF    PROTESTANT    UMVERSITIES.  425 

fi«quently  and  so  feelingly  uttered  over  the  'total  neglect  of  the  original 
sources  of  divine  learning.' 

" '  Alas ! '  exclaims  Strigel,  '  were  pious  Christians  to  shed  as  many  tears 
as  there  is  water  in  the  Saal,  they  could  not  sufficiently  deplore  the  downfall 
of  Christian  doctrine  and  discipline.  Men  not  only  turn  with  disgust  and 
loathing  from  the  word  of  God,  but  what  is  still  more  deplorable,  they  blush 
at  the  very  name  of  "theologian,"  and  abandon  the  study  of  theology  to  a 
few  poor  wretched  men,  apparently  without  talent  or  means  to  cultivate  it, 
and  betake  themselves  to  more  honorable  and  more  agreeable  pursuits.' 

"(3.)  We  need  hardly  dwell  on  the  decay  of  Patristical  Studies.  The 
well-known  principles  of  Luther  on  the  subject  of  the  authority  of  the 
fathers — his  frequent  declarations  that  the  'poor  dear  fathers  lived  better 
than  they  wrote' — his  lamentations  over  the  'darkness  on  the  subject  of 
faith  which  pervades  their  writings;'  their  'blindness;'  the  'obscurity  in 
which  they  have  involved  questions  which  are  plain  in  the  Scripture ' — the 
contempt,  and  indeed  worse,  which  he  displays  for  them,  taken  individually ; 
will  prepare  us  for  great  extravagance  in  the  same  matter  on  the  part  of  his 
followers.  But  we  can  not  refrain  from  mentioning,  as  a  curious  example 
of  the  spirit  of  the  time,  that  it  was  made  a  serious  charge  against  a  master 
at  Augsburg,  that  he  introduced  Lactantius  among  his  scholars  as  an  intro- 
duction to  the  study  of  the  fiithers,  and  that  'among  the  especial  arts  which 
Satan  employs  to  undermine  the  authority  of  the  man  of  God,  Dr.  Luther, 
the  chief  is  described  to  be  his  withdrawing  them  from  Luthei^s  writings  to 
those  of  the  fathers,  and  of  others  who  are  far  inferior  to  him.' 

"(4.)  From  the  same  principles  of  Luther  will  be  understood  without 
diflSculty  the  decline  of  Historical  Stiulies  also.  Germany,  in  the  early  part 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  had  produced  a  larger  number  of  historians  than 
perhaps  any  other  in  Europe.  Wimpeling,  Tritheim,  Albert  Kranz,  Rhe- 
nanus,  Peutinger,  Cuspinian,  and  several  others  are  enumerated  by  Dollinger. 
In  the  last  seventy  years  of  the  same  century,  we  find  scarcely  a  single 
name  on  the  Protestant  side,  with  the  exception  of  Sleidan,  a  clever  but 
unscrupulous  writer ;  and  the  only  historical  writers  of  any  note  are  those 
of  the  Catholic  party — Gerhard  van  Roo,  Dalrav,  bishop  of  Olmi'itz,  and 
Fabricius,  rector  of  Diisseldorf 

"  (5.)  But  it  is  from  the  character  of  the  universities  and  other  seats  of 
learning,  even  more  than  from  general  statements  like  these,  that  we  can 
most  securely  gather  the  intellectual  condition  of  Germany.  Upon  this  part 
of  the  subject  the  author  appears  to  have  bestowed  exceeding  care ;  and  if 
it  be  remembered  how  obscure  and  how  scattered  must  have  been  the 
Bourees  of  such  an  inqtiiry,  some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  difficulty  of 
the  performance.  He  passes  in  review  the  universities  of  Erfurth,  Basle, 
Tubingen,  Wittenberg,  Leipsic,  Rostock,  Frankfort,  and  Heidelberg.  Con- 
trasting their  condition  before  and  after  the  Reformation,  and  detailing  in 
VOL.   I. — 36 


42  C         INFLUENCE   OF    'illE   REFORMATION    ON    LEARNING. 

the  words  of  ihc  reformers  themselves,  many  of  them  members  of  the  com- 
munities they  describe,  their  actual  condition  under  the  working  of  the  new 
system,  he  traces  to  its  immediate  influence  the  corruption  which  most 
unquestionably  did  follow  its  introduction,  so  clearly  and  satisfactorily,  that 
it  would  be  impossible  to  entertain  a  doubt  of  the  flict,  even  if  it  were  not 
expressly  admitted  by  the  parties  most  interested  in  its  concealment.  The 
universities  of  Germany,  without  any  exception,  were  described,  in  the  year 
1568,  as  'remarkable  for  nothing  but  the  pride,  laziness,  and  unbridled 
liceritiousness  of  the  professors,'  and  Camerarius  (i,  p.  484)  often  thought  that 
'it  would  be  better  to  have  no  schools  at  all  than  such  asylums  of  dishonesty 
and  vice.'  Wittenberg  held  a  bad  pre-eminence  among  them.  Flacius 
Illyricus  (p.  227)  'would  rather  send  children  to  a  brothel,  than  to  the  High 
School  of  Wittenberg.'  No  discipline  or  godliness  was  known  there,  and 
''especially  among  Dr.  Pinup's  {Melanctlioii)  disciples'  whom  people  visiting 
the  university,  and  expecting  to  find  angels,  discovered  to  be,  in  reality, 
living  devils.  Indeed,  the  students  of  this  university  were  'universally 
infamous  (landriichig)  for  debauchery,  gambling,  impiety,  blasphemy,  cursing, 
drinking,  and  indecent  language  and  behavior ;'  and  though  the  university 
authorities  were  well  aware  of  the  scandals,  they  were  afraid  to  publish 
their  shame  by  expelling  the  guilty,  who  constituted  the  majority.  At 
Frankfort  on  the  Oder  (1562),  the  students  were  'so  wild  and  undi.sciplined, 
that  neither  professors  nor  townsmen  were  secure  of  their  lives.'  At 
Tiibingen,  the  'habits  of  blasphemy,  drunkenness,  and  debauchery,'  which 
came  under  his  own  personal  notice,  called  for  the  prompt  and  decided  in- 
terference of  Duke  Christopher  of  Wiirtemberg  in  1565.  A  few  years  later 
(1577),  the  students  were  represented  in  the  magistrates'  report  to  the 
senate  as  'a  godless  race,  like  those  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrha :'  and  in  1583, 
a  solemn  visitation,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  staying  or  eradicating  the  noto- 
rious and  habitual  immorahty,  was  ordered  by  the  public  authorities  of  the 
city.  The  accounts  of  the  imiversities  of  Marburg  (p.  480),  Konigsberg  (p.  482), 
Leipsic  (p.  573),  Basle  (p.  557),  are  precisely  the  same ;  and  in  his  report  on  the 
university  of  Rostock,  Arnold  Bui'en  frankly  avows,  that,  'comparing  the 
new  generation  with  the  old  ones,  every  right-minded  man  complained,  and 
the  conduct  of  the  members  themselves  evinced  even  more  clearly,  that  a 
general  deterioration  of  morals  had  taken  place ;  that  crimes  of  every  de- 
scription were  day  by  day  on  the  increase;  that  instead  of  the  virtuous 
gravity  and  youthful  modesty  of  foi-mor  days,  wanton  levity  and  unbridled 
licentiousness  liad  been  introduced ;  and  that  things  had  come  now  to  such 
a  pass,  tliat  from  the  entire  frame  of  society,  and  from  the  morals  of  every 
olass,  simplicity,  integrity,  and  purity  had  completely  disappeared.' 

"In  a  short  time   this  disrepute  began  to  produce  its  effect  upon  the 
attendance  of  the  pupils.     The  declaration  of  Illyricus  is  an  echo  of  the 


GENERAL   SUMMARY.  427 

general  feeling.  Parents  feared  to  send  their  children  to  such  dens  of  im- 
morality :  the  numbers  gi-adually  diminished :  the  university  of  Basle,  onct 
60  flourishing,  became  a  desert  within  a  few  )^ears :  and  at  Erfurth,  which 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  Eeforniation  had  been  in  its  highest  reputation,  the 
pupils,  who  in  1520  amounted  to  three  hundred  and  eleven,  fell  to  one 
hundred  and  twenty  in  1522,  then  to  seventy-two,  and  afterwards  to  thirty- 
four,  till,  in  1527,  the  entrances  amounted  to  but  fourteen ! " 

The  writer  concludes  his  review  of  Dbllinger's  learned 
work,  with  the  following  general  summary  of  the  view  of 
the  Reformation  taken  by  the  reformers  themselves,  in  regard 
to  the  influence  of  this  great  revolution  on  the  interests  of 
this  world  and  on  those  of  the  next.  The  portraiture  is,  in- 
deed, a  very  sad  one;  but  none  the  less  reliable,  because 
drawn  by  the  early  friends  and  admirers  of  the  Reformation, 
whose  testimony  is  alleged  for  each  statement. 

"  From  the  variety  of  these  extracts,  and  the  exceeding  diversity  of  the 
sources  from  which  they  are  taken,  it  will  readily  be  believed  that  our  diffi- 
culty has  rather  been  to  limit  than  to  extend  them.  We  had  originally 
intended  to  pursue  the  inquiry  on  a  similar  plan  through  various  other 
topics,  as, — the  scandalous  lives  of  its  ministers,  and  the  contempt  and 
hatred  with  which,  as  a  class,  they  were  regarded  by  their  flocks — the 
weariness  of  spirit,  the  remorse,  the  longing  after  death,  even  the  miserable 
end,  in  many  cases,  by  their  own  hands,  which  it  entailed  upon  those  who 
were  actively  engaged  in  it — the  repining  after  the  good  old  times,  the  long- 
ing for  the  revival  of  popery,  and  the  habitual  reference,  on  the  part  of  the 
people,  of  all  the  evils  which  had  overwhelmed  the  world  to  the  new  gospel 
which  had  been  introduced.  But  we  have  already  more  than  wearied  out 
the  reader's  patience  by  these  painful  and  revolting  extracts,  nor  shall  we 
venture  to  pursue  the  Reformation  into  the  'lower  deeps'  of  sin  and  wretch- 
edness to  which  it  led.  Even  in  the  few,  and  perhaps  ill-assorted  extracts 
which  we  have  hastily  heaped  together,  there  is  enough  and  more  than 
enough  to  fix  its  character  as  a  movement  claiming  to  be  divinely  dii'ected. 
We  are  ready  to  allow  its  claims  to  be  tested  by  any  reasoning  man,  no 
matter  how  deeply  prejudiced  in  its  favor,  upon  these  admissions  of  its  own 
most  zealous  founders.  Let  him  but  contrast  in  the  light  of  this  evidence, 
imperfect  and  fragmsntary  as  our  narrow  limits  have  made  it,  its  great 
promise,  with  its  small  performance,  its  magnificent  anticipations  with  its 
miserable  results — let  him  follow  it  in  its  career  through  the  various  coun- 
tries where  ;t  found  an  entrance,  and  mark  the  fruits  which  it  produced  in 
each — where  it  promised  peace  and  happiness,  let  him  see  it  produce  disor 


428        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

der,  insubordination,  murder,  rebellion,  divisions  of  class  against  clat5S,  san- 
guinary war ;  where  it  promised  piety,  lukewarmness,  impiety,  blasphemy, 
irreligion ;  where  it  promised  purer  morality,  debauchery,  fornication,  drunk 
enness,  revolting  indecency  in  young  and  old ;  where  it  promised  all  the 
social  and  domestic  virtues,  adulteries,  divorces,  bigamj',  fraud,  avarice,  hard- 
heartedness  to  the  poor  ;  where  it  promised  the  revival  of  true  faith,  confu- 
sion, skepticism,  contempt  of  all  religion,  and  utter  unbelief;  where  it 
promised  enlightenment,  ignorance,  barbarism,  contempt  of  learning,  and 
fimatical  hatred  of  science ; — ^let  him  but  remember  how  all  this  is  attested 
by  those  to  whose  dearest  and  most  cherished  hopes  the  admission  was  as 
gall  and  wormwood,  and  we  defy  him  to  resist  the  direct  and  palpable  con- 
clusion, that  the  finger  of  God  was  not  in  that  unhappy  movement — that 
the  prestige  of  its  success  was  hollow  and  unsubstantial,  that  its  boasted 
advantages  were  a  juggle  and  a  delusion,  that  its  lofty  pretensions  were  but 
a  silly  mockery,  and  its  very  title  a  living  and  flagitious  he." 


CHAPTER     XVI. 

INFLUENCE  OF  THE   REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

Definition — Religion,  the  basis — Reclaiming  from  barbarism — British  East 
India  possessions — Catholic  and  Protestant  conquests — Protestant  mis- 
sions— Sandwich  Islands — The  mother  of  civilization — The  ark  amid  the 
deluge — Rome  converts  the  nations — Early  German  civilization — Moham- 
medanism— The  Crusades — The  Popes — Luther  and  the  Turks — Luther 
retracts — Religious  wars  in  Germany — Thirty  Yeai-s'  War — General 
peace — Disturbed  by  the  Reformation — Comparison  between  Protestant 
and  Catholic  countries. 

To  civiliBe,  according  to  lexicographers,  is  ''to  reclaim 
from  a  state  of  savageness  and  brutality."  According  to  its 
more  comnioh  acceptation,  however,  the  word  Gwilisation 
implies  more  than  a  mere  reclaiming  from  barbarism.  It  em- 
braces, as  its  more  prominent  constituent  elements,  enlight- 
enment of  the  public  mind,  good  government  conducted  on 
liberal  principles,  a  certain  refinement  in  public  taste  and 
manners,  and  a  gentleness  and  polish  in  social  intercourse. 


COMPARATIVE   CIVILIZATION.  429 

The  more  fully  and  the  more  harmoniously  these  elements 
are  developed  together,  the  higher  the  state  of  civilization. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  religion  lies  at  the  basis  of  all 
true  civilization.  A  mere  glance  at  the  past  history  and 
present  condition  of  the  world  must  satisfy  any  impartial 
man  of  this  great  truth.  Those  countries  only  have  been 
blessed  with  a  high  degree  of  civilization  which  have  been 
visited  by  the  Christian  religion.  Those  which  have  not  had 
this  visitation,  or  which  have  rejected  it,  are  in  a  state  of  bar- 
barism, or  at  least  of  semi-barbarism.  If  Europe  is  more 
highly  civilized  than  any  other  quarter  of  the  globe,  it  is  pre- 
cisely because  she  has  been  brought  more  fully  under  the 
softening  and  humanizing  influence  of  Christianity.  If  Africa 
is  the  lowest  in  the  scale,  it  is  because  her  people  have  been 
to  a  very  great  extent  excluded  from,  or  have  shut  their  eyes 
to  the  blessed  light  of  the  gospel. 

Asia  occupies  an  intermediate  ground  between  barbarism 
on  the  one  hand,  and  a  state  of  high  civilization  on  the  other. 
That  poi'tion  of  her  population  which  has  never  received  the 
Christian  religion,  still  continues  in  a  state  of  unmitigated 
barbarism.  That  portion  which  once  received,  but  has  since 
in  a  great  measure  lost  sight  of,  or  rejected  the  doctrines  of 
Christianity,  may  in  general  be  pronounced  to  be  in  a  state 
but  half-civilized.  No  more  striking  proof  of  the  soundness 
of  these  remarks  can  perhaps  be  given,  than  the  incontestable 
fact  that  all  western  Asia,  embracing  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Pal- 
estine, Bythinia,  Mesopotamia,  and  Armenia,  which  was, 
during  the  early  ages  of  Christianity,  in  a  high  state  of  civil- 
ization, has  since  sunk  into  a  state  of  semi-barbarism,  after 
Christianity  had  been  either  extinguished  or  paralyzed  in  its 
influence  by  Mohammedanism.  Constantinople,  Antioch,  and 
Ephesus,  once  the  centers  of  civilization,  and  the  radiating 
points  of  learning,  are  now  the  seats  of  barbarism — all  their 
laurels  withered,  and  all  their  glory  fled,  perhaps  for  ever ! 
Egypt  and  northern  Africa  were  also,  during  the  first  ages  of 
the  Chv  rch,  far  advanced  in  civilized  life.     But  what  is  their 


430        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

condition  now,  and  what  has  it  been  for  many  centuries,  since 
the  overthrow  of  Christian  institutions  by  those  of  IsUimism 
The  daik  night  of  barbarism  still  broods  heavily  over  them, 
though  a  cheering  twilight  of  the  coming  dawn  is  beginning 
to  brighten  in  Algeria.  And,  in  Europe,  those  countries  pre- 
cisely have  advanced  the  least  in  civilization  w^hich — as 
Russia  and  other  more  northern  nations — have  been  less  fully 
and  powerfully  acted  on  by  the  principles  of  the  Christian 
religion,  as  unfolded  from  its  center. 

From  the  facts  already  established  in  the  previous  chapters, 
we  may  easily  gather  what  was  the  influence  of  the  Reforma- 
tion on  these  two  leading  elements  of  civilization — free  gov- 
ernment and  literary  enlightenment.  We  think  that  evei'j 
impartial  man  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  weigh  well  the 
Protestant  evidence  already  accumulated  on  those  subjects,- 
will  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  so  far  at  least  as  these  are 
concerned,  the  inflluence  of  the  Reformation  was  most  injuri- 
ous. We  would  not,  liowever,  be  understood  as  denying  that 
Protestantism  subsequently  exercised,  at  least  occasionally 
and  to  some  extent,  a  beneficial  influence  on  the  progress  of 
society.  We  freely  admit  that  Protestants  have  done  some 
thing  for  the  social  advancement  of  the  human  race :  but  we 
maintain  that  Catholics  have  done  much  more,  and  that  with- 
out the  Reformation,  the  world  would  have  advanced  much 
more  rapidly  in  civilization  than  it  has  done  with  its  co- 
operation. 

To  begin  with  the  first  idea  implied  by  the  term — a  reclaim- 
ing from  barbarism — what  nation  or  people,  we  would  ask, 
has  Protestantism  ever  reclaimed  from  a  barbarous  to  a  civil- 
ized condition  ?  What  nation,  or  even  considerable  portion 
of  a  nation,  has  it  ever  converted  from  heathenism  to  Chris- 
tianity ?  It  has  indeed  caused  many  to  abandon  the  old  sys- 
tem of  religion,  and  to  embrace  its  own  crude  and  new-fangled 
notions :  but  we  have  yet  to  learn  that  it  has  brought  one 
entire  heathen  people  into  the  Christian  fold.  Many  barba- 
tma  nations  and  tribes  have  been  crushed  or  exterminated  bj 


CATHOLIC    AND    PROTESTANT    CONQUESTS.  431 

the  onward  marcli  of  its  own  peculiar  system  of  exclusive 
civilization ;  but  not  one^  so  far  as  our  information  extends, 
has  been  converted  to  Christianity,  or  even  ameliorated  m 
social  condition,  through  its  agency. 

And  yet  Protestantism  has  had  ample  power  in  its  hands 
for  this  purpose,  as  well  as  ample  verge  for  its  operations. 
With  her  almost  unbounded  power  by  sea  and  by  land,  En- 
gland, to  say  nothing  of  other  Protestant  governments,  might, 
it  would  seem,  have  converted  whole  nations  to  Christianity, 
and  thereby  reclaimed  them  from  barbarism.  "With  her  vast 
power  and  influence  in  the  East  Indies,  she  might  have  made 
at  least  an  effort  to  bring  the  teeming  nations,  with  their  tens 
of  millions  of  inhabitants,  which  there  acknowledged  her 
sway,  into  the  beautiful  fold  of  Christian  civilization.  But 
what  has  she  actually  accomplished?  Has  she  ameliorated 
the  civil  condition  of  the  seventy  millions  whom  she  holds  in 
political  thralldom  in  the  east  ?  Has  she  even  made  a  seri- 
ous effort,  in  her  political  capacity,  to  bring  about  this  result  ? 
Have  the  obscene  and  wicked  rites  of  paganism  vanished  be- 
fore her  powerful  influence  ? 

She  has  indeed  crushed  or  exterminated  whole  tribes  by 
her  arms,  or  ground  them  in  the  dust  by  her  tyranny,  and 
impoverished  them  by  her  exactions !  She  has  done  much  to 
render  Christian  civilization  odious  in  their  eyes :  she  has 
done  little  or  nothing  to  render  it  amiable  or  attractive.  She 
has  lately  goaded  them  to  rebellion  by  her  cruel  exactions 
and  selfish  policy ;  and  then  crushed  out  the  insurrection  by 
the  strong  arm  guided  by  superior  discipline.  A  lust  of 
power  and  of  money  has  been  the  all-absorbing  principle  of 
her  policy :  and  its  effects  are  visible  in  the  abiding  degrada- 
tion of  the  millions  who  unwillingly  bow  beneath  her  yoke. 
It  is  deemed  unnecessary  to  multiply  proofs  to  establish  what 
must  be  apparent  to  every  one  who  has  even  glanced  at  the 
history  of  the  conquests  and  policy  of  England  in  her  East 
India  possessions.  Her  own  writers  and  the  oflicial  acts  of 
parliament  have  boldly  proclaimed   these  iniquities  to  the 


432        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

world :  and  no  one  will  be  so  skeptical  as  to  question  theii 
truth,  or  to  deny  their  enormity.* 

Happily,  such  has  not  been  the  case  with  Catholic  con 
quests  among  barbarous  nations.  The  first  thing  always 
thought  of  by  Catholic  sovereigns  who  established  their 
power  in  heathen  lands,  was  to  introduce  Christianity  among 
the  tribes  whom  they  had  subdued,  and  to  bring  about, 
through  its  agency,  their  gradual  civilization.  The  Catholic 
missionary  always  accompanied  the  leader  of  Catholic  mari- 
time discovery  and  conquest,  to  soften  down  the  horrors  of 
war,  to  pour  oil  into  the  wounds  of  the  vanquished  people, 
and  to  direct  their  attention  to  sublime  visions  of  civilization, 
of  Religion  —  of  heaven.  The  Catholic  cross  was  always 
reared  by  the  side  of  the  banner  of  Catholic  conquest.  And 
the  result  has  been,  that  wherever  Catholic  conquest  has  ex- 
tended, there  religion  has  been  also  established,  and,  through 
it,  civilization  has  been  gradually  introduced. 

Whoever  will  read  attentively  the  annals  of  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  voyages  of  discovery  and  conquest  in  America 
and  thp  Indies,  will  be  convinced  of  the  truth  of  this  remark. 
Our  countryman,  Washington  Irving,  has  done  ample  justice 
to  this  subject ;  and  we  confidently  appeal  to  the  evidence 
his  magic  pen  has  spread  before  the  world,  for  a  triumphant 
proof  of  our  assertion.f  Our  attention  is  often  directed,  with 
a  sneer  of  triumph,  to  the  inferior  political  condition  of  Span- 
ish America :  but  those  who  employ  this  common-place  argu- 
ment, and  who  boast  of  their  own  .superior  civilization  and 

*  Some  modem  writers,  indeed,  claim  that  England  has  accomplished 
much  towards  elevating  the  social  condition  of  the  people  in  the  East  Indies. 
But  when  you  call  on  them  for  facts  and  specifications,  they  are  able  to  pre- 
sent little  but  vague  and  unsatisfactory  generalities.  It  is  admitted  on  all 
hands,  that  very  few  of  the  natives  ha^^e  been  converted  to  Chi'istianity. 
Such  being  the  case,  it  is  diflScult  to  sec  wherein  their  alleged  social  improve- 
ment is  to  be  found. 

f  In  his  "Life  of  Columbus,"  2  vols.  8vo.  New  York,  1831.  See  the 
evidence  he  alleges  on  our  present  subject,  accumulated  in  a  Review  of  Web- 
titer's  Biniker  Hill  Speech,  published  in  the  Mii?cellanea. 


CONVERSION  OF  HEATHENS.  433 

refinement,  do  not  reflect,  or  would  not  have  us  reflect,  that, 
whereas  the  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  settled  down  and  in- 
termarried with  the  aborigines,  and  used  every  effort  to  civil- 
ize them  —  in  which  they  have  partially  succeeded;  we  in 
North  America,  with  all  our  boasted  superiority,  have  cir- 
cumvented, goaded  into  war,  driven  from  place  to  place,  and 
finally  almost  exterminated  the  poor  Indians,  the  original 
proprietors  of  our  soil.*  Protestantism  is  heartily  welcome 
to  all  the  laurels  of  civilization  it  has  won  in  this  great  Ameri- 
can field ! 

It  is  rather  a  remarkable  coincidence  that,  in  the  very  first 
year  of  the  Reformation — 1517 — the  first  expedition  of  the 
Spaniards  for  the  conquest  of  Mexico — that  under  Cordova — 
was  undertaken.  Two  years  later,  in  1519,  Hernando  Cortes 
entered  upon  the  great  enterprise  which  actually  achieved  the 
conquest  of  Mexico,  On  his  standard  was  inscribed  the 
motto ;  "  Amici,  crucem  sequamur,  et  in  hoc  signo  vince- 
mus" — "Friends,  let  us  follow  the  cross,  and  under  this 
banner  shall  we  conquer."  According  to  the  account  of  the 
Spanish  missionaries,  who  accompanied  this  expedition  of 
Cortes,  six  Tnillions  of  Mexicans  were  received  into  the 
Catholic  Church  by  baptism  during  the  years  intervening 
between  1524  and  1540 ;  the  very  period  in  which  the  Refor- 
mation was  progressing  most  rapidly  in  Europe.  It  is  highly 
probable  that,  by  this  rem.arkable  stroke  of  Divine  Provi- 
dence, the  Catholic  Church  thus  gained  probably  almost  as 
many  new  disciples  in  Spanish  and  Portuguese  America  alone, 
as  she  lost  of  old  ones  in  Europe  through  the  Reformation  !f 

We  must  admit  that  Protestants  have  made  great  efforts  to 

*  See  Bancroft's  testimonies,  and  other  evidences  on  the  subject,  collected 
ibid. 

f  See  article  Dispatches  of  Hernando  Cortes,  in  the  North  American  Re- 
view for  October,  1843.  In  his  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexco,  Prescott 
quotes  Father  Toribio,  who  says  that  nine  millions  of  converts  were  made 
within  twenty  years  after  the  first  advent  of  the  Cathohc  missionaries.  See 
vol.  iii,  p.  2G7. 

VOL.   I. — 37 


434        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

convert  heathen  nations.  Millions  of  money  have  been  liber- 
ally bestowed  for  this  benevolent  purpose.  Large  bodies  of 
missionaries,  with  their  wives  and  families,  have  been  annu- 
ally sent  out  by  Bible  and  other  Protestant  societies,  to  evan- 
gelize and  civilize  heathen  lands.  Not  only  the  expenses  of 
this  numerous  corps  have  been  liberally  paid,  but  they  have 
had  handsome  salaries,  and  often  princely  establishments. 
But  what  have  they  done,  with  all  the  money  that  has  been 
expended,  and  all  the;  parade  that  has  been  made  on  the 

subject. 

Quid. 

Hie  faciei  tanto  dignum  promissor  hiatu  ?* 

Have  they  converted  even  one  nation  to  Christianity?  If 
they  have,  history  is  silent  as  to  its  locality.f  Much  was  once 
said  about  the  conversion  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  by  Ameri- 
can Protestant  missionaries :  but  this  has  all  turned  out,  like 
other  similar  schemes  of  conversion,  a  miserable  failure.  The 
first  efiect  of  Protestant  civilization  in  those  islands  was  a  re- 
duction of  the  native  population  by  more  than  one  half:  the 
next  was  the  enriching  of  the  missionaries  themselves — a  very 
usual  occurrence,  by  the  way,  and  one  which  exhibits  the 
chief  advantage  of  those  missionary  enterprises :  and  the 
third  was  a  most  disgraceful  persecution  of  brother  Christian 
missionaries,  so  much  so  that  a  Catholic  potentate  felt  himself 
called  on  to  interfere.^  A  distinguished  modern  writer  has 
well  remarked,  that  the  Protestant  sects  have  been  ever  doomed 
to  sterility  since  their  divorce  from  the  only  true  spouse  of 
Christ — the  Catholic  Church.§ 

On  the  other  hand,  what  has  the  Catholic  Church  done  for 

*  Horace — Ars  Poetica.  "  What  will  this  boaster  accomplish,  after  so 
much  Uowing  ?" 

f  See  most  abundant  evidence,  chiefly  from  Protestants  themselves,  in 
Dr.  Wiseman's  "  Lectures  on  the  Catholic  Religion,"  2  vols.  12mo,  vol.  i, 
lect.  vi. 

+  Ibid.  We  have  discussed  this  subject  at  some  length  in  our  Lectures 
on  the  Evidences  of  Catholicity. 

\  Count  de  Maistre — Du  Pape,  vol.  ii. 


THE   ARK    IN   THE   DELUGE.  435 

civilization  I  What  nations  has  she  converted  to  Christianity  ? 
We  may  answer  the  question  by  asking  another.  What  na- 
tion or  people  is  there,  of  all  those  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
who  have  entered  the  Christian  fold,  which  she  has  not  been 
mainly  instrumental  in  converting  and  civilizing  ?  Is  there 
even  one?     What  says  faithful  history  on  the  subject? 

During  the  first  four  centuries  of  Christianity,  the  principal 
nations  of  Europe,  as  well  as  many  of  those  of  Asia  and  Africa, 
had  been  converted  by  missionaries  sent  either  directly  by 
Rome,  or  at  least  in  communion  and  acting  in  concert  with 
the  Roman  See.  The  cross  of  Christ  had  been  borne  in  tri- 
umph to  the  most  remote  extremities  of  the  Roman  empire, 
which  then  embraced  almost  all  of  Europe  and  a  great  por- 
tion of  Asia  and  Africa.  It  had  been  planted  even  in  the 
midst  of  people  who  were  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  vast 
territory  ruled  by  Rome.  As  early  as  the  close  of  the  second 
century,  St.  Iron  sens,  bishop  of  Lyons,  could  say  in  triumph 
that  many  barbarous  nations  in  Germany  and  elsewhere,  over 
whose  heads*  the  Roman  eagle  had  never  been  reared,  had 
already  received  the  gospel,  although  they  were  unlettered 
and  unacquainted  with  the  use  of  paper  and  ink.  Tertullian, 
a  writer  who  flourished  in  the  beginning  of  the  third  century, 
could  also  say,  in  a  defense  of  Christianity,  addressed  to  the 
Roman  emperor  and  senate,  that  Christians  had  already 
filled  the  villages,  the  towns,  the  cities,  the  castles,  and  the 
armies  of  the  Roman  empire,  and  that  they  had  left  only 
the  temples  of  paganism  to  their  idolatrous  persecutors ! 

In  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  a  deluge  of  barbarism  over- 
whelmed the  Roman  empire  of  the  west,  which  was  already 
/ast  verging  to  its  final  downfall.  The  ancient  Roman  civil- 
ization was  buried  under  its  turbid  waters.  The  ark  of  the 
Church  alone  rode  out  in  safety  the  angry  flood  :  and  when  its 
waters  had  subsided,  the  tenants  of  this  ark,  as  had  been  done 
by  those  of  its  prototype  of  old,  repeopled  the  earth.  In  it 
were  preserved,  together  with  Christianity,  the  seeds  of  a  new 
civilization,  more  refined  and  elevated  by  far,  than  that  which 


436        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

had  been  swept  from  the  face  of  the  earth  by  the  new  deluge 
These  were  scattered  broadcast  over  the  soil  of  the  world :  the 
Church  watered  them  with  the  tears  of  her  maternal  solici- 
tude, and,  when  they  had  sprung  up,  she  nurtured  the  plants 
and  brought  them  to  maturity.  Thus  to  her  alone  is  due  the 
credit  of  having  rescued  the  world  from  barbarism,  and  of 
having  again  carefully  collected  and  skillfully  put  together 
the  scattered  elements  of  the  new  civilization.  All  modern 
improvement  dates  back  to  this  era,  as  certainly  and  as  neces- 
sarily as  do  the  existence  and  extension  of  the  human  race 
to  the  epoch  of  the  deluge.  We  owe  at  least  as  much  to  the 
Church  as  we  do  to  Noah's  ark. 

The  hordes  of  the  north,  who  had  trodden  in  the  dust  the 
haughty  Roman  empire,  entered  themselves,  one  by  one,  into 
the  ample  fold  of  the  Church.  The  fierce  conquerors  will- 
ingly bowed  their  necks  to  receive  the  yoke  of  the  conquered  ! 
Christianity  thus  triumphed,  like  her  divine  Founder,  by  being 
seemingly  conquered  for  a  time.  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable, 
too,  that  all  the  nations  of  the  north  were  subsequently  con- 
verted by  missionaries  sent  by  Rome. 

Ireland  was  the  first  to  enter  into  the  Christian  fold :  and 
she  became  subsequently  a  principal  instrument  in  the  hands 
of  Providence  for  converting  the  other  northern  nations.  She 
bad  never  been  conquered  by  the  Roman  legions,  nor  had 
she  been  instrumental  in  effecting  the  downfall  of  the  Roman 
empire.  Yet  was  she  the  first  nation  of  the  north  that 
assumed  the  sweet  yoke  of  Christ.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
fifth  century,  A.  D.  430,  Pope  Celestine  I.  sent  St.  Patrick 
into  Ireland,  and  St.  Palladius  into  Scotland.*  Towards  the 
close  of  the  same  century,  in  496,  St.  Remigius  baptized  at 
Rheims,  King  Clovis  and  three  thousand  officers  of  his  army, 
thus  commencing  successfully  the  conversion  of  the  Francs, 
and  consolidating  the  foundations  of  Christianity  in  France. 

*  It  is  well  known  that  among  ancient  writers  Scots  and  Ilibemians  were 
often  convertible  terras. 


NORTHMEN    CONVERTED.  437 

Near  the  close  of  the  sixth  century,  A.  D,  591,  Pcpe  St 
Gregory  the  Great  sent  St.  Augustine  and  his  forty  com- 
panions into  England.  These  converted  the  kingdom  of  Kent, 
and  soon  all  England  followed  the  example.  In  the  seventh 
century,  St.  Kilian,  sent  by  Pope  Conon,  preached  the  gospel 
in  Franconia ;  St.  Swidbert  and  others  evangelized  Friesland, 
Brabant,  and  Holland ;  and  St.  Kupert  became  the  apostle 
of  Bavaria.  In  the  eighth  century,  St.  Boniface,  sent  by  Pope 
Gregory  II.  in  719,  converted  the  Hessians  and  Thuringians, 
and  suffered  martyrdom  at  length  in  Friesland,  in  755,  with 
fifty-two  of  his  companions.  Saints  Corbinian,  Willibrord, 
and  Yigilius  were  his  co-operators  in  the  apostleship. 

In  the  ninth  century,  St.  Adalbert  converted  Prussia :  and 
St.  Ludger  became  the  apostle  of  Saxony  and  Westphalia,  and 
died  bishop  of  Munster.  In  the  same  age,  St.  Anscarius, 
archbishop  of  Hamburg  and  Bremen,  preached  the  gospel  to 
the  Danes,  and  planted  Christianity  in  Sweden,  about  the 
year  830.  About  the  same  period,  the  two  brothers.  Saints 
Methodius  -and  Cyril,  with  the  sanction  of  Pope  John  VIIL, 
converted  the  Sclavonians,  the  Russians,  and  the  Moravians, 
and  also  Michael,  king  of  the  Bulgarians.  In  the  tenth  cen- 
curv,  the  faith  was  extended  into  Muscovy,  Denmark,  Goth- 
land, Sweden,  and  Poland.  The  Normans,  with  their  Duke 
[lolla,  were  converted  in  912  ;  and  the  Hungarians,  with  their 
king,  St.  Stephen,  embraced  Christianity  about  the  year  1002.* 

Thus  all  the  nations  of  Europe  were  successively  converted 
CO  Christianity  by  the  direct  agency  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  and  by  missionaries  sent  by  Rome.  Their  civiliza- 
tion was  a  necessary  sequel  to  their  conversion.  They  were 
mdebted  for  both  to  Rome.  This  was  especially  true  in  rela- 
tion to  the  German  nations.  "We  have  seen  above  the  avowal 
()f  D'Aubigne  himself  on  this  subject.  As  Audin  well  re- 
marks : 

"  It  was  religion  that  had  softened  the  savage  manners  of  its  inhabitants, 
cleared  its  forests,  peopled  its  solitudes,  and  aided  in  throwing  off  the  yoke 

*  See  Church  historians,  passim. 

28 


438         INFLUENCE  OF  THE  B.EFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

of  the  Koraans.  Whatever  poetry,  music,  or  intellectual  culture  it  possessed 
when  Luther  appeared,  it  owed  to  its  ancient  bishops.  The  feudal  tree  had 
first  flourished  on  its  soil.  It  had  its  electors,  dukes,  barons,  who  were 
often  bishops  or  archbishops.  Of  all  the  European  states,  it  was  the  one  m 
which  the  influence  of  the  Papacy  had  been  most  vividly  felt."* 

He  might  have  added  that  whatever  of  liberty  it  possessed, 
it  had  also  derived  from  Rome.  She  had  by  her  influence 
gradually  abolished  the  serf  system,  had  opened  sanctuaries 
for  the  oppressed,  had  proscribed  the  trial  by  ordeal,  and  had 
substituted  for  it  a  more  rational  system  of  judicature.  She 
had  purified  and  elevated  the  old  German  jurisprudence  by 
the  wise  provisions  of  her  canon  law ;  and,  by  declaring  the 
oppressed  and  crushed  subject  free  from  the  obligation  of  his 
oath  of  allegiance  to  the  oppressor,  she  had  broken  his  bonds, 
and  taught  him  his  political  rights.  In  a  word,  Rome  was, 
for  Germany  more  especially,  the  great  center  of  civilization, 
and  the  point  from  which  enlightenment  had  radiated  through 
out  her  entire  territory. 

The  deluge  of  barbarian  invasion  having  subsided,  and  the 
barbarians  themselves  having  been  converted  to  Christianity, 
a  new  and  most  appalling  danger  threatened  European  civil- 
ization, nay,  the  independence  and  the  very  existence  of 
Europe.  The  Mohammedan  imposture,  commencing  at  Mecca 
in  the  year  622,  had  rapidly  overspread  a  great  part  of  Asia 
and  Africa,  and  had  penetrated  into  Europe,  through  Spain, 
as  early  as  the  year  711.  In  the  east  it  menaced  Constanti- 
nople, the  capital  of  the  Greek  empire  ;  in  the  south  and  west 
it  threatened  still  more  nearly  European  independence.  Mas- 
ters of  northern  Africa,  of  Spain,  and  of  the  Mediterranean, 
the  followers  of  Mohammed  were  ready  to  penetrate  into  Eu- 
rope on  all  sides,  with  thescimitar  inonehand,  and  the  Koran 
in  the  other.  The  consequences  of  their  successful  incursion 
would  have  been,  what  they  had  been  everywhere  else,  the 
ruin  of  literature  and  liberty,  the  destruction  of  Christianity 
and  civilization,  and  wide-spread  ruin  and  desolation.    Wher- 

*  Life  of  Luther,  sup.  cit.,  p.  343,  344. 


THE   CRESCENT    AND   THE    CROSS.  43  G 

ever  they  had  penetrated,  they  had  blighted  every  flower, 
and  plucked  every  fruit  of  the  existing  civilization.  The  once 
flourishing  provinces  of  Asia  and  Africa,  which  had  been  forced 
to  wear  their  degrading  yoke,  had  already  relapsed  into  a  state 
of  barbarism,  from  which,  alas !  they  are  not  yet  recovered. 

In  this  emergency,  what  saved  European  civilization  and 
independence  ?  What  agency  kept  ofi"  the  impending  sturm  ? 
The  Church  and  the  Roman  Pontiffs.  The  latter,  by  their 
influence,  succeeded  in  arousing  Europe  from  her  lethargy, 
and  in  awakening  her  to  a  lively  sense  of  the  threatened 
danger.  They  persuaded  Christians  to  bury  their  private 
feuds,  to  combine  together  for  the  first  time  in  the  common 
defense,  and  to  rally  in  their  united  strength  for  the  defense 
of  the  cross  against  the  invading  hosts  marshaled  under  the 
crescent.  Long  and  fiercely  raged  the  struggle ;  Christianity, 
civilization,  enlightenment  and  liberty,  and  the  cross,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  Mohammedanism,  barbarism,  ignorance,  despo- 
tism, and  the  crescent,  on  the  other. 

The  first  check  given  to  Mohammedan  conquest  was  in  the 
famous  victory  gained  over  the  followers  of  the  crescent  by 
Charles  Martel,  at  the  head  of  the  French  chivalry,  near  Tours, 
in  T32.  The  closing  events  of  the  protracted  struggle  were 
equally  glorious  for  the  Christian  cause.  The  battle  of  Le- 
panto,  in  1571,  crippled  the  energies  of  the  Turks,  by  destroy- 
ing their  whole  fleet ;  and  the  relief  of  Vienna  from  the 
beleaguering  Turkish  army,  in  1683,  by  the  brave  Sobieski,  at 
the  head  of  his  thirty  thousand  Poles,  drove  the  Mohamme- 
dans from  Western  Europe,  and  cut  ofi"  all  hopes  of  any  fur- 
ther European  conquests  by  their  armies. 

The  Popes  were  the  very  life  and  soul  of  all  these  Chris- 
tian enterprises  for  repelling  Turkish  invasion.  '  It  was  they 
who  first  conceived  that  master-stroke  of  policy  which,  through 
the  crusades,  carried  the  war  into  the  enemies'  country,  and 
for  centuries  gave  them  enough  to  do  at  home,  and  thus  pre- 
vented them  from  thinking  of  foreign  conquests.  It  was  they 
who  united  Europe,  for  the  first  time,  in  one  great  nationaJ 


440        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

cause.  It  was  Pope  St.  Pius  Y.  who  deserved  the  chief  credit 
for  the  signal  naval  victory  at  Lepanto.  It  was  they  who 
ennobled  chivalry,  and  consecrated  valor,  for  the  defense  of 
Christian  Europe.  It  was  they  who  nerved  for  battle  the 
arms  of  the  brave  knights  of  Rhodes  and  Malta,  and  inspired 
the  heroism  of  the  Hunniades,  of  the  Scanderbegs,  of  the 
Cids,  of  the  Bouillons,  of  the  Tancreds,  and  of  many  others, 
who  won  imperishable  laurels  in  that  world-wide  struggle. 
But  for  their  exertions,  and  the  blessings  of  God,  who  had 
promised  that  "  the  gates  of  hell  should  not  prevail  against 
His  Church  built  on  a  rock,"  Europe  would  in  every  human 
probability  have  become,  what  Asia  and  Africa  had  long 
been,  a  mere  degraded  province  of  a  colossal  Mohammedan 
empire,  which  would  have  bestrode  the  earth,  and  crushed 
beneath  its  weight  every  principle  of  civilization. 

Did  the  Reformation  win  any  laurels  in  this  contest?  Did 
it  strike  one  blow  for  the  independence  of  Europe  against  the 
Turks ;  who,  when  it  first  appeared,  were  at  the  very  zenith 
of  their  power,  and  were  assuming  the  most  threatening  atti- 
tude against  Europe  ?  We  will  here  present  a  few  curious  facts, 
which  will  show  the  spirit  of  early  Protestantism  on  this  subject. 

Among  the  articles  which  Luther  obstinately  refused  to 
retract  at  the  diet  of  Worms,  in  1521,  was  this  strange  and 
impious  paradox :  "  That  to  war  against  the  Turks  is  to  oppose 
God!"*  In  his  fierce  invective  against  the  conciliatory  de- 
cree which  emanated  from  the  diet  of  Nurenberg  in  1524,  he 
thus  castigates  the  princes  who  had  composed  that  diet: 

"  Christians,  I  beg  of  you,  raise  your  hands,  and  pray  for  these  bhnd 
princes,  with  whom  heaven  punishes  us  in  its  wrath.  Give  not  alms  against 
the  Turk,  who  is  a  thousand  times  wiser  and  more  pious  than  our  princes. 
Wliat  success  can  such  fools,  who  rebel  against  Christ  and  despise  his  word, 
hope  in  the  war  against  the  Turks  ?"f 

*  "  Proeliari  adversus  Turcas  est  repugnare  Deo."  Assertio  articulorum 
per  Leonem  damnatorum.     0pp.  Lutheri,  tom.  ii,  p.  3.     Audin,  p.  174. 

f  Luther  Werke,  ch.  xv,  p.  2,  712.  Adolph  Menzel,  tom.  i,  p.  155,  seq, 
A.pud  Audin,  p.  286.     See  also  Cochlaeus  in  Acta  Lutheri,  folio  116. 


LUTHER    AND   THE   Tll.llS.  441 

This  warning  was  directed  against  the  decree  of  the  diol,  which,  alarmed 
by  the  menacing  attitude  of  the  Siibhme  Porte,  "  had  demanded  and  voted 
subsidies  for  the  war  against  the  Turks.  The  Catholics  contributed,  the 
Protestants  refused :  but  the  contributions  of  the  Catholics  were  not  suffi- 
cient to  arrest  the  progress  of  Suleiman.  At  the  head  of  two  hundred 
thousand  men,  he  advanced  into  Hungary,  and  on  the  26th  of  September, 
1529,  he  was  about  to  plant  his  ladders  against  the  walls  of  Vienna.  This 
cowardly  abandonment  of  their  brethren  is  an  ineffaceable  stain  on  the 
Protestant  party.  At  the  approach  of  the  enemy,  who  threatened  the  cross 
of  Christ,  all  disunion  should  have  ceased.  The  country  was  in  danger;  the 
Christian  name  was  on  the  point  of  being  blotted  out  from  Germany  ;  and 
Islamism  would  have  triumphed,  had  there  not  been  brave  hearts  behind 
the  walls  which  the  treachery  of  their  brethren  had  laid  bare.  Honor  then 
to  those  valiant  chiefs,  Pliilip  Count  Palatine,  Nicholas  von  Salm,  William 
von  Regendorf,  and  that  population  of  aged  men,  of  women,  and  of  children, 
who,  although  suffering  from  famine,  sickness,  and  pestilence — for  all  seemed 
united  to  overwhelm  them — did  not  despair,  but  drove  back  to  Constanti- 
nople the  army  of  Suleiman.  After  God,  they  owed  their  success  to  their 
valor ;  for  the  emperor,  the  empire,  and  the  princes  had  abandoned  them. 
Luther  had  cried  aloud  '  peace  to  the  Tuiks ;'  and  his  voice  was  more  pow- 
erful than  the  cry  of  their  weeping  country,  and  of  the  cross  of  Christ. 
The  reader  must  judge  between  the  reformed  and  the  Catholics,  and  say,  in 
what  veins  Christian  blood  flowed."* 

Subsequently  indeed,  when  the  most  imminent  danger  had 
passed,  and  Luther  had  little  to  apprehend  from  the  emperor 
or  the  Catholic  party,  he  retracted  his  wild  paradoxes,  and 
ceased  to  be  the  apologist  of  the  Turks.  But  who  thanked 
him  for  his  tardy,  if  not  compulsory  advocacy  of  European 
independence  against  Turkish  invasion  ?  All  that  it  demon- 
strated was  his  own  utter  inconsistency  in  the  whole  affair, 
in  which  he  did  but  act  out  his  general  character, — as  a  mere 
creature  of  impulse  and  of  passion,  guided  by  self-interest. 

That  there  existed  not  only  a  feeling  of  secret  sympathy 
between  Luther  and  the  Turkish  sultan,  but  that  the  latter 
was  also  aware  of  Luther's  favorable  inclinations,  would 
appear  from  the  following  remarkable  passage  found  in 
Menzel's   History  of  Germany.      The   incident   referred    tc 

*  Audin,  p.  280.  290. 


442         INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

occurred  after  Luther  had  retracted  and  become  reconciled 
with  the  emperor.  The  knowledge  of  this  single  fact  sud 
denly  arrested  the  progress  of  Suleiman's  invading  army ! 

"  Suleiman  had  again  presented  himself  on  the  frontier,  at  the  head  of  an 
immense  army,  with  the  avowed  intention  of  placing  himself  on  the  throne 
of  the  Western  empire.  All  Germany  flew  to  aims.  The  news  of  the 
termination  of  intestine  dissension  in  Germany  no  sooner  reached  the 
sultan's  ears,  than  he  asked,  with  astonishment,  '  Whether  the  emperor  had 
really  made  peace  with  Martin  Luther  f '  And,  although  the  Germans  only 
mustered  eighty  thousand  men  in  the  field,  scarcely  a  third  of  the  invading 
army,  he  suddenly  retreated."* 

Erasmus  thus  twits  the  Protestant  party  on  their  conduct 
in  this  whole  afiair : 

"But  you  seem  to  forget  that  you  refused  to  give  Charles  V.,  and 
Ferdinand,  the  subsidies  necessary  for  the  war  against  the  Turks,  according 
to  the  doctrine  of  Luther,  who  now  however  condescends  to  retract !  Have 
not  the  gospelers  advanced  the  startling  proposition,  'that  it  is  better  to 
fight  for  the  unbaptized  than  for  the  baptized  Turk,'  that  is,  for  the  emperor? 
Is  it  not  truly  ridiculous  ?  "f 

It  was  something  more  than  ridiculous — which  was  the 
strongest  epithet  the  Batavian  philosopher  could  employ — it 
was  utterly  treacherous  and  lamentable;  and  if  European 
civilization  was  still  saved,  and  European  independence  still 
preserved,  we  certainly  owe  no  thanks  therefor  to  the  Refor- 
mation. If  we  are  still  free ;  if  we  are  not  ground  down  by 
Turkish  tyranny ;  if  we  bow  to  the  cross  instead  of  the  cres- 
cent; we  certainly  owe  no  gratitude  for  these  results  to  the 
Protestant  party.  Their  sympathies  were  manifestly  more 
Mohammedan  than  Christian ;  they  would  have  rejoiced  at 
the  ascendency  of  Islamism,  provided  only  the  Pope  and  his 
adherents  could  liave  been  crushed  and  annihilated !  They 
shared  in  none  of  the  laurels  won  for  European  independence 
and  civilization,  at  Lepanto,  under  the  walls  of  Vienna,  in 
Hungary,  in  Poland,  in  Albania,  or  at  Rhodes  and  Malta. 
Their  chivalry  could  not  be  awakened,  nor  their  sympathies 

*  Menzel's  History  of  Germany,  vol.  ii,  p.  253,  sup.  cit. 

+  "In  Pseudo-Evangelicos."  Epist.47,  Lib.  xxxi. — Edit,  of  London,  Flesher 


THE    GARDEN    MADE   DESOLAII!.  443 

stirred  up  by  any  such  brilliant  achieverhents  as  these.  And 
yet  D'Aubigne  gravely  assures  us,  that  "the  Keformation 
saved  religion,  and  through  it  society."*  Deliver  us  from 
such  a  salvation  as  this.f 

We  have  already  said  something  on  the  character  of  the 
bloody  civil  wars  with  which  the  Keformation  desolated  Ger- 
many. We  compared  the  multitude  of  devastating  armies, 
which  it  let  loose  on  Europe,  to  those  which  had  desolated 
her  fair  provinces  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries.  This 
parallel  is  not  exaggerated :  it  is  founded  on  the  sad  records 
of  history.  In  reading  of  the  dreadful  tragedies  enacted  in 
the  war  of  the  peasants  and  of  the  Anabaptists,  and  more 
particularly  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  we  are  forcibly  re- 
minded of  the  devastations  which  the  early  Northmen  left  in 
their  course.  Especially  does  the  parallel  hold  good,  in  re- 
spect to  the  ravaging  of  Italy  and  Rome  by  the  Lutheran 
troops  under  the  Constable  Bourbon,  referred  to  above. 
Miinzer,  Storck,  and  Stiibner  strongly  remind  us  of  Attila, 
Totila,  and  Genseric.  All  were,  if  not  "  the  scourges  of  God," 
at  least,  in  another  sense,  the  scourges  of  man  and  of  society. 
They  were  all  fierce  wild  animals,  let  loose  for  a  time,  to 
devastate  the  blooming  garden  of  European  civilization. 

The  following  address  of  Miinzer  to  his  associates  in  rebel- 
lion we  give, as  one  out  of  the  many  similar  specimens  of  the 
infuriate  Vandalism  of  the  sixteenth  century: 

"  Are  you  then  asleep,  my  brethren !  Come  to  the  fight,  the  fight  of 
heroes.  All  Franconia  has  risen  up  :  the  Master  will  now  show  himself : 
the  wicked  shall  fall.  At  Fulda,  in  Easter  week,  four  pestiferous  churcJies 
were  destroyed.  The  peasants  of  Klegan  have  taken  up  arms.  Although 
you  were  but  three  confessors  of  Jesus,  you  would  not  have  to  fear  a  hun- 
dred thousand  enemies.  Draw,  draw,  draw — now  is  the  time  :  the  impious 
shall  be  chased  like  dogs.     No  mercy  for  those  atheists  :  they  will  beset 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  67,  sup.  cit. 

f  In  his  History  of  the  Reformation,  Eanke  endeavors  to  vindicate  Luther, 
by  alleging  his  opinions  after  he  had  become  reconciled  with  the  emperor. 
We  have  given  his  declarations  made  previously,  when  the  danger  to  Ger 
many  was  the  greatest. 


444        INFI.UENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

you  ;  they  will  blubber  like  children — ^but  spare  them  not.     It  is  the  com* 
mand  of  God  by  Moses. — Draw,  draw,  draw — the  fire  burns :  let  not  the 
blood  grow  cold  on  j^our  sword-blades.     Pink,  pank,  on  the  ajivil  of  Nimrod 
let  the  towers  fall  under  your  stroke.     Draw,  draw,  draw — now  is  the  day  : 
God  leads  you  on ;  follow  Him."* 

Schiller,  a  German  Protestant,  has  most  graphically  painted 
the  horrors  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  the  desolation 
which  it  occasioned  in  Germany,  The  master  hand  of  Shlegel 
thus  traces  its  effects  on  German  civilization : 

"  Never  was  there  a  religious  war  so  widely  extended  and  so  complicated 
in  its  operations,  so  protracted  in  its  duration,  and  entailing  misery  on  so 
many  generations.  That  period  of  thirty  years'  havoc,  in  which  the  early 
civilization,  and  the  noblest  energies  of  Germany  ivere  destroyed,  forms  in  his- 
tory the  great  wall  of  separation  between  the  ancient  Germany,  which  in 
the  middle  age  was  the  most  powerful,  flourishing,  and  wealthy  country  in 
Europe  ;  and  the  new  Germany  of  recent  and  happier  times,  which  is  now 
gradually  recovering  from  her  long  exhaustion  and  general  desolation  ;  and 
is  rising  again  into  light  and  life  from  the  sepulchral  darkness — the  night  of 
death,  to  which  her  ancient  disputes  had  consigned  her."f 

It  thus  required  full  two  centuries  for  Germany  to  recover 
from  the  terrible  blow  to  her  civilization  dealt  her  by  the 
ruthless  Reformation.  Even  Villers,  the  champion  laureate 
of  the  Reformation,  is  compelled  to  admit,  that  "  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  left  Germany  in  a  sort  of  stupor — in  a  barbarism 
almost  total."! 

We  here  subjoin  from  the  Dublin  Review  the  analysis  of 
Dr.  Dollinger's  testimony,  gathered  from  the  early  reformers 
themselves  and  their  immediate  disciples,  in  regard  to  the 
social  effects  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany.  We  need 
scarcely  repeat,  that  this  testimony  is  wholly  unexception- 
able ;  because  the  witnesses  saw  what  they  relate,  and  were 
favorable  to  the  change  of  religion. 

*  Luther  Werke— Edit.  Altenburg  vol.  iii,  p.  134.  Menzel,  p.  200-2  — 
Apud  Audin. 

•)   Philosophy  of  History,  vol.  ii,  p.  232,  American  Edit. 

I  Essai  sur  ^'esprit  et  I'influence  de  la  reform,  de  Luther,  p.  274. — Apud 
Bobelot.  392. 


SOCIAL    mFLUENCE.  445 


THE  SOCIAL  RESULTS  OF  THE  EEFORMATIOiN". 
"If  every  written  evidence  of  the  injury  inflicted  on  society  liy  the 
preaching  of  the  reformers  had  been  lost  or  destroyed,  the  War  of  the 
Peasants,  and  the  Anabaptist  atrocities,  would  remain  as  indisputable  monu- 
ments of  its  unhappy  and  fatal  influence.  It  would  be  tedious  to  appeal  to 
contemporary  writers  for  proofs  of  the  direct  connection  of  this  sanguinary 
outbreak  with  the  first  principles  professed  and  preached  by  Luther.  Al- 
though he  himself  disclaimed  and  denounced  the  misguided  men  who  but 
carried  out  his  principles  too  faithfully  in  practice,  their  proceeding  was  not 
only  (as  he  himself  admits  in  a  passage  already  cited)  vindicated  by  them- 
selves, but  is  recognized  by  numberless  writers  of  the  times,  as  the  natural, 
if  not  the  legitimate,  consequence  of  Luther's  teaching.  But  in  truth,  the 
whole  framework  of  society  is  represented  by  the  writers  and  preachers  of 
that  day  as  in  a  state  of  complete  and  hopeless  dissolution  ;  class  set  against 
class,  subjects  against  ruleis,  peasants  against  nobles,  poor  against  rich,  flock 
against  pastor.  '  If  you  look  around  upon  the  society  of  the  present  day,' 
asks  Burenius,  '  what  age  or  what  rank  will  you  find  that  is  not  changed, 
and  grievously  unlike  to  the  generation  that  is  gone  by  ?  What  rank  or 
condition  has  not  fallen  away,  and  wandered  far  from  the  habits  and  insti- 
tutes of  our  forefathers  ?'  '  The  father,'  says  Leopold  Dick,  '  is  no  longer 
safe  from  the  son,  the  son  from  the  father ;  the  daughter  from  the  mother, 
nor  the  mother  from  the  daughter — the  citizen  is  not  safe  from  his  fellow- 
citizen,  the  rich  man  from  the  poor ;  every  thing  is  turned  upside  down, 
without  discrimination  and  without  order;  so  universally  and  so  uncon- 
troUedly  does  deceit  [ '»  Siufi'oM  ]  nowadays  pervade  the  world,  bringing 
frenzy,  strife,  and  contention  in  her  train.'  '  Such  is  the  depravity  of  living,' 
says  Joachim  Camerarius,  'such  the  corruption  of  morals,  such  is  the 
wretchedness  and  confusion,  both  public  and  private,  of  all  ages,  sexes, 
ranks,  and  conditions,  that  I  fear  all  piety  and  virtue  are  at  an  end.'  And 
in  another  place  he  declares  that  '  nothing  is  so  daring  as  to  be  beyond  the 
reach  of  their  cupidit}^  or  their  violence.  Neither  reason,  nor  moderation, 
nor  law,  nor  morality,  nor  duty,  will  serve  as  a  restraint ;  not  even  the  fear 
of  their  fellow-men,  nor  the  shame  of  posterity.'  Even  in  Luther's  time, 
the  complaints  of  the  '  insubordination,  the  arrogance,  and  the  pride  of  the 
young,  and  in  general  of  all  classes,'  had  become  most  universal.  They  had 
grown  so  'wild  and  licentious  as  to  be  utterly  uncontrollable — indifferent  to 
the  authority  of  parents,  masters,  and  magistrates.'  '  Every  one,'  says 
Melancthon,  '  strives  with  his  neighbor  to  obtain  unbounded  liberty  and 
unrestricted  gratification  of  all  his  desires ;  every  one  tries  to  gain  money 
by  every  unjust  act,  pillages  his  neighbor  for  his  own  profit,  takes  from 
others  to  increase  his  own  stores,  and  seek^  advantages  for  him.self  in  every  way. 


446        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

"We  might  pursue  this  through  numberless  other  writers,  but  we  have 
said  enough  to  show  the  extent  of  the  evil ;  and  we  shall  only  add,  that  ^he 
great  source  from  which  it  all  flows,  is  discoverable  even  through  the  inter- 
ested declamations  of  the  great  reformer  himself.  '  The  people,'  he  writes, 
*  stick  to  the  idea  of  the  gospel.'  "  Eh  !"  say  they,  "  Christ  proclaims  liberf.y 
for  lis  in  the  gospel,  does  he  not  ?  Well  tJien,  we  luill  work  no  more,  hut  eat 
and  make  merry !"  And  thus  every  boor  who  but  knows  how  to  reckon 
five,  seizes  upon  the  corn-land,  the  meadows,  and  the  woods,  of  the  monas- 
teries, and  carries  every  thing  according  to  his  own  will,  under  the  pretext 
of  the  gospel.'  Here  was  the  true  root  of  the  evil.  It  was  all  very  well  for 
Luther  to  express  his  'mortification'  [verdreusst]  at  these  results.  But 
results  they  were,  and  natural  results,  of  his  teaching.  He  had  sown  the 
wind,  and  we  need  not  wonder  that  he  reaped  the  whirlwind  ;  nor  need  we 
any  longer  be  surprised  at  Brentius'  good  humored,  though  most  cutting 
jest,  that  '  there  was  no  need  to  warn  Protestants  against  relying  on  good 
works,  for  they  had  not  any  good  works  to  rely  on.^  " 

From  the  facts  hitherto  alleged,  the  reader  will  be  enabled 
to  judge  what  was  the  relative  influence  on  civilization  of 
Catholicism  and  of  the  Reformation.  He  will  also  be  able 
to  gather  the  more  immediate  influence  of  the  latter  revolu- 
tion on  civilization  in  Germany,  its  cradle  and  first  theater 
of  action.  To  estimate  this  influence,  however,  more  nearly 
and  more  correctly,  we  must  see  what  was  the  condition  of 
Germany  in  regard  to  civilization  before,  and  what  it  became 
immediately  after,  the  change  of  religion. 

Before  it,  a  general  peace  reigned :  the  elements  of  civil- 
ized life  were  all  in  a  state  of  healthy  growth  and  of  rapid 
development :  every  thing  bade  fair  for  the  inauguration  of  a 
very  high  state  of  refinement  and  civilization.  For  the  devel- 
opment of  these,  peace  is  as  necessary,  as  it  is  for  the  culti- 
vation of  letters.  D'Aubigne  himself  speaks  of  the  great 
advantages  to  civilization  of  the  general  peace  secured  to 
Germany  in  1496,  by  the  wise  policy  of  the  Emperor  Maxi- 
milian.    He  writes : 

"For  a  long  time  the  numerous  members  of  the  Germanic  body  had 
labored  to  disturb  one  another.  Nothing  had  been  seen  but  confusion,  quar- 
rels, wars  incessantly  breaking  out  between  neighbors,  cities,  and  chiefs. 
Maximilian  had  laid  a  solid  basis  of  public  order,  by  instituting  the  Imperial 


CATHOLIC    AND    PROTESTANT   COUNTRIES.  447 

Chamber  appointed  to  settle  all  differences  between  the  states.  The  Ger- 
mans, after  so  many  confusions  and  anxieties,  saw  a  new  era  of  safety  and 
repose.  The  condition  of  affairs  powerfully  contributed  to  harmonize  the 
public  mind.  It  was  now  possible  in  the  cities  and  peaceful  valleys  of  Grer- 
many  to  seek  and  adopt  amehorations,  which  discoi'd  might  have  banished."* 

He  continues,  with  not  a  little  simplicity  :  "  We  may  add, 
tliat  it  is  in  the  bosom  of  peace,  that  the  gospel  loves  most  to 
gain  its  blessed  victories."t  He  means  this  of  course  for  the 
gospel  of  Luther — but  did  not  this  same  gospel  break  in,  with 
its  accents  of  discord,  and  its  fierce  spirit  of  feud  and  blood- 
shed, upon  the  general  peace,  secured  to  Germany  by  a  Cath- 
olic potentate,  in  Catholic  times  ?  Did  it  not  by  its  truculent 
war-cry,  mar  the  lovely  beauty  of  the  peaceful  scene  he  had 
just  described  ?  Did  it  not  ruthlessly  rend  with  dissension 
that  "public  mind"  which  before  so  beautifully  "harmon- 
ized ? "  Did  it  not  evoke  from  the  abyss  that  fell  spirit  of 
"discord,"  which  "banished  from  the  cities  and  peaceful 
valleys  of  Germany"  all  relish  for  "seeking  and  adopting 
ameliorations"  in  the  social  condition?  Did  it  not,  for  more 
than  a  century,  tear  and  desolate  society  with  civil  feuds  and 
bloody  wars  ?  And  is  it  not  supremely  ridiculous,  as  Erasmus 
says,  to  hear  men  of  sense  thus  uttering  absurdities  which 
they  themselves  supply  evidence  for  refuting?  From  the 
principles  laid  down  by  D  'Aubigne  himself,  it  is  almost  intui- 
tively evident,  that  the  Reformation  of  Luther  was  highly 
injurious  in  its  influence  on  the  progress  of  civilization. 

What  have  been  the  great  results  of  Protestant  and  of  Catho- 
lic influence  on  modern  civilization?  What  is  the  present 
relative  social  condition  of  Catholic  and  of  Protestant  coun- 
tries in  Europe  ?  In  some  respects,  we  are  free  to  avow,  the 
latter  are  far  in  advance  of  the  former.  They  have  adopted 
with  more  eagerness,  and  carried  out  with  more  success,  what 
may  be  called  the  utilitarian  system,  which  in  fact  owes  its 
origin  to  the  Reformation.  They  excel  in  commerce  and 
speculation,  in  which  they  have  greatly  outwitted  their  more 

*  D'Aubigne,  vol.  i,  p.  76,  77.  t  Ibid. 


448        INFLUENCE  OF  THE  REFORMATION  ON  CIVILIZATION. 

simple,  perhaps,  because  more  honest  neighbors.  They  far 
excel  in  stock-jobbing,  and  are  adepts  in  all  the  mysteries  of 
exchange.  They  surpass  in  banking,  and  they  have  issueo 
many  more  notes  "•  promising  to  pay,"  than  their  neighbors  : 
though  the  latter,  especially  in  Spain,  seldom  fail  to  pay 
without  any  "promises"  to  that  efl'ect;  nor  have  they  ever 
been  known  to  redeem  their  pledges  by  bankrupty  or  repudi- 
ation— an  easy  modern — shall  we  add  Protestant  ? — method 
to  pay  off  old  debts ! 

Protestant  countries  have  also  published  more  books  on 
political  economy  and  the  "  wealth  of  nations :"  they  have 
also  excelled  in  manufactures  and  in  machinery.  But  the 
modern  utilitarian  plan  of  conducting  the  latter,  in  England 
more  particularly,  has  contributed  not  a  little  to  impoverish 
and  debase  the  lower  orders  of  the  people : — which,  however, 
according  to  the  doctrine  of  that  most  fashionable  theory,  is 
not  at  all  opposed  to  the  "  wealth  of  nations ;"  for  this  is 
entirely  compatible  with  tlie  general  poverty  of  the  masses  ! 

But  in  enlightenment  of  mind,  and  in  gentleness  of  man- 
ners, and  in  the  general  features  and  in  the  suavity  of  social 
intercourse,  do  Protestant  countries  in  Europe — for  we  wish 
not  here  to  speak  of  our  own  country,  which  is  not  strictly 
Protestant — really  surpass  Catholic  nations  ?  We  think  not. 
We  believe  the  balance,  if  fairly  poised,  would  rather  incline 
in  favor  of  the  latter.  We  have  shown,  that  in  point  of  gen- 
eral learning  and  enlightenment,  Catholic  countries  compare 
most  advantageously  with  those  that  are  Protestant.  This 
we  think  we  have  established  on  unexceptionable  Protestant 
authority.  In  point  of  refinement  and  polish  of  manners. 
Catholic  France  is  avowedly  in  advance  of  all  other  nations. 
The  Spanish  gentleman  is  perhaps  the  noblest  and  best  type 
of  elevated  human  nature.  The  warm-hearted,  courteous, 
and  refined  politeness  of  Italy  and  Ireland,  compares  most 
favorably  with  the  coldness  and  the  blunt  selfishness  of  En- 
gland, and  we  are  tempted  to  add,  of  Protestant  Germany 
and  Northern  Europe. 


PRESENT   STATE   OF   CIVILIZATION.  449 

lu  a  word,  the  south  of  Europe,  which  has  continued  under 
Catholic  influence,  will  suffer  nothing  by  being  brought  into 
comparison,  in  regard  to  all  the  features  of  refined  inter- 
course, with  the  cold,  calculating  north,  which  has,  to  a  great 
extent,  embraced  the  doctrines  of  the  Eeformation.  Though 
not  illumined  with  the  new  "  northern  light,"  which  has  fit- 
fully shone  on  the  minds  of  the  Protestants  for  three  cen- 
turies, they  are  still,  to  say  the  least,  as  enlightened,  as 
polished,  as  refined,  and  as  highly  civilized,  as  their  more 
fortunate  neighbors.  The  steady  light  of  Catholicism,  which 
shed  its  blessed  rays  on  their  forefathers,  has  been  luminous 
enough  to  guide  their  footsteps  in  the  pathway  of  true 
civilization. 


VOL.  I. — 38 


450  coNcrjTSTON. 


coNCLusioisr. 

We  have  now  completed  our  task;  how  well,  the  public 
will  best  judge.  We  have  examined  the  principal  false  state- 
ments of  D'Aubigne ;  and,  in  doing  so,  we  have  also  glanced 
occasionally  at  his  frequent  inconsistencies  and  absurdities. 
To  have  followed  him  in  detail  throughout  his  tedious  history, 
to  have  convicted  him  of  unfair  or  false  statements  on  almost 
every  page,  to  have  unmasked  his  hypocrisy  and  laid  bare 
his  contradictions,  would  have  imposed  on  us  an  almost  end- 
less labor.  Yet  this  would  have  been  really  less  difficult, 
perhaps,  than  the  task  we  have  performed.  For  it  is  much 
easier  to  grapple  with  an  adversary,  page  by  page,  and  sen- 
tence by  sentence,  than  to  cull  out  from  his  pages,  and  to 
refute,  such  general  misstatements  as  are  of  most  importance, 
and  as  cover  the  main  ground  of  the  controversy.  The  former 
method  is  a  kind  of  light  skirmishing ;  the  latter  is  a  more 
serious  and  weighty  species  of  warfare. 

A  German  Protestant  historian  of  far  more  weight  than 
D'Aubigne,  furnishes  us  with  the  following  appreciation  of 
Luther  and  of  his  work,  the  Reformation : 

"  He  (Luther)  died  in  sorrow,  but  in  the  conscientious  belief  of  having 
faithfully  served  his  God,  and,  although  the  great  and  holy  work,  begun  by 
him,  had  been  degraded  and  dishonored  partly  by  his  personal  faults,  although 
the  Reformation  of  the  church  had  been  rendered  subservient  to  the  views  of 
a  policy  essentially  unchristian,  the  good  cause  was  destined  to  outlive  these 
transient  abuses.  The  seeds,  scattered  by  this  great  reformer,  produced,  it 
is  true,  thorns  during  his  lifetime,  and  during  succeeling  centuries,  but  burst 
into  blossom,  as  the  storms  through  which  the  Reformation  passed  gradually 
lulled."* 

We  leave  this  not  very  consistent,  nor  very  candid  state- 
ment of  opinion  to  speak  for  itself.  It  will  puzzle  many  to 
understand,  how  a  work,  which  was  thus  marred  both  by  the 
personal  faults  of  Luther,  and  the  essentially  unchristian 
policy  .of  his   more   powerful   adherents,  could   have   been 


*  Menzel,  History  of  Grermany,  vol.  ii,  p.  263. 


CONCLUSION.  451 

"holy;"  or  how  the  seeds  which,  during  Luther's  lifetime, 
and  for  succeeding  centuries^  avowedly  produced  only  thorns, 
can  be  expected  to  burst  into  blossom !  If  we  are  to  judge 
the  tree  by  its  fruits,  according  to  the  rule  laid  down  by 
Christ,  we  are  bound,  from  these  enforced  admissions  of  the 
German  historian,  to  come  to  the  conclusion,  that  Luther's 
Reformation  was  not,  and  could  not  be,  the  work  of  God, 
but  that  it  originated  in  a  different  source  altogether. 

Though  in  the  course  of  the  preceding  essay,  we  have  been 
compelled  to  allege  strong  facts  and  to  use  plain  language, 
yet  we  hope  we  have  carefully  abstained  from  employing  any 
epithets  unnecessarily  harsh  or  offensive.  God  is  our  witness, 
that  we  have  not  meant  wantonly  to  wound  the  feelings  of 
any  one.  Deeply  as  we  feel,  and  sincerely  as  we  deplore, 
the  evils  of  which  the  Reformation  has  been  the  cause  —  the 
unsettling  of  faith,  the  numberless  sects,  the  bitter  and  acri- 
monious disputes,  and  the  consequent  rending  of  society  into 
warring  elements — yet  do  we  feel  convinced,  that  all  these 
crying  evils,  which  originated  in  a  spirit  of  hatred  and  revolt, 
can  be  healed  only  by  the  contrary  principle  of  love  and 
charity.  The  bitter  experience  of  three  centuries  has  proved, 
that  a  re-union  among  Christians  can  not  be  brought  about, 
but  by  a  return  to  the  bosom  of  the  Catholic  Church  of 
those  who,  in  an  evil  hour  for  themselves  and  for  the  world, 
strayed  from  its  pale.  It  is  only  in  the  old  paths,  hallowed 
by  the  footsteps  of  martyrs,  of  saints,  and  of  virgins,  that 
perfect  peace  and  security  can  be  found.  To  all  the  lovers 
of  unity,  we  would  then  say  in  the  words  of  God's  plaintive 
prophet : 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord :  stand  ye  on  the  ways,  and  see,  and  ask  for  the 
OLD  PATHS,  which  is  the  good  way,  and  walk  ye  in  it ;  and  you  shall  find 
refreshment  to  your  souls."* 

Refreshment  and  peace  can  be  found  no  where  else.  All 
other  expedients  for  re-establishing  religious  union  on  a  solid 

*  Jeremiah,  vi :  16. 


452  CONCLUSION 

basis  have  been  tried  in  vain.  It  is  only  in  communion  with 
the  Chair  of  Peter — the  rock  on  which  Christ  built  llis  Church 
— that  Christians  can  be  secured  in  unity  and  peace. 

In  conclusion,  we  republish  the  closing  chapter  of  Audin's 
Life  of  Luther,  in  which  he  sums  up  with  considerable  learn- 
ing and  ability,  the  general  Protestant  evidence  bearing  on 
the  character  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany.  We  extract 
it  from  the  translation  of  TurnbuU,  and  we  give  it  to  the 
American  public,  not  only  because  we  deem  it  appropriate  as 
a  general  resume  on  the  subject,  but  because  it  is  omitted  in 
the  American  translation.     It  is  entitled  : 

THE  TRIBUNAL  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

"  We  had  intended  to  conclude  our  work  by  an  examination  into  the  influ- 
ence which  the  Lutheran  Reformation  has  had  on  the  morals,  learning, 
arts,  and  polity  of  Germany  and  Europe.  But  such  an  inquiry  would  de- 
mand a  volume  rather  than  a  chajjter ;  besides,  the  subject  has  already  been 
profoundly  treated  by  Dr.  Marx  and  Robelot.  We  ourselves,  in  proportion 
as  the  flicts  of  history  appear  to  us,  have  endeavored  to  penetrate  its  causes, 
and  judge  of  its  effects.  Nevertheless,  it  has  seemed  to  us  that  a  rapid 
analysis  of  the  principal  features  of  the  Reformation,  as  traced  by  Protestant 
pens,  which  even  the  prejudiced  reader  can  not  reject,  should  find  a  place 
here ;  and  this  evidence  of  dissentients  must  serve  as  a  final  judgment  in 
favor  of  the  Catholic  historian.  Once  more,  therefore,  the  Reformation  shall 
judge  itseE , 

"  The  Reformation  was  a  revolution,  and  they  who  rebelled  against  the 
authority  of  the  Church  were  revolutionists.*  However  slightly  you  look 
into  the  constitution  of  the  Church,  you  will  be  convinced  that  the  Reforma- 
tion possessed  the  character  of  an  insurrection. f 

"  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  fine  -word.  Reformation  ?  Amelioration, 
doubtless.  Well,  then,  with  history  before  us,  it  is  easy  to  show  that  it  was 
only  a  prostration  of  the  human  mind.  Glutted  with  the  wealth  of  which 
it  robbed  the  Catholics,  and  the  blood  which  it  shed,  it  gives  us,  instead  of 
the  harmony  and  Christian  love  of  which  it  deprived  our  ancestors,  nothing 
but  dissensions,  resentments,  and  discords.J     No,  the  Reformation  was  not 

*  Bemerk.  eines  Protest,  in  Preussen  iiber  die  Tzschirner'  schen  Anfein- 
dungen,  etc.,  1824,  p.  52.        |  Steffens,  quoted  by  Honinghaus,  p.  354,  torn.  i. 
t  Cobbett,  History,  etc.,  p.  4. 


AUDIN   SUMMING    UP.  455 

an  era  of  happir.ess  and  peace ;  it  was  only  established  by  confusion  and 
anarchy.*  Do  you  feel  your  heart  beat  at  the  mention  of  justice  and  truth  ? 
Acknowledge,  then,  what  it  is  impossible  to  deny, — that  Luther  must  not 
be  compared  with  the  apostles.  The  apostles  came  teaching  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  their  Master,  and  the  Catholics  are  entitled  to  ask  us  from  whom 
Luther  had  his  mission  ?  We  can  not  prove  that  he  had  a  mission  direct 
or  indirectf  Luther  perverted  Christianity ;  he  withdrew  himself  crim- 
mally  from  the  communion  in  which  regeneration  was  alone  possible. | 

"  It  has  been  said  that  all  Christendom  demanded  a  reformation  ; — who 
disputes  it  ?  Itut,  long  before  the  time  of  Luther,  the  Papacy  had  listened 
to  the  complaints  of  the  faithful.  The  Council  of  Lateran  had  been  con- 
vened to  put  an  end  to  the  scandals  which  afflicted  the  Church. J  The 
Papacy  labored  to  restore  the  discipline  of  the  early  ages,  in  proportion  as 
Europe,  freed  rrom  the  yoke  of  brute  force,  became  politically  organized,  and 
advanced  with  slow  but  sure  step  to  civilization.  Was  it  not  at  that  time, 
that  the  source  of  all  religious  truth  was  made  accessible  to  scientific  study, 
since,  by  means  of  the  watchful  protection  of  the  Papacy,  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures were  translated  into  every  language  ?  The  New  Testament  of  Eras- 
mus, dedicated  to  Leo  X.,  had  preceded  the  quarrel  about  indulgences. || 

"  A  reformer  should  take  care  that,  in  his  zeal  to  get  rid  of  manifest 
abuses,  he  does  not  at  the  same  time  shake  the  faith  and  its  wholesome 
institutions  to  the  foundation,  if  When  the  reformers  violently  separated 
themselves  from  the  Church  of  Rome,  they  thought  it  necessary  to  reject 
every  doctrine  taught  by  her.**  Luther,  that  spirit  of  evil,  who  scattered 
gold  with  dirt,  declared  war  against  the  institutions,  without  which  the 
Church  could  not  exist ;  he  destroyed  unity.+f  Who  does  not  remember  that 
exclamation  of  Melancthon  :  '  We  have  committed  many  errors,  and  have 
made  good  of  evil  without  any  necessity  for  it.'||: 

"In  justification  of  the  brutal  rupture  of  Germany  with  Rome,  the  scandals 
of  the  clergy  are  alleged.  But  if  at  the  period  of  the  Reformation  there 
were  priests  and  monks  in  Germany  whose  conduct  was  the  cause  of  regret 
to  Christians,  their  number  was  not  larger  than  it  had  been  previously. 
When  Luther  appeared,  there  was  in  Germany  a  great  number  of  Catholic 

*  Lord  Fitz  William's  Briefe  des  Atticus.  In's  Deutsche  iibersetzt  von 
Ph.  Miiller,  1834,  p.  33.  f  Bemerkungen  eines  Protestanten. 

I  Novalis,  Honinghaus,  1.  c,  p.  356. 

5  Menzel,  Neuere  Geschichte,  pp.  3,  5,  et  seq. 

II  Scluockh,  1.  c,  torn,  iv,  pref         If  Vogt,  Historisches  Testament,  torn.  5. 
**  Schrockh,  1.  c,  tom.  ix,  p.  1805. 

ff  KirchhofF  Anch  einige  Gedenken  iiber  die  Wiederherstellung  der  Prot- 
eatpnt.  Kirche,  1817.  tt  Melanch.  lib.  iv,  cap.  xix. 

29 


454  CONCLUSION. 

prelates   whose    piety   the   reformers    themselves    have   not    hesitated   U 
admire.* 

"  What  pains  they  take  to  deceive  us  !  In  books  of  every  size  they  teach 
us,  even  at  the  present  day,  that  the  beast,  the  man  of  sin,  the  w of  Baby- 
lon, are  the  names  which  God  has  given  in  His  Scriptures  to  the  Pope  and 
the  Papacy !  Can  it  be  imagined  that  Christ,  who  died  for  our  sins,  and 
saved  us  by  His  blood,  would  have  suffered  that  for  ten  or  twelve  centuries 
His  Church  should  be  guided  by  such  an  abominable  wretch  ? — that  He  would 
have  allowed  millions  of  His  creatures  to  walk  in  the  shadow  of  death  ? — and 
that  so  many  generations  should  have  had  no  other  pastor  but  Antichrist  '?t 

"Luther  mistook  the  genius  of  Christianity  in  introducing  a  new  principle 
into  the  world ;  the  immediate  authority  of  the  Bible  as  the  sole  criterion 
of  the  truth.]:  If  tradition  is  to  be  rejected,  it  follows  that  the  Bible  can  not 
be  authoritatively  explained  but  by  acquired  knowledge  ;  in  a  word,  human 
interpretation  based  upon  its  comprehension  of  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  lan- 
guages. So,  by  this  theory,  the  palladium  of  orthodoxy  is  to  be  found  in  a 
knowledge  of  foreign  tongues ;  and  living  authority  is  replaced  by  a  dead 
letter ;  a  slavery  a  thousand  times  more  oppressive  tiian  the  yoke  of  tradi- 
tion. J  Has  any  dogmatist  succeeded  in  drawing  up  a  confession  of  faith  by 
means  of  the  Bible,  which  could  not  be  attacked  by  means  of  reason  ?|1  This 
formula,  that  the  Bible  must  be  the  '  unicum  principium  theologian,'  is  the 
source  of  contradictory  doctrines  in  Protestant  theology ;  hence  this  question 
arises  :  '  What  Protestant  theology  is  there  in  which  there  are  not  errors 
more  or  less  ?'1[  It  was  the  Bible  that  inspired  all  the  neologists  of  the  six- 
teenth century ;  the  Bible  that  they  made  use  of  to  persecute  and  condemn 
themselves  as  heretics.**  When  Luther  maintained  that  the  Bible  contains 
the  enunciation  of  all  the  truths  of  which  a  knowledge  is  necessary  to  salva- 
tion, and  that  no  doctrine  which  is  not  distinctly  laid  down  in  the  Bible  can 
be  regarded  as  an  article  of  faith,  he  did  not  imagine  that  the  time  was  at 
hand  when  every  body,  from  this  very  volume,  would  form  a  confession  for 
himself,  and  reject  all  others  which  contradicted  his  individual  creed.  This 
necessity  for  inquiry  so  occupies  the  minds  of  men  at  the  present  day,  that 
the  principal  articles  of  the  original  creed  are  rejected  by  those  who  call 
themselves  the  disciples  of  Jesus.ff 

*  Bretschneider,  der  Simonismus,  p.  168.  f  Cobbctt. 

I  Novalis,  Fr.  von  Hardenberg's  Schriftcn,  1826. 

}  Schelling,  Vorlesungen  iiber  das  akadcniische  Studium,  p.  200. 

II  Fischer,  Zur  Einleitung  in  die  Dogmatik,  p.  210. 

IT  Von  Langsdorf,  Bliizzen  der  protest.  Theol.,  1820,  p.  623. 
**  Jen^r's  Allg.  Literaturzeitung,  1821,  Xo.  48. 
.ft   Wix,  Betrachtungen  iiber  die  Zweckm-Lssigkeit,  1819. 


AUDIN    SUMMING    UP.  455 

"But  wh.it  are  we  to  understand  by  the  Bible  ?  The  question  w£,?  a  dif- 
ficult one  to  solve  even  at  the  beginning  of  the  Eeformation,  when  Luther, 
in  his  preflice  to  the  translation  of  the  Bible,  laid  down  a  difference  between 
the  canonical  books,  by  preferring  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  to  the  three  other 
evangelists ;  by  depreciating  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  as  an  epistle  of  straw, 
that  contained  nothing  of  the  gospel  in  it,  and  which  an  apostle  could  not 
have  written,  since  it  attributes  to  works  a  merit  which  they  did  not  pos- 
sess.* It  was  in  the  Bible  that  Luther  discovered  these  two  great  truths  of 
salvation,  which  he  revealed  to  the  world  at  the  beginning  of  his  apostle- 
ship — the  slavery  of  marCs  will,  and  the  impeccahility  of  the  believer. 

"  It  is  said  in  Exodus,  chapter  ix,  that  God  hardened  the  heart  of  Pharaoh. 
It  was  questioned  whether  these  words  were  to  be  construed  literally  ?  This 
Erasmus  rightly  denied,  and  it  roused  the  doctor's  wrath.  Luther,  in  his 
reply,  furiously  attacks  the  fools  who,  calling  reason  to  their  aid,  dare  call  for 
an  account  from  God  why  He  condemns  or  predestines  to  damnation  inno- 
cent beings  before  they  have  even  seen  the  light.  Truly,  Luther,  in  the 
eyes  of  all  God's  creatures,  must  appear  a  prodigy  of  daring,  when  he  ven- 
tures to  maintain  that  no  one  can  reach  heaven  unless  he  adopts  the  slavery 
of  the  human  will.  And  it  is  not  merely  by  the  spirit  of  disputation,  but 
by  settled  conviction  that  he  defends  this  most  odious  of  all  ideas.  He  lived 
and  died  teaching  that  horrible  doctrine,  which  the  most  illustrious  of  his 
disciples, — among  others  Melancthon  and  Matthew  Albert  of  Reutlingen, — 
condemned.!  'How  rich  is  the  Christian!'  repeated  Luther;  'even  though 
he  wished  it,  he  can  not  forfeit  heaven  by  any  stain ;  believe,  then,  and  be 
assured  of  your  salvation :  God  in  eternity  can  not  escape  you.  Believe, 
and  you  shall  be  saved ;  repentance,  confession,  satisfaction,  good  works,  aU 
these  are  useless  for  salvation  :  it  is  sufficient  to  have  faith.'| 

"  Is  not  this  a  fearful  error, — a  desolating  doctrine  ?  If  you  demonstrate 
to  Luther  its  danger  or  absurdity,  he  replies  that  you  blaspheme  the  Spirit 
of  Light. 5  Neither  attempt  to  prove  to  him  that  he  is  mistaken;  he  will 
tell  you  that  you  offend  God.  No,  no,  my  brother,  you  will  never  convince 
me  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  confined  to  Wittenberg  any  more  than  to  your 
person.  II 

"  Not  content  with  maledictions,  Luther  then  turns  himself  to  prophecy ; 

*  Menzel,  1.  c,  p.  165. 

f  Plank,  tom.  ii,  pp.  113-131.  The  work  of  Albert  Reutlingen  is  en- 
titled, Vom  rechten  Branch  der  ewigen  Vorschung  Gotten  wider  die  hoch- 
fahrenden  Geister,  fleischliche  Klugheit  und  Fiirwitz  :  Aug.,  1525. 

\  Luther,  De  Gaptivitate  Babyl.  \  V.  Mathisson,  Prosaische  Schriflen 

II  (Ecolamp.  Antwort  auf  Luther's  Vorrede  zum  Syngramma :  E.  Halle. 
tom.  XX,  p.  727. 


456  CONCLUSION. 

he  announces  that  his  doctrine,  which  proceeds  from  heaven,  will  gain,  on* 
by  one,  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  He  says  of  Zuingle's  explanation 
of  the  Eucharist :  '  I  am  not  afraid  of  this  fanatical  interpretation  lasting 
long.'  On  the  other  hand,  Zuingle  predicted  that  the  Swiss  creed  would  be 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  crossing  the  Elbe  and  the  Rhine. 
Prophet  against  prophet,  if  success  be  the  test  of  truth,  Luther  will  inevita- 
bl}'  have  to  yield  in  this  point.* 

"  The  Reformation,  which  at  first  was  entirely  a  religious  phenomenon, 
soon  assumed  a  political  character  :  it  could  not  fail  to  do  so.  When  people 
began  to  exclaim,  like  Luther,  on  the  hoase-tops,  'the  Emperor  Charles  V. 
ought  not  to  be  supported  longer,  let  him  and  the  Pope  be  knocked  on  the 
head  ;'  (Opera,  Jense,  tom.  vii,  p.  278;)  that  'he  is  an  excited  madman,  a 
bloodhound,  who  must  be  killed  with  pikes  and  clubs  ;'f  how  could  civil 
society  continue  subject  to  authority  ?  It  was  natural  that  the  monk's  viru- 
lent writings  against  the  bishops'  spiritual  power  should  be  reduced  by  the 
subjects  of  the  ecclesiastical  superiors  into  a  political  theory.  When  he 
proclaimed  that  the  yoke  of  priests  and  monks  must  be  shaken  off,  we 
might  expect  that  this  wild  appeal  would  be  directed  against  the  tithes 
which  the  people  paid  to  the  prelates  and  the  abbots.|  The  Saxon's  doc- 
trine being  based  solely  on  the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  peasant  considered  him- 
self authorized  in  virtue  of  their  text  to  break  violently  with  his  lord  : 
hence,  that  long  war  between  the  cottage  and  the  castle.  This  it  was  that 
made  Erasmus  write  sorrowfully  to  Luther  :  '  You  see  that  we  are  now 
reaping  the  fruits  of  what  you  sowed.  You  will  not  acknowledge  the 
rebels ;  but  they  acknowledge  you,  and  they  know  only  too  well,  that  many 
of  your  disciples,  who  clothed  themselves  in  the  mantle  of  the  gospel,  have 
been  the  instigators  of  this  bloody  rebellion.  In  3^our  pamphlet  against  the 
peasants,  you  in  vain  endeavor  to  justify  yourself  It  is  you  who  have 
raised  the  storm  by  j'our  publications  against  the  monks  and  the  prelates 
and  you  say  that  you  fight  for  gospel  liberty,  and  against  the  tyranny  of  the 
great !  From  the  moment  that  you  began  your  tragedy,  I  foresaw  the  end 
of  it.'^ 

"  That  civil  war,  in  which  Germany  had  to  mourn  the  loss  of  more  than 
a  hundred  thousand  of  her  children,  was  the  consequence  of  Luther's 
preaching.  It  is  fortunate  that,  through  the  efforts  of  a  Catholic  prince, 
Dulie  George  of  Saxony,  it  was  speedily  brought  to  an  end.  Had  it  lasted 
but  A  few  years  longer,  of  all  the  ancient  monuments  with  which  Germany 
was  filled,  not  a  single  vestige  would  have  remained.     Karlstadt  might  then 


*  Plank,  1.  c.  tom.  ii,  p.  764,  note. 

■)•  Kern,  Der  Protestantismus  und  Kathol.,  p.  32. 

t  Menzel,  1.  c,  toir.  i,  pp.  167-69.  {  Ibid.,  pp.  174-78. 


AUDIN   SUMMIJNG    UP.  457 

have  sat  upon  their  ruins,  and  sung,  with  his  Bible  in  his  hand,  the  down- 
fell  of  the  images.  The  iconoclast's  theories,  all  drawn  from  the  word  of 
God,  held  their  ground  in  spite  of  Luther,  and  dealt  a  fotal  blow  to  the  arts. 

"  When  a  gorgeous  worship  requires  magnificent  temples,  imposing  cere- 
monies, and  striking  solemnities ;  when  religion  presents  to  the  eye  sensible 
imagxis  as  objects  of  public  veneration  ;  when  earth  and  heaven  are  oeopled 
with  supernatural  beings,  to  whom  imagination  can  lend  a  sensible  form  ; 
then  it  is  that  the  arts,  encouraged  and  ennobled,  reach  the  zenith  of  their 
Bplendor  and  perfection.  The  architect,  raised  to  honors  and  fortune,  con- 
ceives the  plans  of  those  basilicas  and  cathedrals,  whose  aspect  strikes  ua 
with  religious  awe,  and  whose  richly-adorned  walls  are  ornamented  with 
the  finest  efforts  of  art.  Those  temples  and  altars  are  decorated  with  mar- 
bles and  precious  metals,  which  sculpture  has  fashioned  into  the  similitude 
of  angels,  saints,  and  the  images  of  illustrious  men.  The  choirs,  the  jubes, 
the  chapels,  and  sacristies  are  hung  with  pictures  on  all  sides.  Here  Jesus 
expires  on  the  cross ;  there  he  is  transfigured  on  Mount  Thabor.  Art,  the 
friend  of  imagination,  which  delights  only  in  heaven,  finds  there  the  most 
sublime  creations, — a  St.  John,  a  Cecilia,  above  all  a  Mary — that  patroness 
of  tender  hearts,  that  virgin  model  to  all  mothers,  that  mediatrix  of  graces, 
placed  between  man  and  his  Grod,  that  august  and  amiable  being,  of  whom 
no  other  religion  presents  either  the  resemblance  or  the  model.  During  the 
solemnities,  the  most  costly  stuffs,  precious  stones,  and  embroidery,  cover 
the  altars,  vessels,  priests,  and  even  the  ver}^  walls  of  the  sanctuary.  Music 
completes  the  charm  by  the  most  exquisite  strains,  by  the  harmony  of  the 
choir.  These  powerful  incentives  are  repeated  in  a  hundred  different  places ; 
the  metropolises,  parishes,  the  numerous  religious  houses,  the  simple  orato- 
ries, sparkle  with  emulation  to  captivate  all  the  powers  of  the  religious  and 
devout  mind.  Thus  a  taste  for  the  arts  becomes  general,  by  means  of  so 
potent  a  lever,  and  artists  increase  in  number  and  rivalry.  Under  this  influ- 
ence the  celebrated  schools  of  Italy  and  Flanders  flourished  ;  and  the  finest 
works  which  now  remain  to  us  testify  the  splendid  encouragement  which 
the  Catholic  religion  lavished  upon  them. 

"After  this  natural  progress  of  events,  it  can  not  be  doubted  that  the  Ref- 
ormation has  been  unfavorable  to  the  fine  arts,  and  has  very  much  restrained 
the  exercise  of  them.  It  has  severed  the  bonds  which  united  them  to  religion, 
which  sanctified  them,  and  secured  for  them  a  place  in  the  veneration  of  the 
people The  Protestant  worship  tends  to  disenchant  the  material  imagin- 
ation; it  makes  fine  churches,  and  statues,  and  paintings  unnecessary;  it  ren- 
ders them  unpopular,  and  takes  from  them  one  of  their  most  active  springs.* 

*  Charles  Villers,  Essai  sur  I'  Esprit  et  I'  Influence  de  la  Reformation, 
pp.  267-69. 

VOL.   I.— 31) 


458  CONCLUSION. 

"  The  peasants'  war  was  soon  succeeded  b}"^  the  spoliation  of  the  monas- 
teries ;  '  an  invasion  of  the  most  sacred  of  all  rit^hts,  more  important,  m  cer- 
tain respects,  than  liberty  itself, — property.'*  From  that  time  not  a  day 
passed  without  Luther  preaching  up  the  robbery  of  the  religious  house* 
To  excite  the  greed  of  the  princes  whom  he  wished  to  secure  to  his  views, 
he  loved  to  direct  their  attention  to  the  treasures  which  the  abbeys,  cloisters, 
sacristies,  and  sanctuaries  contained.  "Take  them,' he  said;  'all  these  are 
your  own, — all  belong  to  you.'  Luther  was  convinced,  that  to  the  value  of 
the  golden  remonstrances  which  shone  on  the  Catholic  altars  he  was  indebted 
for  more  than  one  conversion.  In  a  moment  of  humor  he  said,  '  The  gentry 
and  princes  are  the  best  Lutherans ;  they  willingly  accept  both  monasteries 
and  chapters,  and  appropriate  their  treasures.'! 

''  The  landgrave  of  Hesse,  to  obtain  authority  for  giving  his  arm  to  two 
lawful  wives,  took  care  to  make  the  wealth  of  the  monasteries  glitter  in  the 
eyes  of  the  church  of  Wittenberg,  so  that  as  the  price  of  their  permission  he 
was  willing  to  give  it  to  the  Saxon  ministers.]:  The  plunder  of  church  prop- 
erty preached  by  Luther,  will  be  the  eternal  condemnation  of  the  Protest- 
ants. Though  Naboth's  vineyard  may  serve  as  a  bait  or  reward  for  apostasy, 
it  can  not  justify  crime. 

"A  laureate  of  the  Listitute  has  discovered  grounds  for  palliating  this 
blow  to  property.  He  congratulates  the  princes  who  embraced  the  Eefor- 
mation  for  having,  by  means  of  the  ecclesiastical  property,  filled  their  coflfers, 
paid  their  debts,  applied  the  confiscated  wealth  to  useful  establishments, 
clubs,  universities,  hospitals,  orphanages,  retreats,  and  rewards  for  the  old 
servants  of  the  state. J 

"  But  Luther  himself  took  care,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  to  denounce 
the  avarice  of  the  princes  who,  when  once  masters  of  the  monastic  property, 
employed  its  revenues  for  the  support  of  mistresses  and  packs  of  hounds. 
We  remember  the  eloquent  complaints  which  he  uttered  in  his  old  age 
against  these  carnal  men,  who  left  the  Protestant  clergy  in  destitution,  and  did 
not  even  pay  the  schoolmasters  their  salaries.  He  mourned  then,  but  it  was 
too  late.  Sometimes  the  chastisement  of  heaven  fell,  even  in  this  life,  on 
the  spoiler ;  and,  Luther  has  mentioned  instances  of  several  of  those  iron 
hands,  who,  after  having  enriched  themselves  by  the  plunder  of  a  monastery, 
church,  or  abbey,  fell  into  algect  poverty. ||  Besides,  we  will  admit  that  Lu- 
ther never  thought  of  consoling  the  plundered  monks,  by  asserting,  like 
Charles  Villers,  that  'one  of  the  finest  effects  of  these  terrible  commotions 

*  J.  J.  Rousseau,  Discours  sur  1'  Economie  Politique, 
f  Von  beider  Gestalt  dcs  Sacraments  :  Witt.,  1528. 
I  See  the  chapter  of  Audin's  Life  of  Luther,  entitled  Bigamy  of  the  land- 
grave of  Hesse.         ^J  Charles  Villers,  Essai,  p.  104.         ||  Sympopiac,  c.  m 


AUDIN   SUMMING   UP.  45Q 

which  unsettle  all  properties,  the  fruits  of  social  institutions,  is  to  substitute 
for  them  greatness  of  mind,  virtues,  and  talents,  the  fruits  of  nature  ex 
clusively.'* 

"  If  the  triumph  of  the  peasants  in  the  fields  of  Thuringia  might  havt. 
been  an  irreparable  misfortune  to  Germany  and  to  Christianity,  we  can  not 
deny  that  Luther's  appeal  to  the  secular  arm,  to  suppress  the  rebellion,  may 
have  thoroughly  altered  the  character  of  the  first  Reformation.  Till  then  it 
had  been  established  by  preaching ;  but  from  the  moment  of  that  bloody 
episode,  it  required  the  civil  authority  to  move  it.  The  sword,  therefore, 
took  the  place  of  the  word  ;  and  to  perpetuate  itself,  the  Reformation  was 
bound  to  exaggerate  the  theory  of  passive  obedience.f  One  of  the  distin- 
guished historians  of  Heidelberg,  Carl  Hagen,  has  recently  favored  us  with 
some  portions  of  the  political  code  in  which  Protestantism  commands  sub- 
jects tn  be  obedient  to  the  civil  power,  even  when  it  commands  them  to 
commit  sin. J 

"Thus  the  democratic  element,  first  developed  by  the  Reformation,  was 
effaced,  to  become  absorbed  in  the  despotic.  It  was  no  longer  the  people, 
but  the  prince  who  chose  or  rejected  the  Protestant  minister.  When  the 
landgrave  of  Hesse  consulted  Melancthon,  in  1525,  as  to  the  line  he  should 
pursue  in  the  appointment  of  a  pastor,  the  doctor  told  him  that  he  had  the 
right  to  interfere  in  the  election  of  ministers,  and  that  if  he  surmounted  the 
struggles  into  which  the  word  of  God  had  involved  him,  he  ought  not  to 
commit  that  sacred  word  but  to  such  preacher  as  seemed  best  to  him  (ver- 
niinftigen) ;  in  other  terms,  observes  the  historian,  to  him  whom  the  civil 
power  thinks  competent  (den  welchen  die  Obrigkeit  dafiir  halt).  And  Martin 
Bucer  contrived  to  extend  Melancthon's  theory,  by  constituting  the  civil 
power  supreme  judge  of  religious  orthodoxy,  by  conferring  on  it  the  right 
of  ultimate  decision  in  questions  of  heresy,  and  of  punishing,  if  necessary, 
by  fire  and  sword,  innovators,  who  are  a  thousand  times  more  culpable,  ho 
says,  than  the  robber  or  murderer,  who  only  steal  the  material  bread  and 
slay  the  body,  while  the  heretic  steals  the  bread  of  life  and  kills  the 
Boul.j 

"  Intolerance  then  entered  into  the  councils  of  the  Reformation.  It  was 
no  longer  with  the  peasants  that  Luther  declared  war.  Whoever  did  not 
believe  in  his  doctrines  was  denounced  as  a  rebel ;  in  the  Saxon's  eyes,  the 

*  Charles  Villers,  Essai,  p.  103. 

f  Carl  Hagen,  Neues  Verhaltniss  zu  den  offent.  Gewalten,  tom.  2, 
p.  151. 

J  "So  miisse  der  Unterthan  gehorchen,  auch  wenn  die  Obrigkeit  etwaa 
wider  das  Gebot  Gottes  befehle,"  1,  c,  p.  155. 

i  Carl  Hagen,  1.  c,  pp.  152,  154,  et  seq. 


4G0  CONCLUSION. 

peasant  was  only  an  enemy  to  be  despised ;  the  real  Satan  was  Karlstadt, 
Zuingle,  and  Krautwald.* 

"  His  disciples  were  no  longer  satisfied  with  plundering  the  monasteries, 
they  desired  to  live  in  ease  ;  they  must  have  servants,  a  fine  house,  a  well- 
supplied  table,  and  plenty  of  money.f  We  are  initiated  into  the  private  life 
of  the  reformers  by  a  zealous  Protestant,  a  patrician  of  Nurenberg. 

"  The  struggle  then  was  no  longer  with  piety  and  knowledge,  but  with 
power  and  influence.  Every  city  and  town  had  its  own  Lutheran  pope,  t 
At  Nurenberg,  Osiander  was  a  regular  pacha.  Those  who  among  the  Prot- 
estants endeavored  to  reprove  his  scandalous  ostentation,  were  abused  and 
maligned. 5  When  he  ascended  the  pulpit,  his  fingers  were  adorned  with 
diamonds  which  dazzled  the  eyes  of  his  hearers.  || 

"  The  religious  disputes  which  disturbed  men's  minds  in  Germany  re- 
tarded, rather  than  advanced,  the  march  of  intellect.  Blind  people  who 
fought  furiousl}'^  with  each  other  could  not  find  the  road  to  truth.  These 
quarrels  were  only  another  disease  of  the  human  mind.TT  Although  printing 
served  to  disseminate  the  principles  »f  the  reformers,  the  sudden  progress 
of  Lutheranism,  and  the  zeal  with  which  it  was  embraced,  prove  that  reason 
and  reflection  had  no  part  in  their  development.** 

"  Villers  has  drawn  a  brilliant  sketch  of  the  influence  which  the  Keforma- 
tion  exercised  over  biblical  criticism.  It  may  be  said  that  criticism  of  the 
Scripture  text  was  unknown  previous  to  the  time  of  Luther ;  and  if  by  this 
is  meant  that  captious,  whimsical,  and  shufiiing  criticism  which  De  Wette 
has  so  justly  condemned, — certainly  so.  But  that  which  relates  to  lan- 
guages, antiquities,  the  knowledge  of  times,  places,  authors, — in  a  word, 
hermeneutics,  was  known  and  practiced  in  our  schools  before  the  Refor- 

*  "  Und  nun  erst  habe  man  mit  dem  eigentlichen  Satan  zu  karapfen. 
Luther  an  Joh.  Hess,  22  April,  1526.— De  Wette,  tom.  iii,  p.  104. 

f  Sunt  apud  nos  concionatores  bini,  qui  sub  initium  centum  aureorum 
stipendio  ac  victu  tanto  pro  se  et  famulis  suis  professi,  caeterum  quum  vidis- 
sent,  se  jam  populo  persuasisse,  centum  quinquaginta  exegerunt,  ac  paulo 
post  ultra  habitationem  propriam  et  victum  splendidum  ducentos  petiere 
aureos,  aut  se  abituros  sunt  minati. 

t  ..."  Fast  Jede  Stadt  und  jeder  ort  hatte  seinen  lutherischen  Papst." 

5  Dienigen,  welche  sich  iiber  dieses  Feilschen  mit  dera  Worte  Gottes 
aufhielten  wurden  von  ihnen  gescholten." — Ibid.,  p.  187. 

II  . . .  "Er  tnig  immer  Ringe  an  den  Fingern,  selKst  wenn  erpredigte."— 
Epist.  Enismi :  Lond.     Carl  Hagen,  1.  c,  p.  188. 

1[  Voltaire,  Essai  sur  les  moeurs  des  nations,  quoted  by  Maleville,  Dia- 
cours  sur  I'  influence  de  la  Reformation,  p.  141. 

**  Hume.  History  of  the  House  of  Tudor  under  Henry  VII.,  ch.  iii. 


AUDIN    SUMMING    UP.  461 

mation,  as  is  proved  by  the  works  of  Cajetan  and  Sadoletus,  and  a  multitude 
of  learned  men  whom  Leo  X.  had  encouraged  and  rewarded.  We  have 
seen  besides,  in  the  history  of  the  Reformation,  what  that  vain  science  has 
produced.  It  was  by  means  of  his  critical  researches  that,  from  the  time  of 
Luther,  Karlstadt  found  such  a  meaning  of  '  Semen  immolare  Moloch,'  as 
made  his  disciple  shrug  his  shoulders ;  that  Miinzer  preached  community 
of  goods  and  wives  ;  that  Melancthon  taught  that  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity 
deprives  our  mind  of  all  liberty  ;*  that  at  a  later  period  Ammon  asserted 
that  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  could  not  be  deduced  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;f  Veter,  that  the  Pentateuch  was  not  written  by  Moses ;  that  the 
history  of  the  Jews  to  the  time  of  the  Judges  is  only  a  popular  tradition ; 
Bretschneider,  that  the  Psalms  can  not  be  looked  upon  as  inspired  ;|  Augusti, 
that  the  true  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ  has  not  been  preserved  intact  in  the 
New  Testament; 5  and  Geisse,  that  not  one  of  the  four  gospels  was  written 
by  the  evangelist  whose  name  it  bears.  || 

"Since  the  days  of  Semler,. Germany  presents  a  singular  spectacle  ;  every 
ten  years,  or  nearly  so,  its  theological  literature  undergoes  a  complete  revo- 
lution. What  was  admired  during  the  one  decennial  period  is  rejected  in 
the  next,  and  the  image  which  they  adored  is  burnt  to  make  way  for  new 
divinities ;  the  dogmas  which  were  held  in  honor  fall  into  discredit ;  the 
classical  treatise  of  morality  is  banished  among  the  old  books  out  of  date  ; 
criticism  overturns  criticism ;  the  commentary  of  yesterday  ridicules  thai 
of  the  previous  day,  and  what  was  clearly  proved  in  1840  is  not  less  clearly 
disproved  in  1850.  The  theological  systems  of  Germany  are  as  numerous 
as  the  political  constitutions  of  France, — one  revolution  only  awaits 
another."  IT 

♦  Loci  Theol.,  1521.        f  Biblische  Theologie,  tom.  iii,  p.  367,  (1841). 
J  Bretschneider,  Handb.  der  Dogmatik,  tom.  i,  p.  93. 
{  Theolog.  Monatschr.     No.  9. 

II  Geisse  Paradoxa  iiber  hochevichtige  Gegenstande  des  christenthuma, 
1829.  IT  Le  Semeur,  June,  1850. 


NOTES    AND    DOCUMENTS. 


NOTE  A,  Page  90. 


We  here  republish  the  condensed  portraiture  of  the  principal  reformers 
drawn  by  themselves,  as  furnished  by  Bishop  Trevern  in  his  admirable  work 
entitled,  "An  Amicable  Discussion  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  the  Ref- 
ormation in  general ; "  Appendix,  p.  52,  seqq.     Edition  of  Lucas,  Baltimore. 


An  Historical  Account  of  the  Opinions  that  the  First 
Reformers  have  given  of  one  Another,  and  of  the 
Effects  of  their  Preaching. 


LUTHER. 

He  himself  bears  testimony  that  "  while  a  Catholic,  he  passed  his  life  in 
austerities,  in  watchings,  in  fasts  and  praying,  in  poverty,  chastity,  and  obe- 
dience."* When  once  reformed,  that  is  to  say,  another  man,  he  says  that : 
"As  it  does  not  depend  upon  him  not  to  be  a  man,  so  neither  does  it  depend 
upon  him  to  be  without  a  woman ;  and  that  he  can  no  longer  forego  the 
indulgence  of  the  vilest  natural  propensities."! 

1.  "  I  burn  with  a  thousand  flames  in  my  unsubdued  flesh ;  I  feel  myself 
carried  on  with  a  rage  towards  women  that  approaches  to  madness.  I,  who 
ought  to  be  fervent  in  spirit,  am  only  fervent  in  irapurity."| 

2.  "  To  the  best  of  my  judgment,  thei-e  is  neither  emperor,  king,  nor  devil, 
to  whom  I  would  yield  ;  no,  I  would  not  yield  even  to  the  whole  world."^ 

3.  "  He  was  so  well  aware  of  his  immorality,  as  we  are  informed  by  his 
favorite  disciple,  that  he  wished  they  would  remove  him  from  the  oflBce  of 
preaching."  II 

4.  "  His  timid  companion  acknowledges  that  he  had  received  blows  from 
him,  ah  ipso  cohphos  accepi."^ 

5.  "I  tremble  (wrote  he  to  the  same  friend),  when  I  think  of  the  passions 
of  Luther ;  they  yield  not  in  violence  to  the  passions  of  Hercules."** 

6.  "  This  man  (said  one  of  his  contemporary  reformers),  is  absolutely  mad. 
He  never  ceases  to  combat  truth  against  all  justice,  even  against  the  cry  of 
his  own  conscience." ft 

7.  "  He  is  puffed  up  with  pride  and  arrogance,  and  seduced  by  Satan."|{ 

8.  "  Yes,  the  devil  has  made  himself  master  of  Luther,  to  such  a  degree, 
as  to  make  one  believe  he  wishes  to  gain  entire  possession  of  him."^^ 

*  Tom.  V,  In  cap.  I.  ad  Galat.  v.  14.  t  Ibid.,  Serm.  de  Matritn.,  fol.  119. 

J  Luth.  Table  Talk.     §  Idem.  Resp.  ad  Maled.  Reg.  Ang.     ||  Sleidan,  Book  ii,  152a 
if  MelancthoQ,  Letters  to  Theodore.  **  Ibid.  ft  Hospinian, 

it  CEcolampadius.  §§  Zuinglius. 

(463) 


164  NOTE   A. 

"  I  wonder  no  more,  0  Luther  (wrote  Henry  VIII.  to  him),  that  thou  art 
not,  in  ijood  earnest,  ashamed,  and  that  thou  darest  to  hft  up  thy  ejes  either 
before  God  or  man,  seeing  that  thou  hast  been  so  light  and  so  inconstant  aa 
to  allow  thyself  to  be  trans[)orted  by  the  instigation  of  the  devil  to  thy 
foohsh  concupiscences.  Thou,  a  brother  of  the  order  of  St.  Augustine,  hast 
been  the  first  to  abuse  a  consecrated  nun  ;  which  sin  would  have  been,  in 
times  past,  so  rigorously  punished,  that  she  would  have  been  buried  alive, 
and  thou  woul  1st  have  been  scourged  to  death.  But  so  far  art  thou  from 
correcting  thy  fiiult,  that  moreover,  shameful  to  say,  thou  hast  taken  her 
publicly  to  wife,  having  contracted  with  her  an  incestuous  marriage  and 
abused  the  poor  and  miserable ....  to  the  great  scandal  of  the  world,  the 
reproach  and  opprobrium  of  thy  country,  the  contempt  of  holy  matrimony, 
and  the  great  dishonor  and  injury  of  the  vows  made  to  God.  Finally,  what 
is  still  more  detestable,  instead  of  being  cast  down  and  overwhelmed  with 
grief  and  confusion,  as  thou  oughtest  to  be,  at  thy  incestuous  marriage,  0 
miserable  wretch,  thou  makest  a  boast  of  it,  and  instead  of  asking  forgive- 
ness for  thy  unfortunate  crime,  thou  dost  incite  all  debauched  religious,  by 
thy  letters  and  thy  writings,  to  do  the  same."* 

"  God,  to  punish  that  pride  of  Luther,  which  is  discoverable  in  all  his 
works  (sa3's  one  of  the  first  Sacramentarians),  withdrew  his  spirit  from  him, 
abandoning  him  to  the  spirit  of  error  and  of  lying,  which  will  always  pos- 
sess those  who  have  followed  his  opinions,  until  they  leave  them."f 

"  Luther  treats  us  as  an  execrable  and  condemned  sect,  but  let  him  take 
care  lest  he  condemn  himself  as  an  arch-heretic,  from  the  sole  fact,  that  he 
will  not  and  can  not  a,ssociate  himself  with  those  who  confess  Christ.  But 
how  strangely  does  this  fellow  let  himself  be  carried  away  by  his  devils  ! 
How  disgusting  is  his  language  and  how  full  are  his  words  of  the  devil  of 
hell!  He  says  that  the  devil  dwells  now  and  for  ever  in  the  bodies  of  the 
Zuinglians  ;  that  blasphemies  exhale  from  their  insatanized,  supersatanized, 
and  persatanized  breasts  ;  that  their  tongues  are  nothing  but  lying  tongues, 
moved  at  the  will  of  Satan,  infused,  perfused,  and  transfused  with  his  infernal 
poison !    Did  ever  any  one  hear  such  language  come  out  of  an  enraged  demon  ?l 

"  He  wrote  all  his  works  by  the  impulse  and  the  dictation  of  the  devil, 
with  whom  he  had  dealing,  and  who  in  the  struggle  seemed  to  have  thrown 
him  by  victorious  arguments."  ^ 

"  It  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  (said  Zuinglius),  to  find  Luther  contra- 
dicting himself  from  one  page  to  another. ...  ;||  and  to  see  him  in  the  midst 
of  his  followers,  you  would  believe  him  to  be  possessed  by  a  phalanx  of 
devils."  1[ 

Erasmus,  the  most  learned  man  of  his  age,  he  who  has  been  called  the 
pride  of  Holland,  the  love  and  delight  of  Great  Britain,  and  of  almost  every 
other  nation,**  wrote  to  Luther  himself:  "  All  good  people  lament  and  groan 
over  the  fatal  schism  with  which  thou  shakest  the  world  b}'  thy  arrogant, 
unbridled,  and  seditious  spirit."ft 

"Luther  (says  Erasmus  again,)  begins  to  be  no  longer  pleasing  to  his  dis- 
ciples, so  much  so  that  thej^  treat  him  as  a  heretic,  and  affirm,  that  l;eing 
void  of  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  he  is  delivered  over  to  the  deliriums  of  a 
worldly  spirit."||: 

*  In  Horim.  p.  299.  t  Conrad  Reis.     Upon  the  Lord's  Supper,  B.  2. 

J  The  church  of  Zurich,  against  the  Confession  of  Luther,  p.  61.  §  Ibid. 

1  T.  II.  Respons,  ad  Confess.  Lutheri,  fol.  44.  H   [bid.,  fol.  381.  4 

**  Preface  to  the  London  Edition,  year  1642.  +t  Epistle  to  Luther,  1626. 

n  Epistle  '(>  Cardinal  Sadolet,  1628. 


REFORMERS   PORTRAYING   THEMSELVES.  465 

'•  In  very  truth,  Luther  is  extremely  corrupt  (said  Calvin)  ;*  would  to 
God  he  had  taken  pains  to  put  more  restraint  upon  that  intemperance  which 
rages  in  every  part  of  him !  Would  to  God  he  had  been  attentive  to  dis- 
cover his  vices."f 

Calvin  says  again,  that,  "  Luther  had  done  nothing  to  any  purpose .... 
that  people  ought  not  to  let  themselves  be  duped  by  following  his  steps  and 

being  half-papist ;  that  it  is  much  better  to  build  a  church  entirely  afresh "\ 

Sometimes,  it  is  true,  Calvin  praised  Luther  so  lar  as  to  call  him  "  the  re- 
storer of  Christianity."^  He  protested,  however,  against  their  honoring  him 
with  the  name  of  Elias.  His  disciples  afterwards  made  the  same  protesta- 
tions. "  Those  (said  they),  who  put  Luther  in  the  rank  of  the  prophets, 
and  constitute  his  writings  the  rule  of  the  church,  have  deserved  exceedingly 
ill  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  expose  themselves  and  their  churches  to  the 
ridicule  and  cutting  reproaches  of  their  adversaries." || 

"  Thy  school  (replied  Calvin  to  Westphal  the  Lutheran),  is  nothing  but  a 
stinking  pig- stye. ... ;  dost  thou  hear  me,  thou  dog?  dost  thou  hear  me, 
thou  madman  ?  dost  thou  hear  me,  thou  huge  beast  ?" 

Karlostadius,  while  retired  at  Orlamunde,  had  so  far  ingratiated  himself 
with  the  inhabitants,  that  they  must  needs  stone  Luther,  who  had  run  over 
to  rate  him  for  his  fixlse  opinions  respecting  the  Eucharist.  Luther  tells  us 
this  in  his  letter  to  the  inhabitants  of  Strasburg  :  "  These  Christians  attacked 
me  with  a  shower  of  stones.  This  was  their  blessing :  May  a  thousand 
devils  take  thee  !  Mayest  thou  break  thy  neck  before  thou  returnest  home 
again."  If 

KAELOSTADIUS. 

You  shall  have  his  portrait  as  drawn  by  the  temperate  Melancthon.  "He 
was  (says  he),  a  brutal  fellow,  without  wit  or  learning,  or  any  light  of  com- 
mon sense ;  who,  far  from  having  any  mark  of  the  spirit  of  God,  never  either 
knew  or  practiced  any  of  the  duties  of  civilized  life.  The  evident  marks 
of  impiety  appeared  in  him.  All  his  doctrine  was  either  judaical  or  sedi- 
tious. He  condemned  all  laws  made  by  Pagans.  He  would  have  men  to 
judge  according  to  the  law  of  Moses,  because  he  knew  not  the  nature  of 
Christian  liberty.  He  embraced  the  fanatical  doctrine  of  the  Anabaptist 
immediately  that  Nicholas  Storck  began  to  spread  it  abroad  ....  One  por- 
tion of  Germany  can  bear  testimony  that  I  say  nothing  in  this  but  what  is 
tnie." 

He  was  the  first  priest  of  the  reform  who  married,  and  in  the  new  fangled 
Mass  that  was  made  up  for  his  marriage,  his  fanatical  partisans  went  so  far 
as  to  pronounce  this  man  blessed,  who  bore  evident  marks  of  impiety.  The 
collect  of  the  Mass**  was  thus  worded :  "  Deus  qui  post  logam  et  impiara 
sacerdotum  tuorum  coecitatem  Beatum  Andraeam  Karlostadium  e\  gratia 
donlre  dignatus  es,  ut  primus,  nuli'i  habits,  ratione  papistici  juris,  uxorem 
ducere  ansus  fuerit ;  da.  qufesumus,  ut  omnes  sacerdotes.  recept'\  sana  mente, 
ejus  vestigia  scquentes,  ejectis  concubinis  aut  eisdem  ductis,  ad  legitimi  con- 
sortium thori  convertantur  :  per  Dom.  nost.  etc." 

The  Lutherans  inform  us,  that  "it  can  not  be  denied  that  Karlostadius 
was  strangled  by  the  devil,  considering  the  number  of  witnesses  who  relate 
t,  the  number  of  others  who  have  committed  it  to  writing,  and  even  tho 

♦  Cited  by  Conrad  Schhissemberg.  +  Tlieol.  Cal.  1.  ii,  fob  126. 

t  See  Florimond.  §  Ibid.,  p.  887.  J  In  Adinon,  de  lib.  Concord.,  ri. 

il  Tom.  ii,  fol.  447,  Sen.  Germ.  **  Quoted  in  Florimond. 


4GG  NOTE   A. 

letters  of  the  pastors  at  Basle.*  He  left  behind  him  a  son,  Hans  Karlostad- 
ius,  who,  renouncing  the  errors  of  his  father,  entered  the  communion  of  the 
Catholic  Church." 

ZUINGLIUS. 

"I  do  not  refuse  (wrote  Melancthon),f  to  enter  upon  a  conference  (at  Mar- 
burgh)  with  fficolatnpadius ;  for,  to  speak  to  Zuinglius  is  time  lost. — It  Ls 
not,  however,  a  light  undertaking,  because  their  opinion  is  agreeable  to 
many,  who  are  desirous  of  touching  the  mysteries  of  God  with  their  hand, 
and  yet  permit  themselves  to  be  conducted  by  their  curiosity."  Luther 
replying  to  the  landgrave,  said  :  "  Of  what  use  is  this  conference,  if  both 
parties  bring  to  it  an  opinion  already  formed  and  come  with  the  determina- 
tion of  yielding  in  nothing.  I  know  for  certain  that  they  are  in  error. 
These  are  the  stratagems  of  the  devil ;  and  this  is  the  way  that  every  thing 
goes  worse  and  worse." 

"  I  can  not  (says  Zuinglius  of  himself)  conceal  the  fire  that  burns  me  and 
drives  me  on  to  incontinence,  since  it  is  true  that  its  effects  have  already 
drawn  upon  me  but  too  many  infamous  reproaches  among  the  churches."! 

The  printer  at  Zurich,  said  Lavatherus,  made  a  present  to  Luther  of  the 
translation  of  Zuinglius  :  but  he  sent  it  back  with  abusive  language.  "  I 
will  not  read  (said  he)  the  works  of  these  people,  because  they  are  out  of 
the  church,  and  are  not  only  damned  themselves,  but  draw  many  miserable 
creatures  after  them.  As  long  as  T  live  I  shal'  make  war  upon  them  by  my 
prayers  and  my  writings." ^ 

Karlostadius's  opinion  upon  the  Eucharist  seemed  to  Luther  to  be  fooHsh  ; 
that  of  Zuinglius  fallacious  and  wicked,  giving  nothing  but  wind  and  smoke 
to  Christians^  instead  of  the  true  body  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  spoke  of  neither 
sign  nor  figure.  || 

"  The  Zuinglians  write  that  we  look  upon  them  as  brethren ;  this  is  a  fic- 
tion so  foolish  and  impertinent  (proclaimed  the  Lutherans  in  full  synod) 
that  we  can  not  be  sufficiently  astonished  at  their  impudence.  We  do  not 
even  grant  to  them  a  place  in  the  church,  far  from  recognizing  as  brethren, 
a  set  of  people,  whom  we  see  agitated  by  the  spirit  of  lying,  and  uttering 
blasphemies  against  the  Son  of  Man."  If 

Brentius,  whom  Bishop  Jewel  called  the  grave  and  learned  old  man,  de- 
clares that  "the  dogmas  of  the  Zuinglians  are  diabolical,  full  of  impiety,  of 
corruptions,  and  calumnies  ;  that  the  error  of  Zuinglius  upon  the  Eucharist 
drew  along  with  it  many  others  still  more  sacrilegious  ;"**  he  predicted 
that  the  Zuinglians  would  soon  show  the  heresy  of  the  ISTestorians  springing 
up  again  in  the  church  of  God ;  "  soon  (says  he),  will  the  different  articles 
of  our  religion  disappear  one  after  another,  and  to  them  will  succeed  the 
superstitions  of  the  Pagans,  the  Talmudists,  and  the  Mahometans."ft 

Luther  openly  declared  that  "  Zuinglius  was  an  offspring  of  hell,  an  asso- 
ciate of  Arius,  a  man,  who  did  not  deserve  to  be  prayed  for .  . .  ." 

"  Zuinglius,  (said  Luther)  is  dead  and  damned,  having  desired  like  a  thief 
and  a  rebel,  to  compel  others  to  follow  his  error."|t 

*  Hist,  de  Coen.  August,  fob  41.  +  Quoted  in  FlcTimond. 

+  In  Parenoe.s  ad  Helvet,  t.  i,  d.  113. 

8  Scliliissumb.  lib.  ii,  Theol.  Calvin,  qnnted  in  Florim.,  p.  96. 

I  In  Florim.  p.  109.  1  Epitome  Colloq.  Maul.  Brunse  1564,  p.  82. 

**  Brentius  in  Recognitione  Prophetaruni  et  Apost.  in  fine. 

t<  In  BuUingeri  Coronide,  an.  1544.  Xl  Tom.  ii,  fob  36,  cited  in  Florim. 


REFORMERS   PORTRAYING   THEMSELVES.  467 

"  Many  Protestants  (testifies  the  Apologist  of  Zuinglius),  have  not  scru- 
pled to  pronounce  that  he  died  in  his  sins,  and  thus  to  send  him  to  hell."* 

"Blessed  is  the  man  who  hath  not  walked  in  the  counsel  of  the  Sacra- 
mentarians,  nor  stood  in  the  way  of  the  Zuinglians,  nor  sat  in  the  chair  of 
the  Zurichians.     You  understand  what  I  mean."f 

CALVIN. 

Calvin,  being  obliged  to  leave  France  to  disengage  himself  from  law 
affairs,  went  to  Germany  and  there  sought  out  the  greater  part  of  those  who 
were  busy  in  disturbing  the  consciences  and  agitating  the  minds  of  men. 
At  Basle  he  was  presented  by  Bucer  to  Erasmus,  who  resorted  to  the  pri- 
vate conferences  without  being  induced  to  embrace  the  opinions  of  these 
innovators.  Erasmus,  after  having  conversed  with  hira  upon  some  of  the 
points  of  religion,  exceedingly  astonished  at  what  he  had  discovered  in  his 
dispositions,  turned  towards  Bucer  and  showing  young  Calvin  to  him,  said : 
"I  see  a  great  plague  rising  in  the  Church  against  the  Church  ;  video  mag- 
nam  pestem  oriri  in  Ecclesia  contra  Ecclesiam." 

"  Calvin,  t  am  aware,  is  violent  and  wayward  :  so  much  the  better  ;  he  is 
the  very  man  to  advance  our  cause."|:  Thus  spoke  a  German  who  had 
taught  him  at  Bourges,  and  who,  together  with  Greek  and  Hebrew,  had 
crammed  him  with  the  new  doctrines  of  Germany. 

"Calvin,  (said  Bucer,)  is  a  true  mad  dog.  The  man  is  wicked,  and  he 
judges  of  people  according  as  he  loves  or  hates  them." 

Baudoin,  expressing  his  disapprobation  of  the  opinions  of  Bucer  and 
Melancthon,  said  that  he  admired  their  modesty,  but  that  he  could  not  en- 
dure Calvin,  because  he  had  found  him  too  thirsty  for  vengeance  and  blood ; 
propter  nimiam  vindictse  et  sanguinis  sitim  ....  Baudoin,  induced  by  Cas- 
sandre,  had  renounced  the  doctrine  of  Calvin.  He  was  the  most  learned 
and  renowned  lawyer  of  his  time  ;  he  was  born  in  the  year  1520,  and  died 
■  n  1573.  See  his  Funeral  Oration  on  Papyrius  Masson.  Paris,  1638.  See 
?>ibl.  Mazarine. 

The  intolerant  and  sanguinary  spirit  of  this  too  celebrated  man  appears 
n  one  of  his  letters  to  his  friend,  the  Marquis  du  Poet ;  "  Do  not  find  fault 
with  our  ridding  the  country  of  these  fanatics,  who  exhort  the  people  by 
their  discourses  to  bear  up  against  us,  who  blacken  our  conduct,  and  wish 
:o  make  our  faith  be  considered  as  an  idle  fancy.  Such  monsters  ought  to 
oe  suffocated,  as  happened  at  the  execution  of  Michael  Servetus,  the  Span- 
iard." The  original  of  this  letter  has  been  preserved  in  the  archives  of  the 
Marquis  du  Montelimart.  We  are  assured  that  M.  de  Voltaire  received  in 
1772  an  authentic  copy  of  it,  according  to  his  request,  and  that,  after  he  had 
read  it,  he  wrote  on  the  margin  some  lines  against  Calvin. 

"  What  man  was  ever  more  imperious  and  positive  and  more  divinely 
infallible  than  Calvin,  against  whom  the  smallest  opposition  that  men  dared 
to  make  was  always  a  work  of  Satan,  and  a  crime  deserving  of  flre."^ 

Calvin's  erroneous  opinions  upon  the  Trinity  excited  against  him  the  zeal 
of  one,  who  in  other  respects  held  his  Sacramentarian  opinion  ;  "  What  de- 
mon has  urged  thee,  0  Calvin  !  to  declaim  with  the  Arians  against  the  Son 
of  God?. .  ..It  is  that  Antichrist  of  the  north  that  thou  hast  the  impru- 


*  Gualter  in  Apolog.     Tom.  i,  oper.  Zuingl.  f  )l.  18. 

+  Luth.  Epist.  ad  Jacob  presbyt.  J  Wolmar. 

§  J.  J.  Rousseau,  Lettres  de  la  Montaigne. 


468  NOTE    A. 

dence  to  adore,  that  grammarian  Melancthon."*  "  Beware,  Christian  -ead- 
ers,  above  all,  j'e  ministers  of  the  word,  teware  of  the  books  of  C»«vin. 
They  contain  an  impious  doctrine,  the  blasphemies  of  Arianism,  as  ir  the 
spirit  of  Michael  Servetus  had  escaped  from  the  executioner,  and  according 
to  the  sj'stem  of  Plato  had  transmigrated  whole  and  entire  into  Calvin."f 
The  same  author  gave  as  the  title  to  his  writings  :  "  Upon  the  Trinity,  and 
upon  Jesus  Christ  our  Kedeemer,  against  Henry  Sullinger,  Peter  Martyr, 
John  Calvin,  and  the  other  ministers  of  Zurich  and  Geneva,  disturbers  of  the 
Church  of  God." 

By  teaching  that  God  was  the  author  of  sin,  Calvin  raised  against  him  all 
parties  of  the  reform.  The  Lutherans  of  .Germany  united  to  refute  so  hor- 
rible a  blasphemy;  "This  opinion  (said  they),  ought  everywhere  to  be  held 
in  horror  and  execration ;  it  is  a  stoical  madness,  fatal  to  morals,  monstrous 
and  blasphemous."! 

"  This  Calvinistic  error  is  horribly  injurious  to  God,  and  of  all  errors  the 
most  mischievous  to  mankind.  According  to  this  Calvinistic  theologian,  God 
would  be  the  most  unjust  tyrant. — It  would  no  longer  be  the  devil,  but  God 
himself  would  be  the  Father  of  lies."^ 

The  same  author,  who  was  superintendent  and  general  inspector  of  the 
Lutheran  churches  in  Germany,  in  the  three  volumes  he  published  against 
the  Calvinistic  theology,  ||  never  makes  mention  of  the  Calvinists  without 
giving  them  them  the  epithets  of  unbelievers,  impious,  blasphemous,  impos- 
tors, heretics,  incredulous,  people  struck  with  the  spirit  of  blindness,  bare- 
faced and  shameless  men,  turbulent  ministers,  busy  agents  of  Satan,  etc." 

Heshusius,  after  exposing  the  doctrine  of  the  Calvinists,  indignantly  de- 
clares, that  "  they  not  only  transform  God  into  a  devil,  the  very  idea  of 
which  is  horrible :  but  that  they  annihilate  the  merits  of  Jesus  Christ  to 
such  a  degree  that  they  deserve  to  be  banished  for  ever  to  the  bottom  of 
hell."  IT 

The  Calvinists  themselves  objected  against  this  doctrine  of  their  leader. 
BuUinger  proves  its  erroneousness  from  Scripture,  the  Fathers,  and  the  whole 
Church.  "  We  do  therefore  (said  he)  prove  clearly  from  Scripture  this 
dogma  taught  everywhere  since  the  Apostles'  time,  that  God  is  not  the 
author  of  evil,  the  cause  of  sin,  but  our  corrupt  inclinations  or  concupiscence, 
and  the  devil,  who  moves,  excites,  and  inflames  it."**  And  Chatillon,  whom 
Calvin  had  for  a  long  time  taken  into  his  house  and  fed  at  his  table,  was  one 
of  the  first  to  take  up  the  pen  against  his  benefiictor  and  master,  although 
he  did  it  with  all  the  deference  due  to  this  double  title.  "  He  is  a  false  God 
(said  he)  that  is  so  slow  to  mercy,  so  quick  to  wrath,  who  has  created  the 
greater  part  of  men  to  destroy  them,  and  has  not  only  predestinated  them 
to  damnation,  but  even  to  the  cause  of  their  damnation.  This  God,  then, 
must  have  determined  from  all  eternity,  and  he  now  actually  wishes  and 
causes  that  we  be  necessitated  to  sin  ;  .so  that  thefts,  adulteries,  and  murders 
are  never  committed  but  at  his  impulse ;  for  he  suggests  to  men  penerse 
and  shameful  affections ;  he  hardens  them,  not  merely  by  simple  permission, 
but  actually  and  efficaciously ;  so  that  the  wicked  man  accomjilishes  the 
work  of  God  and  not  his  own,  and  it  is  no  longer  Satan,  but  Calvin's  God, 
who  is  really  the  father  of  Iies."f  f 

*  Stancharus  de  Mediot.  in  Calv.  instit.  No.  4.  t  Id.  ibid..  No.  3. 

X  Corpus  Doctrina;  Cliristianje.      §  Conrad.  Rclilussemb.  Calvin.  Theolog.  fol.  46 
I  Francfort.  1592.  H  Lib.  de  Present.  Colli.  Christ.  1560,  in  fine. 

**  Decad.  iii,  Serm.  x.  t+  Castcllioin  lib.  de  Praedestin.  ad  Calvin. 


REFORMERS    PORTRAYING   THEMSELVES.  469 

Calvin  in  his  turn  forgets  not  to  reproach  Chatillon  with  his  ingratitude, 
and  adds:  "Never  did  any  man  carry  pride,  perfidy,  and  inhumanity  to  a 
higher  pitch.  He  who  does  not  know  thee  to  be  an  impostor,  a  buffoon,  an 
impudent  cynic,  and  one  ever  ready  to  rail  at  piety,  is  not  lit  to  judge  of 
any  thing."  Towards  the  end  of  his  reply,  he  dismisses  him  with  the  fol- 
lowing Genevan  benediction :  "  May  the  God  Satan  quit  thee :  amen. 
Geneva,  1558." 

About  1558.  appeared  in  London,  a  work  written,  or  at  least  approved, 
by  the  English  bishops,  against  the  Oalvinistic  sect  of  Puritans.  Calvin  and 
Beza  are  there  described*  as  intolerant  and  proud  men,  who  by  open  rebel- 
'ion  against  their  prince,  had  founded  their  gospel,  and  pretended  to  rule  the 
churches  with  a  more  odious  tyranny,  than  that  with  which  they  had  so 
often  reproached  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs.  They  protest  in  the  presence  of  the 
Almighty  God,  that,  "  amongst  all  the  texts  of  Scripture  quoted  by  Calvin 
or  his  disciples,  in  liivor  of  the  church  of  Geneva  against  the  church  of 
England,  there  is  not  a  single  one,  that  is  not  turned  to  a  sense  unknown  to 
the  Church  and  to  all  the  fathei-s,  since  the  lime  of  the  apostles ;  so  that 
were  Augustine,  Ambrose,  Jerom,  Chrysostom,  etc.,  to  return  again  to  life 
and  to  see  in  what  manner  the  Scripture  had  been  cited  by  these  Genevese 
doctors,  they  would  be  astonished  that  the  world  should  ever  have  met  with 
a  man,  so  audacious  and  extravagant  as  to  dare,  without  the  least  color  of 
truth,  to  ill  treat  in  such  a  way,  the  word  of  God,  himself,  his  readers,  and 
the  whole  world.'"  And  after  declaring  that  from  this  Genevese  source  an 
impoisoned,  seditious,  and  Catalinarian  doctrine  had  been  spread  over  Eng- 
land, they  add  :  "  Happy,  a  thousand  times  happy  our  island,  if  neither 
Enghsh  nor  Scot  had  ever  put  foot  in  Geneva,  if  they  had  never  become 
acquainted  with  a  single  individual  of  these  Genevese  doctors !" 

The  partisans  of  Calvin  have  attempted,  and  for  his  credit  I  wish  they 
had  succeeded  in  their  attempt,  to  rescue  his  memory  from  the  crime  and 
disgrace  of  having  the  mark  of  infamy  branded  on  his  shoulder.  "  What 
must  pass  as  an  indisputable  proof  of  the  crimes  imputed  to  Calvin,  is  that, 
after  the  accusation  had  been  prepared  against  him,  the  church  of  Geneva, 
not  only  did  not  show  the  contrary,  but  did  not  even  contradict  the  informa- 
tion, which  Berthelier,  commissioned  by  the  persons  of  the  same  town,  gave 
at  Noyon.  This  information  was  signed  by  the  most  respectable  inhabi- 
tants of  Noyon,  and  was  drawn  up  with  all  the  accustomed  forms  of  the 
law.  And  in  the  same  information  we  see  that  this  heresiarch,  having  been 
convicted  of  an  abominable  sin,  which  was  always  punished  by  fire,  the 
punishment  that  he  had  deserved  was,  at  the  intercession  of  his  bishop, 
mitigated  into  that  of  the  fleur-de-lis  ....  Add  to  this,  that  Bolesque,  having 
given  the  same  information,  Berthelier.  who  was  still  living  in  the  time  of 
Bolesque,  did  not  contradict  it,  as,  undoubtedly,  he  would  have  done,  had 
he  been  able  to  do  so,  without  going  against  the  conviction  of  his  conscience, 
and  opposing  the  pulilic  belief.  Thus  the  silence  both  of  the  whole  town 
interested  in  the  affair  and  also  of  his  secretary,  is,  on  this  occasion,  an 
infallible  proof  of  the  disorders  imputed  to  Calvin."f  They  were  at  that 
time  so  uncontested,  that  a  Catholic  writer,  speaking  of  the  scandalous  life 
of  Calvin,  advances  as  a  fact  well  known  in  England,  that,  "'the  leader  of 
the  Calvinists  had  been  branded  with  the  fleur-de-lis,  and  had  fled  from  his 
native  ^x)wn ;  and  that  his  antagonist  Wittaker,  acknowledging  the  fact, 


*  A  Survey  of  the  pretended  holy  discipline,  page  44,  by  Bishop  Bancroft 
t  Card.  Ric'ielieu,  Traite,  p.  convert,  liv.  ii,  pp.  319,  320. 
30 


470  NOTE   A. 

merely  replied  by  the  following  shameful  comparison  :  Calvin  has  botn  stig- 
matized, so  has  8t.  Paul,  so  have  others  also."*  I  find  also  that  the  grave 
and  learned  Doctor  Stapleton,t  who  had  every  opportunity  of  gaining  mfor- 
mation  on  this  subject,  having  spent  his  life  in  the  neighborhood  of  Noyon, 
speaks  of  this  adventure  of  Calvin's  in  the  terms  of  one  who  was  certain  of 
the  fact.  "'Inspiciuntur  etiara  adhuc  hodie  civitatis  Xoviodunensis  in  Picar- 
\v>.  scrinia  et  rerum  gestarum  monumenta  :  in  illis  adhuc  hodie  legitur  Joan- 
aem  hunc  Calvinum  sodomice  convictum,  ex  Episcopi  et  magistrates  indul- 
ge ntia,  solo  stigmate  in  tergo  notatum,  urbe  excessissc ;  nee  ejus  familiaa 
honestissimi  viri,  adhuc  superstites,  impetrare  hactenus  potuerunt,  ut  hujua 
facti  memoria,  quas  toti  fiimilise  notam  aliquam  inurit,  e  civicis  illis  monu- 
mentis  ac  scriniis  eraderetur."]:  Moreover,  the  Lutherans  of  Germany 
equally  speak  of  it  as  of  a  fact :  "  De  Calvini  variis  fiagitiis  et  sodomiticis 
libidinibus,  ob  quas  stigma  Joannis  Calvini  dorso  impressum  fuit  a  magis- 
tratu,  sub  quo  vixit."§  "  And  as  for  the  affected  silence  of  Beza,  it  is  rep'ied, 
that  the  disciple  having  acquired  notoriety  by  the  same  crimes  and  the 
same  heresy  as  his  master,  he  merits  not  the  confidence  of  any  one  on  this 
point." 

It  is  very  possible  and  most  easy  to  dissemble  like  Beza  and  others  after 
him ;  but,  surely,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  flibricate  at  pleasure  the  account, 
that  an  eye-witness  and  that  contemporaries  have  given  us  of  the  death  of 
this  man,  an  account  which  must  excite  compassion  and  terror  in  all  who 
hear  it.  An  eye-witness,  who  was  then  his  disciple,  gives  the  following 
information  : II  ''Calvinus  in  desperatione  Aniens  vitam  obiit  turpissimo  et 
foedissimo  morbo,  quern  Deus  rebellibus  et  maledictis  comminatus  est,  prius 
excruciatus  et  consumptus.  Quod  ego  verissime  attestari  audeo,  qui  funes- 
tum  et  tragicum  illius  exitum  his  meis  oculis  proesens  aspexi."1[  The 
Lutherans  of  Germany  testify,  "  Deum  etiam  in  hoc  sceculo  judicium  suum 
in  Calvinum  patefecisse,  quem  in  virga  furoris  visitavit,  atque  liornbiliter 
punivit,  ante  mortis  infelicis  horam.  Deus  enim  manu  su'i  potenti  adeo 
hunc  hiigreticum  pei'cussit,  ut,  dosperat'i  salute,  doemonibus  invocatis,  jurans, 
execrans,  et  Ijlasphemans  misserrime,  animam  malignam,  exhalarit ;  vermibus 
circa  pudenda  in  aposthemate  seu  ulcere  foetentissimo  crescentibus,  ita  ut 
nuUus  assistentium  fcetorem  amplius  ferre  posset."** 

On  this  subject  I  find  an  account  too  curious  to  be  omitted  here.  "  The 
dean  told  me  that  an  old  canon,  a  fiimiliar  friend  of  Calvin's,  had  formerly 
related  to  him  the  manner  in  which  John  Calvin  died,  and  that  he  had 
learned  it  from  a  man  called  Petit  Jean,  who  was  Calvin's  valet  and  who 
attended  on  him  to  his  last  expiring  breath.  This  man  after  his  master's 
death  left  Geneva,  and  went  to  reside  again  at  Noyon.  lie  related  to  this 
canon  that  Calvin  on  his  death-bed  made  much  lamentation,  and  that  often- 
times he  heard  him  cry  out  aloud  and  bitterly  Ijewail  his  ct)ndition,  and  that 
one  day  he  called  him  and  said:  'Go  to  my  study,  and  bring  from  such  a 
part.  The  Oflice  of  our  Lady  according  to  the  use  at  Xovon.'  He  went  and 
brought  it ;  and  Calvin  continued  a  long  time  praying  to  God  from  this  office  : 
he  mentioned  that  the  people  of  Geneva  were  unwilling  to  let  many  person-s 
vibit  him  in  his  illness,  and  said   that  he  labored   under   many  complaints, 


*  Campian  in  tlic  .3il  reason,  year  1581. 

+  Born  in  ISI'.fi.     He  was.  nearly  thirty  years  of  age  when  Calvin  died,  in  1564. 

X  Pr'imi)fnar  Catlioiic,  pais.  32,  p.  133. 

§  Conrad.  Sclilnsscmh.  Calvin  Theolojr.,  lib.  ii.  fol.  72. 

1  .loan  Ilaren.     Apud  Pel.  Cntzaniiiun.  *i  See  Diet,  de  Feller,  art.  Calvin, 

**  Conrad.  Schlussemb.,  iu  Theolog.  Calvin,  lib.  ii,  fol.  72.     Francof.  an.  1592. 


REFORMERS   PORTRAYING    THEMSELVES.  471 

such  as  imposthumes,  the  rash,  the  piles,  the  stone,  the  gravel,  the  gout, 
consumption,  shortness  of  breath,  and  spitting  of  blood ;  and  that  he  was 
struck  by  God,  as  those  of  whom  the  Prophet  speaks,  Tetigit  eos  in  poste 
riora,  opprobrium  sempiternum  dedit  eis."* 

This  recital  agrees  with  that  of  Bolsec,  who  also  cites  the  testimony  of 
those  who  attended  upon  Calvin  in  his  last  illness.  For  after  having  spoken 
of  the  complaints  mentioned  by  Beza,  and  of  the  lousy  disease,  about  which 
Beza  sa}'S  nothing,  he  adds  :  "  Those  who  attended  upon  him  to  his  last 
breath  have  testified  it.  Let  Beza,  or  whoever  pleases  deny  it  :  it  is,  how- 
ever, clearly  proved,  that  he  cursed  the  hour  in  which  he  had  ever  studied 
and  written :  while  from  his  ulcers  and  his  whole  body  proceeded  an  abom- 
inable stench,  which  rendered  him  a  nuisance  to  himself  and  to  his  domes- 
tics, who  add  moreover,  that  this  was  the  reason  why  he  would  have  no 
one  go  and  see  him."     (Life  of  Calvin,  Lyons,  1577,  transl.  from  the  Latin.) 

THEODOKE  BEZA. 

Let  us  now  pass  on  to  Calvin's  celebrated  biographer.  The  Lutherans 
shall  teach  us  in  what  esteem  and  value  we  are  to  hold  him  :  "  Who  will 
not  be  astonished  (says  Heshusius)  at  the  incredible  impudence  of  this  mon- 
ster, whose  filthy  and  scandalous  life  is  known  throughout  France,  by  his 
more  than  cynical  epigrams.  And  yet  you  would  say,  to  hear  him  speak, 
that  he  is  some  holy  personage,  another  Job,  or  an  anchoret  of  the  desert, 
nay  greater  than  St.  Paul  or  St.  John ;  so  much  does  he  everywhere  pro- 
claim his  exile,  his  labors,  his  pui"ity,  and  the  admirable  sanctity  of  his  life."f 

If  we  wish  to  refer  the  matter  to  one  holding  an  elevated  situation  among 
the  Lutherans  :  "Beza  (says  he  to  us)  draws  to  the  life,  in  his  writings,  the 
image  of  those  ignorant  and  gross  persons,  who  for  want  of  reason  and 
argument,  have  recourse  to  abuse,  or  of  those  heretics,  whose  last  resource 
is  insult  and  abuse  ....  and  thus,  like  an  incarnate  demon,  this  obscene 
wretch,  this  perfect  compound  of  artifice  and  impiety  vomits  forth  his  satiri- 
cal blasphemies."!  The  same  Lutheran  testifies  that  "after  having  spent 
twenty-three  years  of  his  life  in  reading  more  than  two  hundred  and  twenty 
Calvinistic  productions,  he  had  not  met  with  one,  in  which  abu.se  and  blas- 
phemy were  so  accumulated  as  in  the  writings  of  this  wild  beast.  And  if 
any  one  doubt  of  it,  adds  he,  let  him  run  over  his  famous  Dialogues  against 
Dr.  Heshusius.  No  one  would  ever  imagine  they  were  written  by  a  man, 
but  by  Beelzebub  himself  in  person ;  I  should  be  horror-struck  to  repent  the 
obscene  lilasphemies,  which  this  impure  atheist  puts  forth  on  the  gravest 
subjects  with  a  disgusting  mixture  of  impiety  and  buffoonery ;  undoubtedly, 
he  had  dipped  his  pen  in  some  infernal  ink." 

*  Remarques  sur  la  Vie  de  J.  Calvin,  taken  from  the  records  of  the  chapter  at 
Noyon,  tlie  personal  examiniition  that  took  place  in  1614;  by  James  Desmay,  doctor 
of  Sorbonne,  vie.  gen.  of  Rouen.  This  little  work,  dedicated  to  Lord  Kay,  earl  of 
Ancaster,  1621,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Biblifitheque  du  Roi. 

It  is  the  part  of  candor  to  .sio-nify  that  I  have  not  .seen  a  word  about  the  famous 
fleur-de-lis  in  the  work  of  Desmay,  althoiigh  he  carefully  made  his  inquiries  in  tliese 
places.  I  should  be  glad  if  that  silence  carried  sufficient  wci<;lit  witli  it  (o  destroy 
the  very  positive  and  public  assertions  of  authors  who  wrote  more  than  forty  (jr  fifty 
years  before  him.  It  appears  that  Desmay  only  examined  the  records  of  the  chapter 
and  not  those  of  the  town.  Mor-pver,  it  was  then  eighty  years  after  the  sentence  had 
been  passed  upon  Calvin,  and  wcrare  assured  that  his  friends  had  succeeded  in  re- 
moving it  fmm  the  records  of  the  town.  t  Traduct.'  de  Florim.  p.  1048. 

X  Schlussemberg,  in  Tlieolog.  Calvin,  lib.  ii,  passim. 


472  NOTE    A. 

"Beza,  who  was  a  Frenchman,  (says  Florimond,)*  and  tho  great  buttress 
of  Calvin's  opinions,  attacked  L  ither's  version  as  impious,  novel,  and  un- 
heard of.'"  "Truly,  (retorted  the  Lutherans,)  it  well  becomes  a  French 
merry-andrew,  who  understands  not  a  word  of  our  language,  to  teach  the 
Germans  to  speak  German. 

MELANCTHON. 

Let  us  confine  ourselves  to  the  judgment  passed  upon  him  by  those  of  his 
communion.  The  Lutherans  declared  in  full  synod  :  "  That  he  had  so  often 
changed  his  opinions  upon  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope,  upon  justification  by 
faith  alone,  upon  the  Lord's  Supper  and  free-will,  that  all  this  his  wavering 
inconstancy  had  staggered  the  weak  in  these  fundamental  questions,  and 
prevented  a  gi-eat  numter  from  embracing  the  confession  of  Augsburg  :  that 
b}^  changing  and  rechanging  his  writings  he  had  given  too  much  reason  to 
the  Episcopalians  to  set  off  his  variations,  and  to  the  faithful  to  know  no 
longer  what  doctrine  to  consider  as  true."f  They  add  :  "  that  this  fiimous 
work  upon  the  theological  common  places  would  much  more  appropriately 
oe  called  a  Treatise  upon  Theological  witticisms." 

Schlussemberg  goes  so  far  as  to  declare  :  "  that  being  struck  fi-om  above 
oy  a  spirit  of  blindness  and  dizziness,  Melancthon  afterwards  did  nothing 
but  fall  fi-om  one  error  into  another,  till  at  last  he  himself  knew  not  what  to 
believe."]:  He  says  moreover,  that :  "Melancthon  had  evidently  impugned 
the  divine  truth,  to  his  own  shame  and  the  perpetual  disgrace  of  his  name."  J 

(ECOLAMPADIUS. 

The  Lutherans  wrote  in  the  Apology  for  their  Lord's  Supper,  that  CEco- 
lampadius,  a  fkutor  of  the  Sacramentarian  opinion,  sjieaking  one  day  to  the 
landgrave,  said :  "  I  would  rather  have  my  hand  cut  off  than  that  it  should 
ever  write  any  thing  against  Luther's  opinion  respecting  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per." 1| 

When  this  was  told  to  Luther,  by  one  who  had  heard  it,  the  hatred  of 
the  jjatriarch  of  the  reform  seemed  inlmediately  softened  down.  On  learn- 
ing the  death  of  (Ecolampadius,  he  exclaimed:  "Ah!  miserable  and  unfor- 
tunate CEcolampadius,  thou  was  the  prophet  of  thy  own  misery,  when  thou 
didst  appeal_to  God  to  exercise  his  vengeance  on  thee,  if  thou  taughtest  a 
false  doctrine.  May  God  forgive  thee  ;  if  thou  art  in  such  a  state  that  he 
can  forgive  thee." 

While  the  inhabitants  of  Basle  were  placing  the  following  epitaph  on  his 
tomb  in  the  cathedral :  "John  CEcolampadius,  Theologian  ....  first  preacher 
of  evangelical  doctrine  in  this  town  and  true  bishop  of  the  temple  ;"  Luther 
was  positive  and  sure,  and  afterwards  wrote  on  his  side,  that  "  the  devil, 
whom  fficolampadiuy  emploj'ed,  strangled  him  during  the  night  in  his  bed. 
This  is  the  excellent  master  (continues  he)  who  taught  him  that  there  are 
contradictions  in  Scripture.     See  to  what  Satan  brings  learned  men."ir 

*  Flurimond,  p.  96.  t  Colloq.  Altenb.,  fol.  502,  503,  year  1566. 

X  Theol.  Calvin,  lib.  ii,p.  91.  §  Ibid.  p.  92.  1  See  Florim.,  p.  175. 

il  De  Miss.  priT . 


REFORMERS    PORTRAYING    THEMSELVES.  473 

ociiiisr. 

This  religious  man,  superior  of  the  Capuchins,  leaving  Italy  and  his  order, 
where  he  had  acquired  a  great  re[)utation  for  the  austerity  of  his  hfe  and  his 
distinguished  talent  in  preaching,  repaired  to  Peter  Martyr  in  Switzerland, 
where,  after  striking  acquaintance  with  the  Sacramentarians,  he  went  a  step 
further  and  preached  up  Arianism.  "  He  is  become  (wrote  Beza  to  Didu- 
cius)  a  wicked  lecher,  a  fautor  of  the  Arians,  a  mocker  of  Christ  and  his 
Church."* 

'Tis  true  that  Ochin  had,  on  his  part,  been  equally  severe  upon  the  relig- 
ionists of  Geneva  and  Zurich ;  for  in  his  dialogue  against  the  sect  of  terres- 
trial Gods,  he  thus  expressed  himself  in  their  regard "  These  people 

are  desirous  that  we  should  hold  as  an  article  of  faith  whatever  comes  from 
their  brain.  He  who  does  not  choose  to  follow  them  is  a  heretic.  AVhat 
they  dream  of  in  the  night  (an  allusion  to  Zuinglius)  is  committed  to  writing, 
is  printed  and  held  as  an  oracle.  Do  not  think  that  they  will  ever  change. 
So  far  are  they  from  being  disposed  to  obey  the  church,  that  on  the  contrary 
the  church  must  obey  them.  Is  not  this  being  popes  ?  Is  it  not  being 
gods  upon  earth  ?     Is  it  not  tyrannizing  over  the  consciences  of  men  ?" 


Such  were  the  principal  authors  of  the  religious  and  political  excitements 
that  desolated  the  Church  and  the  world  in  the  sixteenth  century.  They 
were  perfectly  acquainted  with  each  other ;  they  had  seen  one  another,  had 
conferred  together  in  different  conferences  ;  they  labored  with  emulation,  if 
not  with  unanimity,  at  the  work,  which  they  called  reform.  It  is  impossible 
at  the  present  day  to  form  respecting  their  doctrine,  their  characters  and 
persons,  more  correct  notions  than  those  which  tliey  themselves  entertained 
respecting  them,  and  which  they  have  transmitted  to  us.  It  would  there- 
fore be  unreasonable  in  us  not  to  refer  to  the  reciprocal  testimonies  they 
have  borne  to  one  another.  Neither  is  it  less  true,  that  if  we  go  by  their 
own  judgments,  we  can  not  but  consider  them  as  odious  beings  and  unworthy 
ministers,  whether  they  have  mutually  done  justice  to  one  another  or  have 
calumniated  one  another.  In  a  word,  the  only  point  upon  which  they  agree 
is  to  blacken  and  condemn  one  another,  and  it  is  but  too  certain  that  this 
point,  in  which  they  were  all  agreed,  is  also  the  only  one  upon  which  they 
were  all  right. 

You  then  who  have  just  heard  them  revealing  to  the  world  their  own 
turpitude,  will  you  continue  any  longer  to  take  them  as  your  guides,  your 
masters,  your  fathers  in  faith  ?  Hitherto  you  have  only  been  taught  to  look 
upon  them  as  extraordinary  beings,  endowed  with  sanctity,  virtue,  and  all 
the  gifts  of  heaven ;  and  with  this  persuasion,  you  felt  proud  to  call  your- 
selves their  disciples  and  children.  You  now  see  your  mistake  ;  you  see 
what  they  were  ;  they  have  told  it  you  themselves.  ^  Believe  them  upon 
this  point,  and  it  is  enough  to  make  you  abandon  them  on  all  others,  and 
to  abjure,  since  you  can  do  it,  a  descent  that  must  from  henceforth  be  so  dis- 
graceful and  ignominious  in  your  eyes. 

What  could  religion  expect  from  such  men?  What  profit  could  the 
world  receive  from  their  preaching  ?  What  actually  were  the  eftects  pro- 
duced ?  Here  also  they  shall  be  our  instructors.  "  The  world  grows  worse 
and  becomes  more  wicked  every  day.     Men  are  now  more  given  to  revenge, 


*  Florimond,  p.  296. 
VOL.    T. i'^ 


474  NOTE    A 

more  avaricious,  more  devoid  of  mercy,  less  modest  and  more  incorrigible ; 
in  fine  n.ore  wicked  than  in  tlie  Papacy."* 

"One  thing,  no  less  astonishing  than  scandalous,  is  to  see  that,  since  the 
pure  doctrine  of  the  gospel  has  been  brought  again  to  light,  the  world  daily 
goes  from  bad  to  worse."f 

The  noblemen  and  the  peasants  are  come  to  such  a  pitch,  that  they  boast 
ind  proclaim,  without  scruple,  that  they  have  only  to  let  themselves  be 
preached  at,  that  they  would  prefer  being  entirely  disenthralled  from  the 
word  of  God  ;  and  that  they  would  not  give  a  fai'thing  for  all  our  sermons 
together.  And  how  are  we  to  lay  this  to  them  as  a  crime,  when  they  make 
no  account  of  the  world  to  come  ?  They  live  as  they  believe  :  they  are  and 
continue  to  be  swine  :  they  live  like  swine  and  they  die  like  real  swine."t 

Calvin,  after  declaiming  against  atheism,  which  was  prevailing  above  all 
in  the  palaces  of  princes,  and  in  the  courts  of  justice,  and  the  first  ranks  of 
his  communion.  "  There  remains  still  (adds  he)  a  wound  more  deplorable. 
The  pastors,  yes,  the  pastors  themselves  who  mount  the  pulpit  ....  are  at 
the  present  time  the  most  shameful  examples  of  waywardness  and  other 
vices.  Hence  their  sermons  obtain  neither  more  credit  nor  authority  than 
the  fictitious  tales  uttered  on  the  stage  by  the  strolling  player.  And  these 
persons  are  yet  bold  enough  to  complain  that  we  despise  them  and  point  at 
them  for  scorn.  As  for  me,  I  am  more  inclined  to  be  astonished  at  the  pa- 
tience of  the  people  :  I  am  astonished  that  the  women  and  children  do  not 
cover  them  with  mud  and  filth." ij 

".Those  whom  I  had  known  to  be  pure,  full  of  candor  and  simplicity, 
(says  one  whom  no  one  suspects,)  these  have  I  seen  afterwards,  when  gone 
over  to  the  sect  (of  the  Evangelicals)  begin  to  speak  of  girls,  flock  to  games 
of  hazard,  throw  aside  prayer,  give  themselves  up  entirely  to  their  interests, 
become  the  most  impatient,  vindictive,  and  frivolous ;  changed  in  feet  from 
men  to  vipers.     I  know  well  what  I  say."|| 

"I  see  many  Lutherans,  but  few  Evangelicals.  Look  a  little  at  these 
people,  and  consider  whether  luxury,  avarice,  and  lewdness  do  not  prevail 
still  more  amongst  them  than  amongst  those  whom  they  detest.  Show  me 
any  one,  who  by  means  of  his  gospel  is  become  better.  I  will  show  you 
very  many  that  have  become  worse.  Perhaps  it  has  been  my  bad  fortune  ; 
but  I  have  seen  none  but  who  are  become  worse  by  their  gospel."  if 

"Luther  was  wont  to  say  that  after  the  revelation  of  his  gospel,  virtue 
had  become  extinct,  justice  oppressed,  temperance  bound  with  cords,  virtue 
torn  in  pieces  by  the  dogs,  feith  had  become  wavering,  and  devotion  lost."** 

It  was  at  that  time  a  sayins:  in  Germany,  expressive  of  their  going  to 
spend  a  jovial  day  in  debauch  :  ^''  Ho  lie  L'ttheranice  vivemus  :  We  will  spend 
to-day  like  Lutherans."tf 

"And  if  the  Sovereigns  do  not  evangelize  and  interpose  their  authority  to 
appease  all  these  disputes,  no  doubt  the  Churches  of  Christ  will  soon  be 
infested  with  heresies,  which  Avill  ultimately  bring  on  their  ruin  ....  By 
these  multiplied  paradoxes  the  foundations  of  our  religion  are  shaken,  here- 
Hies  crowd  into  the  Churches  of  Christ,  and  the  way  is  thrown  open  to 
ftthei.sm."JJ 

*  Luther  in  Postilla  sup.  i,  dom.  advent.      +  Id.  in  Serm.  Conviv.  German,  fol.  55. 

t  Id.  on  tliL'  1st  Ep.  to  the  Corinthians,  xv.  §  Liv.  sur  les  -scandales,  p.  128. 

II  Erasin.  Epist.  to  tie  brettiren  of  Lower  Germany.  H  Id   Ep.  a  an.  1524. 

**  Aurifaber,  fol.  628,  v.  Fhirim.  p.  225. 

tt  Bened.  .Morgfenstern.  Traite  de  I'Eglise,  p.  221. 

tt  Sturm,  Ratio  ineundae  concord,  p.  2,  an.  1579. 


REFORMERS    PORTRAYING    THEMSELVES.  475 

"  Did  any  age  ever  witness  persons  of  each  sex  and  of  every  age  give  u{ 
themselves,  as  ours  do,  to  intemperance  and  the  fire  of  their  passions  ?  . . . . 
(said  one  of  the  first  witnesses  of  the  reform).  Men  now  receive  as  a  divine 
oracle  that  saying  of  Luther's  that  it  is  no  more  possible  for  a  person  to 
restrain  his  desires  than  his  saliva,  nor  more  easy  for  man  and  woman  to 
dispense  with  one  another  than  for  them  to  go  without  eating  and  drinking. 
Impossible,  do  you  hear  it  sung  on  all  sides,  and  in  all  tones,  impossible  not 
to  sacrifice  to  Venus,  when  the  time  of  life  arrives."* 

"  Do  we  not  see  at  the  present  day  (cries  out  another  witness)  youth  even 
giving  into  debauch,  and  if  they  are  withdrawn  fiom  it,  loudly  demanding 
to  be  married.  The  young  women  also,  whether  already  fallen,  or  only  as 
yet  lascivious,  are  perpetually  throwing  in  your  face  that  impudent  sentence 
of  Luther's,  that  continence  is  impossible,  seeing  that  Venus  is  not  less 
necessary  than  eating ;  according  to  the  new  fashion,  children  marry  and 
from  them  no  doubt  are  to  spring  the  valiant  champions  who  are  to  drive 
the  Turk  beyond  the  Caucasus."f 

"  We  are  come  to  such  a  pitch  of  barbarity  that  many  are  persuaded  that 
if  they  fasted  one  single  day,  they  would  find  themselves  dead  the  night 
following."! 

"It  is  certain  that  Grod  wishes  and  requires  of  his  servants  a  grave  and 
Christian  discipline  ;  but  it  passes  with  us  as  a  new  papacy  and  a  new 
monkery.^  We  have  lately  learned  (say  the  religionists  of  our  times),  that 
we  are  saved  by  faith  alone  in  Jesus  Christ,  without  any  other  help  than 
his  merits  and  the  grace  of  God."  "And,  that  the  world  may  know  they 
are  not  papists  and  that  they  have  no  confidence  in  good  works,  they  per- 
form none.  Instead  of  fasting,  they  eat  and  drink  day  and  night,  they 
change  prayers  into  swearing;  and  this  is  what  they  call  the  re-established 
gospel,  or  the  reformation  of  the  gospel,  said  Smidelin." 

"We  are  not  to  be  astonished  that  in  Poland,  Transylvania,  Hungary  and 
other  countries,  many  pass  over  to  Arianism  and  some  to  Mahomet ;  the 
doctrine  of  Calvin  leads  to  these  impieties."  || 

"Certainly,  to  speak  the  truth,  there  is  much  more  conscientiousness  and 
uprightness  among  the  greatest  part  of  papists  than  among  many  Protest- 
ants. And  if  we  examine  past  ages,  we  shall  find  more  sanctity,  devotion, 
zeal,  although  blind,  moi-e  charity  and  fidelity  to  one  another,  than  is  seen 
at  present  among  us."  If 

"  Let  them  (the  Protestants)  I  say,  look  with  the  eye  of  charity  upon 
them  (the  Catholics)  as  well  as  severity,  and  they  shall  finde  some  excellent 
orders  of  government,  some  singular  helpes  for  increase  of  godlinesse  and 
devotion,  for  tlie  conquering  of  sinne,  for  the  pi'ofiting  of  virtue ;  contrarie- 
wise,  in  themselves,  looking  with  a  lesse  indulgent  eye  than  they  doe,  they 
shall  finde,  there  is  no  such  absolute  perfection  in  their  doctrine  and  refor- 
mation."** 

This  is  enough,  without  adding  to  these  testimonies,  those  of  Capito, 
Bucer,  and  Melancthon,  who  may  find  place  in  the   following  letter,  and 

*  Sylv.  Czecanovius  de  corrupt,  morib.      +  Wigandus,  de  bonis  at  malis  German. 

t  Melancth.  on  the  sixth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew. 

§  Jacob  Andraeus  on  St.  Luke,  ch.  xxi,  1583. 

J  Id.  Preface  contre  I'Apol.  de  Danceu.s. 

TI  Stubb's  motive  to  good  works,  p.  43,  an.  1596. 

**  A  Rehition  of  the  state  of  Rebgion  and  with  what  Hopes  and  PoHcies  it  hatb 
been  framed  and  is  maintained  in  tlie  several  states  of  the  Western  parts  of  the  world. 
Sec.  48.    By  Sir  Edwin  Sanders,  Printed  London,  1605. 


476  NOTE   B. 

without  transcribing-  here  upon  England  what  is  told  us  by  Strype,  Camden, 
Dugdale,  and  even  by  Henry  VIII.  in  a  declaration  to  his  parliament* 

Such  then  were  the  first  fruits  of  the  Reformation  !  and  such  we  learn 
them  to  have  been  from  its  authors  themselves,  from  its  promoters  and  its 
first  witnesses.!  Their  confessions,  their  lamentations,  wrung  from  them 
b)'  the  extent  and  notoriety  of  the  scandal,  will  eternally  proclaim  to  the 
world,  that  with  the  reform  were  propagated  vices  and  disorders  ;  that  in 
the  countries  where  it  was  adopted,  and  in  proportion  as  it  gained  ground, 
devotions  was  seen  to  be  weakened,  piety  extinguished,  morals  deteriorated, 
faith  gradully  lost  in  the  multitude,  and  even  among  the  ministers  them- 
selves ;  so  much  so  that  to  this  day,  in  the  cradle  and  center  of  Calvinism, 
at  Geneva,  where  they  abound,  you  will  scarcely  find  four  or  five,  (I  know 
it  for  certain,)  who  will  consent  to  preach  the  divinity  of  our  Saviour  and 
teach  it  in  their  catechetical  instructions.  And  yet  there  have  been  persons 
bold  enough  to  hold  out  the  progress  of  such  a  reform  as  a  proof  of  the 
divine  protection  :  as  if  we  could  acknowledge  as  its  apostles  such  men  as 
they  have  reciprocall)^  described  themselves  to  be  :  as  if  it  could  take  parts 
in  disorders,  smile  upon  the  propagation  of  vice,  and  favor  the  decaying  of 
faith  and  Christianity. 


NOTE  B,  Page  90. 

Luther's  conference  with  the  devil. 

0:5°  Id  Turnbull's  complete  translation  of  Audin's  Life  of  Luther,  this 
entire  conference  is  given  in  the  Appendix  in  the  original  Latin.  We  here 
republish  the  substantially  correct  translation  of  the  American  edition. 

"I  ONCE  suddenly  awoke  about  midnight:  Satan  began  to  dispute  with 
me.  '  Listen  to  me,  learned  doctor,'  says  he.  '  During  fifteen  years  you 
have  daily  celebrated  private  Masses.     What  if  all  those  Masses  have  been 

*  See  Letters  of  Atticiis.  pp.  64,  65  ;  3(1  edition,  London,  1811. 

t  I  beg  the  reader  to  make  also  the  following  remarks  :  It  is  a  fiict  that,  before  the 
Reformation,  infidels  were  scarcely  known  iu  the  world  :  it  is  a  fact  that  thej  are 
come  forth  in  swarms  from  its  bosom.  It  was  from  the  writings  of  Herbert,  Hobbes, 
Bloum,  Shaftesbury,  Bolingbroke,  and  Boyle,  that  Voltaire  and  his  party  drew  the 
objections  and  errors,  which  they  liave  brought  so  generally  in  fashion  in  the  world. 
According  to  Diderot  and  d'Ali-inliiTt,  the  first  step  that  the  untractahle  Cathdlic 
takes  is  to  adopt  the  Protestant  principle  of  private  judgment.  He  establishes  him- 
self judge  of  his  religion,  leaves  it  and  joins  the  reform.  Dissatisfied  with  the 
incoherent  doctrines  he  then  discovers,  he  passes  on  to  the  Socinians,  whose  inconse- 
quences soon  drive  him  into  Deism:  still  pursued  by  unexpected  difficulties,  he 
throws  himself  into  universal  doubt,  where  still  experiencing  uneasiness,  he  at  last 
resolves  to  take  the  last  step,  and  proceeds  to  terminate  the  long  chain  of  his  errors 
in  Atheism.  Let  us  not  forget  that  the  first  link  of  this  fatal  chain  is  attached  to  the 
funo.imeiital  maxim  of  ])rivate  julgment.  It  is  ther-cfure  historically  correct,  that  the 
same  priiicijjle  that  eivated  Protestantism  three  centui-ies  ago.  has  never  ceased  since 
that  time  to  spin  it  out  into  a  thousand  diff(:.'cnt  sects,  and  has  concluU'd  by  covering 
Europe  with  that  multitude  of  free  thinkers,  who  place  it  on  the  vei-ge  of  ruin. 

When  sects  brget  infidelity  and  by  infi  lelity  revolutions,  it  is  plain  that  the  politi- 
cal aafety  of  tha  states  will  only  be  secured  by  a  return  to  religious  unity. 


Luther's  conference  with  the  devil.  477 

a  horrible  idolatry  ?  What,  if  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  be  not 
present  there,  and  that  yourself  adored,  and  made  others  adore,  bread  and 
wine  ?'  I  answered  hiin,  I  have  been  made  priest ;  I  have  received  ordina- 
tion at  the  bishop's  hands ;  and  I  have  acted  according  to  the  command  of 
my  superiors,  and  through  the  obedience  I  owe  them.  Why  could  not  I 
consecrate,  since  I  have  seriously  pronounced  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
have  celebrated  Mass  with  great  devotion,  as  you  know?  '  All  that  is  true,' 
answered  Satan,  '  but  even  the  Turks  and  Pagans  perform  all  their  sacred 
functions  through  obedience,  and  religiously  observe  all  their  ceremonies. 
The  priests  of  Jeroboam,  also,  zealously  opposed  the  true  priests,  who  were 
at  Jerusalem.  What,  if  your  ordination  and  consecration  were  as  invalid, 
as  that  of  the  Turkish  and  Samaritan  priests  is  false,  and  their  worships 
impious  ?' 

'"You  know,  in  the  first  place,' says  he,  'that  you  had  then  neither 
knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ,  nor  the  true  faith.  In  what  regards  fixith,  you 
were  no  better  than  a  Turk,  for  the  Turks  and  all  the  devils  believe  the 
history  of  Jesus  Christ ;  that  he  was  born,  was  crucified,  and  died,  etc. 
But  the  Turk  and  we,  reprobate  spii'its,  have  no  confidence  in  his  mercy, 
and  we  do  not  regard  him  as  our  Saviour  and  mediator ;  but  we  fear  him 
as  a  severe  judge.  Such  was  your  faith;  you  had  none  other,  when  you 
received  the  unction  of  the  liishop  ;  and  all  those  who  gave  or  received  it, 
had  similar  sentiments  of  .Jesus  Christ.  This  is  the  reason  that  you  with- 
draw from  .Tesus  Christ  as  a  severe  judge,  and  have  recourse  to  the  Virgin 
Mary  and  the  Saints,  and  look  on  them  as  mediators  between  you  and  Jesus. 
Christ.  No  papist  can  deny  that  this  is  the  reason  why  Jesus  Christ  has 
been  deprived  of  his  glory.  You  have,  then,  been  ordained ;  you  have  been 
tonsured;  you  have  offered  the  Mass  as  Pagans  and  not  as  Christians. 
How,  then,  could  you  consecrate  at  Mass,  or  really  celebrate  it,  since  you 
had  not  the  power  of  consecrating,  which,  according  to  your  own  doctrine, 
(S  an  essential  defect  ? 

"  '  In  the  next  place,  you  have  been  consecrated  priest,  and  you  have  cele- 
brated Mass  contrary  to  its  institution,  and  to  the  design  of  .Jesus  Christ 
in  instituting  it.  He  wished  the  sacrament  to  be  distributed  among  the 
faithful,  who  should  commimicate,  and  to  be  given  to  the  Church  to  be  eaten 
and  drunk.  In  truth,  the  priest  is  established  minister  of  the  Church,  to 
preach  the  word  of  God,  and  to  dispense  the  sacraments,  according  to  the 
words  of  Clu-ist  at  the  Last  Supper,  and  those  of  St.  Paul  in  his  first  epistle 
to  the  Corinthians,  while  speaking  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Hence,  the  an- 
cients called  it  "communion,"  because,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  priest  ought  not  alone  receive  the  sacrament,  but  his  Christian 
brethren  should  receive  it  with  him.  And  you,  for  fifteen  years,  have  always 
applied  to  yoiu'self  the  sacrament,  when  you  celebrated  Mass,  and  have  not 
communicated  it  to  others.  Nay,  it  was  prohibited  to  give  them  the  whole 
sacrament.  What  a  priesthood  is  that  ?  What  a  consecration  ?  What  a 
Mass  ?  What  sort  of  a  priest  are  you,  who  have  not  been  ordained  for  the 
Church,  but  for  younself?  It  is  certain  that  .Jesus  Christ  has  not  known, 
and  does  not  acknowledge,  such  a  sacrament  and  such  an  ordination. 

" '  In  the  third  place,  the  thought  and  design  of  .Jesus  Christ,  as  his  words 
demonstrate,  is,  that,  in  receiving  the  sacrament,  we  should  announce  and 
commemorate  his  death.  "Do  this,"  says  he,  "in  commemoration  of  me;" 
and,  as  St.  Paul  says,  "until  he  comes."  But  you,  who  sa^v  private  Masses, 
have  not  even  once  preached  and  confessed  Jesus  Christ  in  all  your  Masses 
You  have  only  taken  the  sacrament,  and  muttered,  between  your  teeth,  the 


478  NOTE    B. 

words  of  (.he  institution  for  yourself  alone.  Was  that  the  institutiou  of 
Jesus  Christ  ?  Is  it  by  such  actions  that  you  prove  that  you  are  a  priest 
of  Jesiis  Christ  ?  Is  that  to  act  like  a  Christian  priest ;  and  have  you  beer, 
ordained  for  that  ? 

'"In  the  fourth  place,  it  is  clear  that  the  thought,  the  desif^n,  and  the 
institution  of  Jesus  Christ  were,  that  the  rest  of  the  faithful  should  communi- 
cate as  well  as  the  priest ;  whereas,  you  have  been  ordained,  not  to  dispense 
to  them  this  sacrament,  but  to  sacrifice.  And,  contrary  to  the  institution  of 
Jesus  Christ,  you  have  made  use  of  the  Mass,  as  of  a  sacrifice,  for  that  is 
the  obvious  signification  of  the  words  of  the  bishop  who  ordained  you. 
According  to  the  ceremony  of  ordination,  when  he  puts  the  chalice  into  the 
hands  of  him  who  has  received  the  sacred  unction,  he  says  to  him,  "receive 
the  power  of  celebrating  and  sacrificing  for  the  living  and  for  the  dead." 
What  is  this  perverse  unction  and  ordination  ?  Jesus  Christ  has  instituted 
the  Supper  to  be  the  food  and  nourishment  for  all  the  Church  ;  to  be  pre- 
sented by  the  priest  to  all  those  who  communicate  with  him  ;  and  you 
make  of  it  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  before  God  !  0  abomination  which  sur- 
passes all  other  abominations ! 

"  '  In  the  fifth  place,  the  design  of  Jesus  Christ  is,  as  has  been  said,  that 
the  sacrament  should  be  distributed  to  the  Church,  tliat  is,  to  the  com- 
municants, to  exercise  and  strengthen  their  faith,  in  the  various  assaults 
they  suffer,  as,  also,  to  renew  the  memory  of  the  benefits  of  Jesus  Christ ; 
whereas,  you  regard  it  as  a  thing  belonging  to  you,  and  which  you  can  cele- 
brate without  others,  and  which  you  can  give  to  them  gratuitously  or  for 
lucre.  Tell  me,  can  3'ou  deny  that  ?  Have  you  rot  been  made  priest  in 
that  manner,  that  is,  without  faith  ?  For  you  have  received  ordination  con- 
trary to  the  design  and  institution  of  Jesus  Christ — not  that  you  might 
give  the  sacrament  to  others,  but  that  you  might  sacrifice  it  for  the  living 
and  the  dead.  You  have  not  been  ordained  to  be  the  minister  of  the  Church. 
Moreover,  you  have  never  distributed  the  sacrament  to  others ;  you  have 
not  preached  Jesus  Christ  at  Mass ;  and  consequently  you  liave  done  no- 
thing that  Jesus  Christ  instituted.  Have  you  then  received  ordination  against 
Jesus  Christ  and  his  institution,  to  do  every  thing  against  him  ?  And  if 
you  have  been  consecrated  and  oi-dained  by  the  bishops,  contrary  to  Jesus 
Christ,  your  ordination  is  unquestionably  impious,  false,  and  antichristian. 
I  maintain,  then,  that  you  have  not  consecrated  at  Mass,  and  that  you  have 
ofiered,  and  made  others  adore,  simple  bread  and  wine. 

"  'You  see,  then,  that  there  is  wanting  in  your  Mass,  first,  a  person  who 
can  consecrate,  that  is  a  Christian ;  there  is  wanting  also  a  person  for  whom 
you  should  consecrate,  and  to  whom  the  sacrament  is  to  be  given  ;  that  is  to 
say,  the  Church,  the  body  of  the  fliithful. 

" '  You  stand  there  by  yourself^  and  you  imagine  that  Jesus  Christ  insti- 
tuted for  .you  alone,  the  sacrament,  and  that  j^ou  need  but  speak,  to  conse- 
crate in  the  Mass  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  although  you  are  not 
t  memterof  Jesus  Christ,  but  his  enemy.  There  is  wanting,  in  the  third 
place,  the  end,  the  design,  the  fruit,  and  object  for  which  Jesus  Christ  insti- 
tuted this  sacrament.  For  Jesus  Christ  instituted  it,  to  he  eaten  and  to  be 
drunk,  to  fortify  the  faith  of  his  members,  to  preach  and  announce  in  the 
Mass,  the  benefits  of  Jesus  Christ.  Now  the  rest  of  the  Church  do  not 
even  know  that  you  say  Mass  ;  they  learn  nothing  from  yo>i,  and  receive 
nothing  fi-om  you ;  but  you  alone  silently  eat  by  yourself  and  drink  by 
yourself;  and  Ijeing  an  ignorant  and  faithless  monk,  you  do  not  communi- 
cate with  any  one  ;  and  according  to  the  custom  which  prevails  among  you, 


Luther's  conference  with  the  devil.  479 

you  sell  for  money  what  you  perform,  as  if  it  W'ere  worth  any  thing.  I^ 
then,  you  are  not  ca])able  of  consecrating,  and  ought  not  attempt  it :  if  there 
be  no  person  at  Mass  to  receive  the  sacrament ;  if  you  alter  and  desti-oy  the 
institution  of  Jesus  Christ ; — in  fine,  if  you  have  been  ordained  merely  for 
the  purpose  of  doing  every  thing  contrary  to  the  institution  of  Jesus  Christ, 
— what  use  is  tliere  in  your  ordination,  and  what  do  you  do,  while  saying 
Mass  and  consecrating,  but  blaspheme  and  tempt  God  ?  You  are  not  a 
real  priest,  nor  do  you  really  consecrate  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ. 

" '  I  will  draw  a  comparison  for  you.  If  any  one  baptizes,  when  there  is 
no  person  to  be  baptized,  as  if  some  bishop,  according  to  the  ridiculous  cus- 
tom of  the  papists,  baptize  a  bell,  which  neither  ought,  nor  can  be  baptized, 
tell  me,  is  that  a  real  baptism  ?  You  must  answer  in  the  negative.  For 
who  can  baptize  that  which  does  not  exist,  or  can  not  receive  baptism  ? 
What  baptism  would  it  be,  were  I  to  pronounce  in  the  air  these  words  :  "  I 
baptize  thee,  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost ;"  and  that  I  poured  out  water  at  the  same  time  ?  What  would,  in 
that  case,  receive  the  remission  of  sin,  or  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  Would  it  be 
the  air  or  the  bell ;  it  is  obvious  that  there  is  no  baptism  there,  although  the 
words  of  baptism  are  pronounced,  and  the  waters  p(jured  out ;  because  there 
is  no  person  to  receive  baptism.  The  same  thing  occurs  in  your  Mass,  when 
you  pronounce  the  words,  and  think  that  you  receive  the  sacrament,  whereas, 
you  only  receive  bread  and  wine.  For  the  Church,  who  is  the  person 
authorized  to  receive,  is  not  there  ;  and  you,  who  are  an  impious  and 
incredulous  man,  are  no  more  capable  of  receiving  the  sacrament,  than  the 
bell  is  capable  of  receiving  baptism.  Hence  you  possess  nothing  of  the 
sacrament.  You  will,  perhaps,  tell  me : — although  I  do  not  present  the 
sacrament  to  the  others  that  are  in  the  Church,  I  nevertheless  take  it  and 
receive  it  myself;  and  there  are  many  amon*  the  rest  of  the  fiiithful,  who, 
although  infidels,  receive  the  sacrament,  or  baptism,  and  yet  receive  a  true 
sacrament  and  a  true  baptism.  Why,  then,  should  there  not  be  a  true  sac- 
rament in  the  Mass  ?  But  it  is  not  the  same  thing ;  because  in  baptism, 
even  when  administered  in  urgent  cases,  there  are  at  least  two  persons,  he 
who  baptizes,  and  he  who  is  baptized ;  and  frequently  many  members  of 
the  Church.  Moreover,  the  function  of  him  who  bajjtizes  is  such,  that  it 
imparts  something  to  the  other  members  of  the  Church ;  and  he  deprives 
them  of  nothing  to  apply  it  to  himself  alone,  as  you  do  in  the  Mass.  And 
all  the  other  things  done  in  baptism  are  according  to  the  institution  of  Jesus 
Christ,  but  the  Mass  is  against  the  institution  of  Jesus  Christ. 

" '  In  the  second  place,  why  don't  you  teach  that  you  can  baptize  your- 
self? Why  disapprove  of  such  a  baptism  ?  Why  reject  confirmation,  if 
any  one  would  confirm  himself,  as  confirmation  is  among  you?  Why 
would  the  ordination  be  invalid,  if  any  one  were  to  ordain  himself  priest? 
Why  would  there  be  no  extreme  unction,  if  any  one,  in  danger  of  death, 
would  anoint  himself,  as  the  Catholics  do  ?  Why  would  there  be  no  mar- 
riage, if  any  one  would  marry  himself,  or  offer  violence,  and  say  that  this  action 
would  be  marriage — for  these  are  your  seven  sacraments  ?  If  then,  no  one 
can  administer  any  of  your  sacraments  himself,  why  do  you  wish  to  reserve 
this  sacrament  for  3'ourself  alone  ?  It  is  true,  that  Jesus  Christ  receivea 
himself  in  this  sacrament,  and  every  minister,  when  he  distributes  it  to 
others,  receives  it  also  him.self  But  he  does  not  consecrate  for  him.self 
alone.  He  takes  it  conjointly  with  others,  and  with  the  Church ;  and  all 
this  is  done  conformably  to  the  command  of  Jesus  Christ.  When  I  speak 
of  consecration,  I  ask  if  any  one  can  consecrate  the  sacrament  for  himself 


480  NOTE   B. 

only ; — ^because  T  know  well  that  after  the  consecration,  every  priest  can 
receive,  as  well  as  others  ;  for  the  communion  and  the  table  of  the  Lord  is 
common  to  many.  When  I  asked  if  any  one  could  call  and  ordain  himself) 
I  knew  well  that  after  having  been  called  and  ordained  he  might  follow  his 
vocation.' 

"  In  this  perilous  contest  with  the  devil,  I  attempted  to  repel  the  enemy 
with  the  arms  to  which  I  was  accustomed  under  the  Papacy.  I  objected  to 
him  the  faith  and  intention  of  the  Church,  by  representing  to  him,  that  it 
was  in  the  faith  and  intention  of  the  Church,  that  I  had  celebrated  these 
Masses.  It  m<ay  Ije,  said  I,  that  I  did  not  believe  as  I  sought  to  have  be- 
lieved, and  that  I  was  deceived ;  but  the  Church,  however,  believed  in  the 
manner  required,  and  was  not  deceived.  But  Satan,  urging  one  with  more 
force  and  vehemence  than  before,  said  :  '  Show  me  where  it  is  written,  that 
an  impious  and  incredulous  man  can  ascend  the  altar  of  Jesus  Christ — con- 
secrate and  make  the  sacrament  through  the  faith  of  the  Church  : — where 
has  God  ordained  so  ;  where  is  it  commanded  ?  How  can  you  prove  that 
the  Church  communicates  to  you  her  intention,  to  say  your  private  Mass, 
unless  you  have  the  word  of  God  for  you.  and  if  it  be  not  merely  men 
wUo  ha\e  taught  you  without  this  word?  All  this  doctrine  is  filse 
What  audacity  you  have !  You  act  in  the  dark  ;  you  abuse  the  name  of 
the  Church  ;  and  afterwards  3"ou  wish  to  defend  all  your  abominations  under 
the  pretext  of  the  intention  of  the  Church.  You  can  only  bi'ing  forward 
the  intention  of  the  Church.  The  Church  sees  nothing  and  intends  nothing 
beyond  the  word  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  still  less  against  his  design  and  insti- 
tution, of  which  I  have  spoken ;  for  St.  Paul  savs,  in  his  first  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  chap,  ii,  speaking  of  the  Church  and  of  the  assembly  of  the 
faithful :  "  We  have  the  mind  of  Christ." 

"  •'  But  how  will  you  learn  that  a  thing  is  conformable  to  the  intention  and 
design  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Church,  unless  by  the  word  of  Jesus  Christ, 
by  the  doctrine  and  public  profession  of  the  Church  ?  How  do  you  know 
that  the  intention  and  thought  of  the  Church  is,  that  homicide,  adultery, 
and  unbelief  are  among  the  sins,  for  which  you  are  liable  to  l>e  damned  ? 
And  how  do  you  know  other  things  of  the  same  kind,  unless  by  the  word 
of  God  ? 

" '  If,  then,  you  are  to  learn  from  the  word  and  commands  of  God,  what 
the  Church  thinks  of  good  or  bad  actions,  ought  you  not  much  moie  learn 
from  the  word  of  God,  what  she  thinks  of  its  doctrine  ?  Why,  then,  you 
blasphemer,  do  you  disregard  the  clear  words  and  the  order  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  your  private  Mass  ?  And  why  do  you  make  use  of  his  name,  and  of  the 
intention  of  the  Church,  to  cloak  your  falsehood  and  impiety  ?  You  deck 
out  your  own  invention  with  this  miserable  coloring ;  as  if  the  intention 
of  the  Church  could  be  contrary  to  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ !  What  pro- 
digious boldness,  to  profane  the  name  of  the  Church  by  so  unblushing  a 
falsehood  ! 

" '  Since,  then,  the  bishop  has  made  you  capable  of  celebrating  Mass,  by 
the  unction  he  gave  you,  with  the  sole  object,  that  by  saying  private  Masses, 
you  might  do  all  that  was  opposed  to  the  clear  words  and  institution  of 
Jesus  Christ, — to  the  feelings,  the  faith,  and  public  pi'ofession,  of  the  Church, 
this  unction  is  profane,  and  has  nothing  in  it  holy  or  sacred.  It  is  even  sti-11 
more  vain,  more  u.seless  and  absurd  than  the  bapti.sm  of  bells.'  And  Satan, 
urging  still  more  clo.sely  this  argument,  .said  :  'you  are  not  then  ordained  ; 
yea  have  only  offered  bread  and  wine,  like  the  Pagans,  by  a  traftic,  infamous 
in  itself  and  injurious  to  God,  you  have  sold  your  ministry  to  Christians, 


Luther's  conference  with  the  devil.  481 

and  served,  not  God,  but  your  own  cupidity.  What  an  unheard  of  abomi- 
nation !'     This  is  almost  the  summary  of  the  dispute. 

"  I  Vjehold  now  the  holy  fathers,  who  laugh  at  me  and  exclaim  :  Is  this 
the  celebrated  doctor,  who  is  nonplussed  and  can  not  answer  Satan  ?  Do 
you  not  know,  doctor,  that  the  devil  is  a  lying:  spirit  ?  Thank  you,  fiithers. 
I  would  not  have  known  until  now,  learned  theologians,  that  the  devil  was 
a  liar,  unless  you  had  said  so.  In  truth,  if  j^ou  were  obliged  to  suffer  the 
assaults  of  Satan,  and  to  dispute  with  him,  you  would  never  speak  as  you 
do,  of  the  practice  and  traditions  of  the  Church.  The  devil  is  a  severe  an- 
tagonist ;  and  he  presses  one  so  closely,  that  it  is  impossible  to  resist  him 
without  a  particular  grace  of  the  Lord.  In  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye,  he  fills  the  soul  with  darkness  and  with  fear;  and  unless  he  has  to 
do  with  a  man  who  is  master  of  the  Scripture,  he  easily  overcomes  him.  It 
is  true,  he  is  a  liar ;  but  he  does  not  speak  untruths  when  he  accuses  us : 
for  then  he  conies  to  the  combat  with  the  double  testimony  of  the  law  of 
God,  and  oar  own  conscience.  I  do  not  deny  that  I  have  sinned.  I  do  not 
deny  that  my  sin  is  great.  I  do  not  deny  that  I  am  liable  to  death  and 
damnation  !"* 

Audin  adds  : 

"  Such  is  the  narrative  of  this  scene,  in  which  Luther  appears  to  much 
less  advantage  than  at  Worms.  The  devil  shows  himself  in  it  to  be  a  still 
worse  logician  that  the  Dominican  at  Leipsic — where,  however,  Satan,  if  we 
may  credit  Luther,  spoke  by  his  mouth.  Here  the  master  does  not  equal 
the  disciple.  Unless  the  reformer  suppressed  those  overwhelming  arguments 
by  which  the  devil  prostrated  him,  there  is  no  tyro  in  theology  who  would 
not  have  refiited  the  satanic  thesis.  Luther  had  doubtless  at  hand  some  of 
those  catechisms,  which  are  yet  to  be  found  in  every  German  fixmily.  He 
could  have  confounded  his  adversary,  had  he  opened  the  page  in  which  the 
Church  teaches, — that  the  priest,  in  celebrating  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass, 
applies  the  merits  of  it  to  all  who  hear  it  devoutly.  And,  then,  Satan  was 
as  ignorant  of  history  as  he  was  of  the  catechism.  We  know  not  what 
answer  he  would  have  given  to  Luther,  had  the  reformer  inquired,  where 
he  had  read  that  the  Turks  believed  in  the  death  of  .lesus  Christ ;  whereas 
Mahomet,  in  the  Koran,  positively  says,  that  God  took  up  Jesus  Christ,  and 
that  another  was  crucified  in  his  place.  Luther  also  was  too  sofl  with  his 
adversary."  - 

*  De  Missa  angular!,  t.  vi,  Jonne,  p.  81.  82.— T.  vii,  Op.  Lutb.  Wett.  fol.  228.  See 
Conference  du  diable  avec  Luther  contre  le  saint  sacrament  de  la  Messe  (par  Paul 
Bruzeau)  Paris,  1740.— Cochl.  in  act.  fob  67,  Math.  cone.  f.  32.  Chuide,  Defense  de 
la  Reformation,  2me  partie  ch.  v.  Prejnges  legitimes  par  Nicole.  Rruxelles,  eh.  ii. 
Refutation  de  la  reponso  d'un  ministre  Lutherien  sur  la  conference  du  diable  avec 
Luther.  Bruxelles,  1682.  Basnage  Hist,  des  cglises  reformees,  t.  iii  ch.  v.  Bajle, 
Art.  Luther. 


VOL.  I.— 41 


482  NOTE  c. 


NOTE  C,  Page  149. 

PERMISSION  GRANTED  TO  PHILIP,  LANDGRAVE  OF  HESSE; 
BY  LUTHER  AND  OTHER  REFORMERS,  TO  HAVE  TWO 
V^IVES  AT  ONCE. 

To  show  that  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  doubt  existing  in  regard  to  the 
truth  of  this  disgraceflil  proceeding,  we  here  append  the  documents  them- 
selves ;  two  of  them  entire  in  Latin  and  English,  and  the  other  as  abridged 
by  Bossuet,  who,  however,  furnishes  the  Latin  text  of  it  in  full.  (History 
of  the  Variations  of  the  Protestant  Churches,  vol.  i,  book  vi,  p.  179,  seqq., 
and  p.  205,  seqq.)  These  documents  were  first  published  in  1679,  by  order 
of  the  Elector  Charles  Lewis,  Count  Palatine ;  and  the  book  containing 
them  was  M'ritten  probably  with  a  view  to  justify  Luther  against  Bellar- 
mine ;  with  what  success  the  reader  of  these  papers  may  best  judge. 
After  having  been  carefully  concealed  for  more  than  a  century,  this  whole 
scandalous  transaction  was  laid  bare  by  Protestants  themselves,  professing 
to  be  the  friends  of  Luther  and  of  his  Reformation. 

I._DOCUMENT  ABKIDGED  BY  BOSSUET. 

1. — Bncer  sent  to  Luther  and  other  heads  of  the  Party  to 
obtain  leave  for  marrying  a  second  wife — this  Prince's  in- 
struction to  his  Envoy. 

The  landgrave  of  Hesse  begins  by  setting  forth  how  that,  "since  his  last 
illness,  he  had  reflected  much  on  his  state,  and  chiefly  upon  this,  that  a  few 
weeks  after  his  marriage  he  had  begun  to  wallow  in  adultery :  that  his  pas- 
tors had  frequently  exhorted  him  to  approach  the  holy  table,  but  he  did 
believe  he  should  there  meet  with  his  judgment,  because  he  will  not  aban- 
don such  a  course  of  life."*  He  imputes  to  his  wife  the  cause  of  all  his 
disorders,  and  gives  the  reasons  for  his  never  loving  her ;  but,  having  a  diffi- 
culty in  explaining  himself  on  these  matters,  he  refers  them  to  Bucer,  whom 
he  had  made  privy  to  the  whole  affiiir.  Next  he  speaks  of  his  complexion, 
and  the  effects  of  high  living  at  the  assemblies  of  the  emjiire,  at  which  he 
was  obliged  to  be  present.  To  carry  thither  a  wife  of  such  a  quality  as  his 
own,  would  V)e  too  great  an  encumbrance.  When  his  preachers  remonstrated 
to  him  that  he  ought  to  punish  adulteries  and  such  like  crimes,  "  How," 
said  he,  "  can  I  punish  crimes  of  which  I  myself  am  guilty  ?  When  I  ex- 
pose mvself  in  war  for  the  gospel  cause,  I  think  I  should  go  to  the  devil 
should  I  be  killed  there  by  the  sword  or  mnsket-ball.f  I  am  sensible  that, 
with  the  wife  I  have,  neither  can  I,  neither  will  I,  change  my  life, 
whereof  I  take  God  to  witness ;  so  that  I  find  no  means  of  amendment 
but  liy  the  remedies  God  afforded  the  people  of  old,  that  is  to  say  polyg- 
Bmy.":f 


Inst, 


;.,  N.  1,  2,  lb.  n.  3.  +  Ibid.,  N.  5.  t  Ibid.,  N.  «. 


BIGAMY    OF   LANDGRAV-E    OF   HESSE.  483 

2. — Scqnel  to  the  instruction — the  landgrave  promises 
the  le venues  of  monasteries  to  Luther  if  he  will  favor  his 
design. 

He  there  states  the  reasons  which  persuade  him  that  it  is  not  forbidden 
under  the  i2;ospe>;  and  what  deserves  most  notice,  is  his  sayinjj,  "that,  to 
his  knowledjro,  Ijuther  and  Melancthon  advised  the  kinp:  of  England  not  to 
break  off  his  marria3;e  with  the  queen,  his  wife ;  but,  besides  her,  also  to 
wed  another."*  This,  again,  is  a  secret  we  were  ignorant  of:  but  a  prince, 
so  well  informed,  says  he  knows  it;  and  adds,  that  they  ought  to  allow  him 
this  remedy  so  much  the  readier,  because  he  demands  it  only  "for  the  sal- 
vation of  his  soul."  "  I  am  resolved,"  proceeds  he,  "  to  remain  no  longer  in 
the  snares  of  the  devil ;  neither  can  T,  neither  will  I,  withdraw  myself 
but  by  this  way ;  wherefore  T  beg  of  Luther,  of  Melancthon,  of  Bucer  him- 
self, to  give  me  a  certificate,  that  I  may  embrace  it.  But,  if  they  apprehend 
that  such  a  cei-tificate  may  turn  to  scandal  at  this  time,  and  prejudice  the 
gospel  cause,  should  it  be  printed,  I  desire  at  least  they  will  give  me  a  decla- 
ration in  writing,  that  God  would  not  be  offended  should  I  marry  in  private ; 
and  that  they  will  seek  for  means  to  make  this  marriage  public  in  due  time, 
to  the  end  that  the  woman  I  shall  wed  may  not  pass  for  a  dishonest  person, 
otherwise,  in  process  of  time,  the  church  would  be  scandalized."f  Then  he 
assures  them  that  "they  need  not  fear  lest  this  second  marriage  should 
make  him  injure  his  first  wife,  or  even  separate  himself  from  her;  since,  on 
the  contrary,  he  is  determined  on  this  occasion  to  carry  his  cross,  and  leave 
his  dominions  to  their  common  children.  Let  them,  therefore,  grant  me," 
continues  this  prince,  "in  the  name  of  God,  what  I  request  of  them,  to  th« 
end  that  T  may  both  live  and  die  more  cheerfiilly  for  the  gospel  cause,  and 
more  willingly  undertake  the  defense  of  it;  and,  on  my  part,  I  will  do 
whatsoever  they  shall  in  reason  ask  of  me,  whether  they  demand  the  reve- 
nues of  monasteries,  or  other  things  of  a  similar  nature."! 

3. — Continuation  of  it — the  landgrave  proposes  to  have 
recourse  to  the  emperor,  and  even  to  the  Pope,  in  case  of 
refusal. 

We  see  how  artfully  he  insinuates  the  reasons  which  he,  who  knew  them 
so  thoroughly,  was  sensible  would  have  most  influence  on  them  ;  and,  as  he 
foresaw  that  scandal  was  the  thing  they  would  most  dread,  he  adds,  "That 
already  the  ecclesiastics  hated  the  Protestants  to  such  a  degree,  that  they 
would  not  hate  them  more  or  less  for  this  new  article  allowing  polygamy: 
but  if,  contrary  to  his  expectation,  Melancthon  and  Luther  should  prove 
inexorable,  many  designs  ran  in  liis  head — amongst  others,  that  of  applying 
to  the  emperor  for  this  dispensation,  whatever  money  it  might  cost  him."5 
This  was  a  ticklish  point — "For,"  continues  he,  "there  is  no  likelihood  of 
the  emperor's  granting  this  permission  without  a  dispensation  from  the 
Pope,  for  which  I  care  but  little,"  .says  he  :||  "  but  for  that  of  the  emperor  I 
ought  not  to  despise  it,  though  I  should  make  but  little  account  of  that  too, 
did  T  not  otheiwise  believe  that  God  had  rather  allowed  than  forbidden 
what   I  wish  for;  and  if  the  attempt  I  make  on  this  side  (that   is  upon 


*  Inst.,  N.  6,  et  seq    Ibid.,  N.  10.  Ibid.,  N.  lb  12.  t  Ibid.,  N.  12. 

t  Ibid.,  N.  13.  §  Ibid.,  N.  14.  [  Ibid.,  N.  15,  et  seq. 


484 


NOTE   C. 


Luther)  succeed  not,  a  human  fear  urges  me  to  demand  the  emperor's  con- 
senl,  certain  as  I  am  to  obtain  all  I  please,  upon  giving  a  round  sum  of 
money  to  some  one  of  his  ministers.  But  although  I  would  not  for  any 
thing  in  the  world  withdraw  myself  from  the  gospel,  or  be  engaged  in  any 
affair  that  might  be  contrary  to  its  interest,  I  am,  nevertheless,  afiaid  lest 
the  imperialists  should  draw  me  into  something  not  conducive  to  the  inter- 
ests of  this  cause  and  party.  I,  therefore,  call  on  them,"  concludes  he,  "to 
afford  me  the  redress  I  expect,  lest  I  should  go  seek  it  in  some  other  place 
less  agreeable ;  desirous  a  thousand  times  rather  to  owe  my  repose  to  their 
permission  that  to  all  other  human  permissions,  I  desire  to  have  in  writing 
the  opinion  of  Luther,  Melancthon,  and  Bucer,  in  order  that  I  ma)^  amend 
myself,  and  with  a  good  conscience  approach  the  sacrament. 

"Given  at  Melsinguen,  the  Sunday  after  St.  Catharine's  day,  1539. 

"  Philip,  Landgrave  of  Hesse." 


II,— DOCUMENT  IN  LATIN  AND  ENGLISH. 

THE    CONSULTATION     OF     LUTHER     AND     THE     OTHER     PROTESTANT 
DOCTORS    CONCERNING    POLYGAMY. 

To  the  most  serene  Prince  and  Lord  Philip  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  Count  of  Catzenlem- 
bogen,  of  Diets,  of  Ziegenhain,  and  Nidda,  our  gracious  Lord,  we  wish  above  all 
thinEfs  the  Grace  of  God  through  Jegus  Christ. 


Most  Serene  Prince  and  Lord, 

I.  Postquam  vestra  Celsitudo  per 
Dominum  Bucerum  diuturnas  con- 
scientije  suge  molestias,  nonnuUas 
simulqne  considerationes  indicari  cu- 
ravit,  addito  scripto  seu  instructione 
quam  illi  vestra  Celsitudo  tradidit ; 
licet  ita  properanter  expedire  respon- 
sura  difficile  sit,  noluimus  tamen 
Dominum  Bucerum,  reditum  utique 
maturantem,  sine  scripto  dimittere. 


IL  Imprimis  sumus  ex  animo  re- 
creati,  et  Deo  gratias  agimus,  quod 
vestram  Cclsitudinem  difRcili  morbo 
liberaverit,  petimusque,  ut  Deus  Cel- 
.situd^riem  vestram  in  corpore  et  ani- 
mo confortare  et  conservare  dignetur. 

TIT.  Nam  prout  Celsitudo  vestra 
videt,  paupcrcula  ct  miscra  Ecclesia 
est  exigua  et  derelicta.  indigens  pro- 
bis  Dominis  Begentibus,  sicut  non 
dubitamus  Deum  aliquos  conservatu- 


L  We  have  been  informed  by 
Bucer,  and  in  the  instruction  which 
your  Highness  gave  him,  have  read, 
the  trouble  of  mind,  and  the  uneasi- 
ness of  conscience  your  Highness  is 
under  at  this  present ;  and  although 
it  seemed  to  us  very  difficult  so 
speedily  to  answer  the  doubts  pro- 
posed ;  nevertheless,  we  would  not 
permit  the  said  Bucer,  who  was  ur- 
gent for  his  return  to  your  Highness, 
to  go  away  without  an  answer  in 
writing. 

n.  It  has  been  a  suViject  of  the 
greatest  joy  to  us,  and  we  have 
praised  God,  for  that  he  has  recov- 
ered 3'our  Highness  from  a  danger- 
ous fit  of  sickness,  and  we  pray  that 
he  will  long  continue  this  blessing  of 
perfect  health  both  in  body  and  mind. 

III.    Your  Highness  is  not  igno- 
rant how  great  need  our  poor,  miser- 
able,  little,    and    abandoned    church 
stands  in  of  virtuous  princes  and  ru 
lers  to  protect  her;    and  we  doubt 


BIGAMY    OF    LANDGRAVE    OF   HESSE. 


485 


rum,  quantumvis  tentationes  diversae 
occurrant. 


IV.  Circa  quasstionem  qnam  nobis 
Bucerus  proposuit,  hsec  nobis  occur- 
runt  consideratione  digna  :  Celsitudo 
vestra  per  se  ipsam  satis  perspicit 
quantum  difFerant  universalem  legem 
condere,  vel  in  certo  casu  gravibus  de 
causis  ex  concessione  divin:'i,  dispen- 
satione  uti ;  nam  contra  Deum  locum 
non  habet  dispensatio. 


V.  Nunc  suadere  non  possumus, 
ut  introducatur  public c\  et  velut  lege 
sanciatur  [)ermissio  plures  qnam  unara 
uxores  ducendi.  Si  aliquid  hac  de 
re  prailo  committeretur,  facile  intel- 
ligit  vestra  Celsitudo,  id  praecepti  in- 
star  intellectum  et  acceptatum  iri, 
unde  multa  scandala  et  difficaltates 
orirentur.  Consideret,  quajsumus, 
Celsitudo  vestra  qu^m  sinistre  accip- 
eretur,  si  quis  convinceretur  banc  le- 
gem in  Germaniam  introduxisse, 
quae  aeternarum  litium  et  inquietudi- 
num  (quod  tiniendum)  futurum  esset 
seminarium. 

VI.  Quod  opponi  potest,  quod  co- 
ram Deo  ajquum  est  id  omnin  )  per- 
mittendum,  hoc  certi  ratione  et 
conditione  e.st  accipiendum.  Si  res 
est  mandata  et  necessaria,  verum  est 
quod  objicitur ;  si  nee  mandata,  nee 
necessaria  sit  alias  circumstantias  op- 
ortet  expendei'C,  ut  ad  propositam 
questionem  propius  accedamus  :  Deus 
matrimoniuni  instituit  ut  tantum 
duarum  et  non  plurium  personarum 
esset  societas,  si  natura  non  esset  cor- 
rupta ;  hoc  intendit  ilia  sententia : 
Erimt  dun  in  came  una,  idque  prima- 
tu.s  fuit  observatum. 


VII.     Sed     Lamech    pluralitatem 
uxorum    in    matrimonium    invexit, 
31 


not  but  God  will  always  supply.her 
with  some  such,  although  from  time 
to  time  he  threatens  to  deprive  her 
of  them,  and  proves  her  by  sundry 
temptations. 

IV.  These  things  seem  to  us  of 
greatest  importance  in  the  question 
which  Buccr  has  proposed  to  us  : 
your  Highness  sufficiently  of  3'our- 
self  comprehends  the  difference  there 
is  betwixt  settling  an  universal  law, 
and  using  (for  urgent  reasons  and 
with  God's  permission)  a  dispensation 
in  a  particular  case  ;  for  it  is  other- 
wise evident  that  no  dispensation  can 
take  place  against  the  first  of  all  laws, 
the  divine  law. 

V.  We  can  not  at  present  advise 
to  introduce  publicly,  and  establish 
as  a  law  in  the  New  Testament,  that 
of  the  Old,  which  permitted  to  have 
more  wives  than  one.  Your  High- 
ness is  sensible,  should  any  such  thing 
be  printed,  that  it  would  be  taken  for 
a  precept,  whence  infinite  troubles 
and  scandals  would  arise.  We  beg 
3^our  Highness  to  consider  the  dan- 
gers a  man  would  be  exposed  unto, 
who  should  be  convicted  of  having 
brought  into  Germany  such  a  law, 
which  would  divide  families,  and  in- 
volve them  in  endless  strifes  and  dis- 
turbances. 

VI.  As  to  the  objection  that  may 
be  made,  that  what  is  just  in  God's 
sight  ought  absolutely  to  be  per- 
mitted, it  must  be  answered  in  this 
manner.  If  that  which  is  just  before 
God,  be  besides  commanded  and 
necessary,  the  objection  is  true  :  if  it 
be  neither  necessary  nor  commanded, 
other  circumstances,  before  it  be  per- 
mitted, must  be  attended  to  ;  and  to 
come  to  the  question  in  hand  :  God 
hath  instituted  marriage  to  be  a  so- 
ciety of  two  persons  and  no  more, 
supposing  nature  were  not  corrupted  ; 
and  this  is  the  sense  of  that  text  of 
Genesis,  "  There  shall  be  two  in  one 
flesh,"  and  this  was  observed  at  the 
beginning. 

VII.  Lamech  was  the  first  that 
married  many  wives,  and  the  Scrip- 


486 


NOTE   0. 


quod  de  illo  Hcriptura  memorat  tan- 
quam  introductum  contra  priinam 
regulam. 

VIII.  Apud  infideles  tamcn  fuit 
consuetudine  receptuin  ;  postea  Abra- 
ham quoque  et  poster!  ejus  plures 
duxerunt  iixores.  Certiim  est  hoc 
postmodum  le.iie  Mosis  permissum 
fuisse,  teste  Scrii)tur\  Denter.  2,  1.  1, 
ut  homo  hahei-ct  duas  uxores  ;  nam 
Deus  fragih  naturaD  alifjuid  indulsit. 
Cum  ver>')  principio  et  creation!  con- 
sentaneum  sit  unic  >  uxore  conten- 
tum  vivere,  hujusmod!  lex  est  lauda- 
bihs,  et  ab  P]cclesi  t  acceptanda,  non 
lex  huic  contraria  statuenda ;  nam 
Christus  repetit  banc  sententiam  : 
Erimt  duo  in  came  una,  Matth.  xix, 
et  in  memoriam  revocat  quale  matri- 
nionium  ante  hunianam  fragilitatem 
esse  debuisset. 


IX.  Certis  tamen  casibus  locus  est 
dispensation!.  Si  quis  apud  exteras 
nationes  captivus  ad  curam  corporis 
et  sanitateni,  inibi  alteram  uxorem 
superinduceret ;  vel  si  quis  haberet 
leprosam;  his  casibus  alteram  ducere 
cum  consilio  sui  Pastoi-is,  non  inten- 
tione  novam  legem  inducendi,  sed 
suae  necessitati  cousulemli,  hunc  nes- 
cimus,  qui  ratione  damnare  licerit. 


X.  Cum  igitur  aliud  sit  inducere 
legem,  aliud  uti  dis])ensatione,  obse- 
cramus  vestram  Celsitudinem  sequen- 
tia  velit  considerare. 


Prim)  ante  omnia  cavendum,  ne 
haec  res  inducntur  in  orbem  ad  modum 
legis,  quam  setiucnd!  libei-a  omnium 
sit  potestas.  Dcinde  considerare 
dignetur  vestra  Celsitudo  scandalura 
nimium,  quod  Kvan.i;elii  liostes  ex- 
clamaturi  sint.  nos  similes  esse  Ana- 


ture  witnesses  that  this  custom  was 
introduced  contrary  to  the  first  Insti- 
tution. 

VIII.  It  nevertheless  passed  intc 
custom  among  infidel  nations ;  and 
we  even  find  afterwards,  that  Abra- 
ham and  his  posterity'  had  many 
wives.  It  is  also  certain  from  Deu- 
teronomy, that  the  law  of  Mo.ses 
permitted  it aftoiwards,  and  that  God 
made  an  allowance  for  frail  nature. 
Since  it  is  then  suitable  to  the  crea- 
tion of  men,  and  to  the  first  estab- 
lishment of  their  .societ}^  that  each 
one  be  content  With  one  wife,  it 
thence  follows  that  the  law  enjoining 
it  is  praiseworthy ;  that  it  ought  to 
be  received  in  the  church ;  and  no 
law  contrar}"  theieto  be  introduced 
into  it,  because  Jesus  Chiist  has  re- 
peated in  the  nineteenth  chapter  of 
St.  Matthew  that  text  of  Genesis, 
"There  shall  be  two  in  one  fiesh :" 
and  brings  to  man's  remembrance 
what  marriage  ought  to  have  been 

■  befoi'e  it  degenerated  from  its  purity. 

IX.  In  certain  cases,  however, 
there  is  lOom  for  disjjcnsation.  For 
example,  if  a  mariied  man,  detained 
captive  in  a  distant  country,  should 
there  take  a  second  wife,  in  order  to 
preserve  or  recover  his  health,  or  that 
his  own  became  leprous,  we  see  not 
how  M'e  could  condemn,  in  these 
cases,  such  a  man  as,  by  the  advice 
of  his  pastor,  should  take  another 
wife,  provided  it  wei'e  not  with  a  de- 
sign of  intioducing  a  new  law,  but 
with  an  eye  only  to  his  own  particu- 
lar necessities. 

X.  Since  then  the  introducing  a 
new  law,  and  the  using  a  dispen.sa. 
tion  with  respect  to  the  same  law, 
are  two  very  ditfercnt  things,  we  en- 
treat your  Highness  to  take  vidiat 
follows  into  consideration. 

In  the  first  i)lace,  aliove  all  things, 
care  must  be  taken,  that  j)lurality  of 
wives  be  not  introduced  into  the 
world  l)y  way  of  law,  for  every  man 
to  follow  as  he  thinks  fit.  In  the 
second  place,  ninv  it  please  your 
Hiahness   to   rellect   on    the  dismal 


BIGAMY    OF    LANDGR.Vi:    OF    HFSSE. 


48' 


baptistis,  qui  simul  plures  duxerunt 
uxores.  Item  Evangelicos  earn  sec- 
tari  libertatem  plures  simul  ducendi, 
quae  in  Turcia  in  usu  est. 


XI.  Item,  principum  fiicta  latius 
spargi  quam  privatorum  consideret. 

XII.  Item,  consideret  privatas  per- 
sonas,  hujusinodi  principum  facta 
audientes,  facile  eadem  sibi  permissa 
]3ersuadere,  prout  apparet  talia  fiicilr 
irrepere. 

XIII.  Item,  considerandum  Celsi- 
tudinem  vestram  abundare  nobilitate 
efferi  spiritus,  in  qui  multi,  uti  in 
aliis  quoque  terris  sint,  qui  propter 
amplos  pi-oventu.s,  quibus  ratione 
cathedralium  beneflcioruni  perfruun- 
tur,  vald;^  evangelio  adversantur. 
Non  ignoramus  ipsi  magnorum  nobi- 
lium  valde  insulsa  dicta  ;  et  qualera 
se  nobilitas  et  subdita  ditio  erga  Cel- 
situdinem  vestram  sit  prsebitura,  si 
publica  introductio  fiat,  baud  diflficile 
est  arbitrari. 

XIV.  Item  Celsitudo  vestra,  quse 
Dei  singularis  est  gratia,  apud  reges 
et  potentes  etiam  exteros  magno  est 
in  honore  et  respectu ;  apud  quos 
meriti  est,  quod  timeat  ne  li£ec  res 
pariat  noininis  diminutionem.  Cum 
igitur  hie  nuilta  scandala  confluant, 
rogaraus  Celsitudinem  vestram,  ut 
hanc  rem  maturo  judicio  expendere 
velit. 


XV.  Illud  quoque  est  verum  quod 
Celsitudinein  vestram  omni  modo 
rogamus  et  liortamur,  ut  fornication- 
epi  et  adulteriuni  fugiat.  Halniimus 
quoque,  ut,  quod  res  est,  loquamur, 
longo  tempore  non  [)arvum  majrorem, 
qud  intellexerimus  vestram  Celsitu- 
dinem ejusmodi  impuritate  oneratam, 
quam  divina  ultio,  morbi,  aliaque  pe- 
ricula  sequi  possent. 

XVI.  Etiam  rogamus  Celsitudin- 
em vestram   )ie  talia  extra  m-itriino- 


scandal  which  would  not  fiiil  to  hap 
pen,  if  occasion  be  given  to  the  ene- 
mies of  the  gospel  to  exclaim,  that 
we  are  like  the  Anabaptists,  who 
have  several  wives  at  once,  and  tlif 
Turks,  who  take  as  many  wives  as 
they  are  able  to  maintain. 

XI.  In  the  third  place,  that  the 
actions  of  princes  are  more  widely 
spread  than  those  of  private  men. 

XII.  Fourthly,  that  inferiors  are 
no  sooner  informed  what  their  supe- 
riors do,  but  thej"  imagine  they  may 
do  the  same,  and  by  that  means 
licentiousness  becomes  universal. 

XIII.  Fifthly,  that  your,  High- 
ness's  estates  are  filled  with  an  un- 
tractable  nobility,  for  the  most  part 
very  averse  to  the  gospel,  on  account 
of  the  hopes  thev  are  in,  as  in  other 
countries,  of  obtaining  the  benefices 
of  cathedral  churches,  the  reveiuies 
whereof  are  very  great.  We  know 
the  impertinent  discourses  vented  by 
the  most  illustrious  of  your  nobilitj', 
and  it  is  easily  seen  how  they  and 
the  rest  of  your  subjects  would  be 
disposed,  in  case  your  Highness 
should  authorize  such  a  novelty. 

XIV.  Sixthly,  that  your  Highness, 
by  the  singular  grace  of  God,  hath  a 
great  reputation  in  the  empire  and 
foreign  countries ;  and  it  is  to  be 
feared  lest  (he  execution  of  this  ]»ro- 
ject  of  a  double  marriage  should 
greatly  diminish  this  esteem  and  re- 
spect. The  concurrence  of  so  many 
scandals  obliges  us  to  beseech  your 
Highness  to  examine  the  thing  with 
all  the  maturity  of  Judgment  God 
has  endowed  you  with. 

XV.  With  no  less  earnestness  do 
we  entreat  your  Highness,  by  all 
means,  to  avoid  fornication  and  adul- 
tery ;  and,  to  own  the  truth  sincerely, 
we  have  a  long  time  been  sensibly 
grieved  to  see  your  Highness  aban- 
doned to  such  impurities,  which 
might  be  followed  by  the  effects  of 
the  divine  vengeance,  distempers,  and 
many  other  dangerous  consequenc(s. 

XVI.  We  also  beg  of  your  High- 
ness not   to  entertain   a  notion,  thai 


488 


NOTE    C. 


nium,  levin  peccata  velit  festimare, 
sicut  mundu.s  hiec  ventis  tradere  et 
parvi  pendere  soiet :  Verum  Dens 
impudicitiam  sajpr  severissitne  puni- 
vit  :  nam  poena  diluvii  tribuitnr  re- 
gentum  adultcriis.  Item  adnlterium 
Davidis  est  severuin  vindiclaj  divinje 
exemplum,  et  Pauliis  stepiiis  ait; 
Deus  non  inidetur.  Adulteri  non 
mtroihunt  in  regnum  Dei :  nam  fldei 
obedientia  comes  esse  debet,  ut  non 
contra  eonscientiam  agamns,  1  Ti- 
moth.  iii.  Si  cor  nostrum  non  repre- 
henderit  nos,  possumus  lajti  Deum 
invocare  ;  et  Rom.  viii.  Si  carnalia 
desideria  spiritu  mortificaverimus, 
vivemiis ;  si  autem  secundimi  car- 
uem  ambulemus  :  hoc  est,  si  contra 
eonscientiam,  agamus,  moriemur. 


XVII.  HfBC  referrimus,  ut  consid- 
eret  Deum  ob  talia  vitia  non  ridere, 
prout  aliqui  audaces  feciunt,  et  ethni- 
cas  cogitationes  animo  fovent.  Liben- 
terquoque  intelleximus  vestram  Cel- 
situdinem  ob  ejusniodi  vitia  angi  et 
conqueri.  Incambunt  Celsitudini 
vestrte  negotia  totum  mundum  con- 
cernentia.  Accedit  Celsitudinis  ves- 
trse  complexio  subtilis,  et  minimo 
robusta,  ac  pauci  somni,  unde  merito 
corpori  parcendum  esset,  quemadmo- 
dum  multi  alii  facere  coguntur. 


XVITL  Legitur  de  laudatissimo 
Principe  Scanderbego,  qui  multa  prte- 
clara  facinora  patravit  contra  duos 
Turcarum  Imperatores,  Amuratliem 
et    Mahumetem,  ct    Grix'ciam    dum 


the  use  of  vromen  out  of  marriage  is 
but  a  light  and  trifling  fault,  a.!  the 
world  is  used  to  imagine ;  since  God 
hath  often  chastised  impurity  with 
the  most  severe  punishment :  and 
that  of  the  deluge  is  attributed  to  the 
adulteries  of  the  gi-eat  ones  ;  and  the 
adultery  of  David  has  afforded  a  ter- 
rible instance  of  the  divine  venge- 
ance ;  and  St.  Paul  repeats  frequently, 
that  God  is  not  mocked  with  impu- 
nity, and  that  adulterers  shall  not 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  For 
it  is  said,  in  the  second  chapter  of 
the  first  Epistle  to  Timothy,  that 
obedience  must  be  the  companion  of 
faith,  in  order  to  avoid  acting  against 
conscience ;  and  in  the  third  chapter 
of  the  first  of  St.  John,  if  our  heart 
condemn  us  not,  we  may  call  upon 
the  name  of  Gcd  with  joy  :  and  in 
the  eighth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  if  by  the  spirit  we  mor- 
tify the  desires  of  the  flesh,  we  shall 
live  :  but,  on  the  contrary,  we  shall 
die,  if  we  walk  according  to  the  flesh, 
that  is,  if  we  act  against  our  own 
consciences. 

XVII.  We  have  related  these  pas- 
sages, to  the  end  that  j^our  Highnes.<5 
may  consider  seriously  that  God  looks 
not  on  the  vice  of  impurity  as  a 
laughing  matter,  as  is  supposed  by 
those  audacious  libertines,  who  enter- 
tain heathenish  notions  on  this  sub- 
ject. We  are  pleased  to  flnd  that 
j'^our  Highness  is  troubled  with  re- 
morse of  conscience  for  these  disor- 
ders. The  management  of  the  most 
important  affairs  in  the  world  is  now 
incumbent  on  your  Highness,  who  is 
of  a  very  delicate  and  tender  com- 
plexion ;  sleeps  but  little ;  and  these 
reasons,  which  have  obliged  so  many 
prudent  persons  to  manage  their  con- 
stitutions, are  more  than  sufficient  to 
prevail  with  your  Highness  to  imitate 
them. 

XVITT.  We  read  of  the  incompar- 
able Scanderbeg,  who  so  frequently 
defeated  the  two  most  poweiflil  em- 
perors of  the  Turks,  Amurat  11.  and 
Mahomet  IT.,  and  whilst  alive,  pre 


BIGAMY    OF   LANDGRAVE    OF    HE '.SE. 


489 


viveret,  feliciter  tuitus  est,  ac  conser- 
Tavit.  Hie  suos  milites  sgepius  ad 
castimoniam  hortari  auditus  est,  et 
dicere,  nullam  rem  fortibus  viris 
seque  animos  demere  ac  Venerem. 
Item  qu  .d  si  vestra  Celsitudo  insuper 
alteram  uxorem  haberet,  et  nollet 
pravis  afl'ectibus  et  consuetudinibus 
repugnare,  adhuc  non  esset  vestrse 
Celsitudiiii  consultum  ac  prospectum. 
Oportet  unumquemque  in  externis 
istis  suorum  membrorum  esse  domi- 
num,  uti  Paulus  scribit :  Curate  ut 
membra  vestra  sint  arma  justitia. 
Quare  vestra  Celsitudo  in  considera- 
tione  aliarum  causarum,  nempe  scan- 
dali,  curaruni,  labornm  nc  solicitudi- 
nuin,  et  corporis  intirmitatis  velit 
hanc  rem  a3qua.  lance  perpendere,  et 
simul  in  memoriam  revocare,  qu  d 
Deus  ei  ex  moderns  conjuge  pul- 
chram  sobolem  utriusque  sexus  dede- 
rit,  ita  ut  contentus  hac  esse  possit. 
Quot  alii  in  suo  matrimonio  debent 
patientiam  exercere  ad  vitandum 
scandalum  ?  Nobis  non  sedet  ani- 
mo  Celsitudinem  vestrara  ad  tam 
difficilem  novitatem  impellere,  aut 
inducere :  nam  ditio  vestrae  Celsitu- 
dinis,  aliique  nos  impeterent,  quod 
nobis  eo  minus  ferendum  esset,  quod 
ex  praecepto  divino  nobis  incumbat 
matrimonium,  omniaque  humana  ad 
divinam  institutionem  dirigere,  atque 
in  e\  quoad  possibile  conservare,  om- 
neque  scandalum  removere. 


XIX.  Is  jam  est  mos  saeculi,  ut 
culpa  omnis  in  Prajdicatores  confera- 
tur,  si  quid  difflcultatis  incidat;  et 
humanum  cor  in  summae  et  inferioris 
conditionis  hominibus  instabile,  unde 
diversa  pertimescenda. 

XX.  Si  autem  vestra  Celsitudo  ab 
impudic'i  vit  I  non  aUstineat,  quod 
dicit  sibi  irnpossibile,  optaremus  Cel- 
situdinem vestram   in   meliori  statu 


served  Greece  from  their  tyranny 
that  he  often  exhorted  his  soldiers  to 
chastit}^,  and  said  to  them,  that  there 
was  nothing  so  hurtful  to  men  of 
their  profession,  as  venereal  pleasures. 
And  if  your  Highness,  after  marrying 
a  second  wife,  were  not  to  forsake 
those  licentious  disorders,  the  "remedy 
proposed  would  be  to  no  purpose. 
Every  one  ought  to  be  master  of  his 
own  body  in  external  actions,  and 
see,  according  to  the  expression  of 
St.  Paul,  that  his  members  be  the 
arms  of  justice.  May  it  please  your 
Highness,  therefore,  impartially  to 
examine  the  considerations  of  scan- 
dal, of  labors,  of  care,  of  trouble,  and 
of  distempers,  which  have  been  rep- 
resented. And  at  the  same  time 
remember  that  God  has  given  you  a 
numerous  issue  of  such  beautiful 
children  of  lx)th  sexes  by  the  princess 
your  wife,  that  you  have  reason  to  be 
satisfied  therewith.  How  many  oth- 
ers, in  marriage,  are  obliged  to  the 
exercise  and  practice  of  patience, 
from  the  motive  only  oi"  avoiding 
scandal  ?  We  are  far  from  urging 
on  your  Highness  to  introduce  so 
difficult  a  novelty  into  your  family. 
By  so  doing,  we  should  draw  upon 
ourselves  not  only  the  reproaches  and 
persecution  of  those  of  Hesse,  but  of 
all  other  people.  The  which  would 
be  so  much  the  less  supportable  to 
us,  as  God  commands  us  in  the  min- 
istry which  we  exercise,  as  much  as 
we  are  able,  to  regulate  marriage,  and 
all  the  other  duties  of  human  life, 
according  to  the  divine  Institutioi;, 
and  maintain  them  in  that  state,  and 
remove  all  kind  of  scandal. 

XIX.  It  is  now  customar)^  among 
worldlings,  to  lay  the  blame  of  every 
thing  upon  the  preachers  of  the  gos- 
pel. The  heart  of  man  is  equally 
fickle  in  the  more  elevated  and  lower 
stations  of  life  ;  and  much  have  we 
to  fear  on  that  score. 

XX.  As  to  what  your  Highness 
says,  that  it  is  not  possible  for  you  to 
abstain  from  this  impure  life,  we  wish 
vou  were  in  a  better  state  before  God 


i90 


NOTE   C. 


esse  coram  Deo,  et  secur'i  conscienlia 
vivere  ad  propriae  animaa  salutem,  et 
dilionum  ac  subditorum  einolumen- 
tum. 

XXI.  Quiid  si  denique  vestra  Cel- 
skiido  oinnino  concluserit,  adhiic 
unam  conjiiji;eni  diicere,  judicamus  id 
secret)  faciendum,  ut  superius  de 
dispensatione  dictum,  nempe  ut  tan- 
tiim  vestra;  Celsitudini,  illi  persona3, 
ac  pancis  personis  fidelibus  constet 
Celsitudiiiis  vestraj  animus,  et  con- 
scientia  sub  sigillo  confessionis.  Hinc 
non  sequunturalicujus  momenti  con- 
tradictiones  aut  scandala.  Nihil  enim 
est  inusitati  Principes  concubinas 
alere ;  et  quamvis  non  omnibus  e 
plebe  constaret  rei  ratio,  tamen  pru- 
dentioros  intelli.!ierent,  et  magis  pla- 
ce ret  ha^c  moderata  vivendi  ratio, 
quam  adulterium  et  alii  belluini  et 
impudici  actus ;  nee  curandi  aliorum 
sermones,  si  recte  cum  conscienti\ 
agatur.  Sic  et  in  tantuni  hoc  appro- 
bamus  :  nam  cpiod  circa  matrimoni- 
um  in  lege  Mosis  fuit  permissum, 
Evangelium  non  revocat,  aut  vetat, 
quod  externum  regimen  non  immu- 
tat,  sed  adfert  a;ternam  justitiam  et 
seternam  vitam,  et  orditur  veram 
obedicntiam  erga  Deum,  et  conatur 
oorruptam  naturam  reparare. 


XXIT.  Habet  itaque  Celsitudo 
vestra  non  tantum  omnium  nostrum 
testimonium  in  casu  necessitatis,  sed 
etiam  antecedentes  nostras  considera- 
tiones  quas  rogamus,  ut  vestra  Cel- 
situdo tanquam  laudatus,  sapiens,  et 
Christiaiuis  Princeps  velit  ponderare. 
Oramus  quoque  Deum,  uL  velit  Cel- 
situdinem  vestram  duceie  ac  regere 
ad  stiam  laudem  et  vestrae  Celsitu- 
dinis  animse  salutem. 

XXII  I.  Quod  attinet  ad  consilium 
banc  rem  aputl  Caj.sarem  tractandi ; 
existimamus  ilium,  adulterium  inter 
minora  peccata  numerare  ;  nam  mag- 


that  you  lived  with  a  secure  con- 
science, and  lalwred  for  the  salvation 
of  your  own  .soul,  and  the  welfaie  of 
your  subjects. 

XXI.  But  after  all,  if  your  High 
ness  is  fully  resolved  to  many  a  sec- 
ond wife,  we  judge  it  ought  to  be 
done  secretly,  as  we  have  said  with 
respect  to  the  dispen.sation  demanded 
on  the  same  account,  that  '.s,  that 
none  but  the  person  you  shall  wed, 
and  a  few  trusty  persons,  know  of 
the  matter,  and  they,  too,  obliged  to 
secrecy  under  the  seal  of  confession. 
Hence  no  contradiction  nor  scandal 
of  moment  is  to  be  apprehended ; 
for  it  is  no  extraordinary  thing  for 
princes  to  keep  concubines ;  and 
though  the  vulgar  should  be  scandal- 
ized thereat,  the  more  intelligent 
would  doubt  of  the  truth,  and  pru- 
dent persons  would  approve  of  this 
moderate  kind  of  life,  preferably  to 
adultery,  and  other  brutal  actions. 
There  is  no  need  of  being  much  con- 
cerned for  what  men  will  say,  pro- 
vided all  goes  right  with  conscience. 
So  far  do  we  approve  it,  and  in  those 
circumstances  only  by  us  specified  , 
for  the  gospel  hath  neither  recalled 
nor  forbid  what  was  permitted  in  the 
law  of  Moses  with  respect  to  mar- 
riage. Jesus  Christ  has  not  changed 
the  external  economy,  but  added  jus- 
tice only,  and  life  everlasting,  for  re- 
ward. He  teaches  the  true  way  of 
obeying  God,  and  endeavors  to  repair 
the  corruption  of  nature. 

XXII.  Your  Highness  hath  there- 
fore, in  this  writing,  not  only  the  ap- 
probation of  us  all,  in  case  of  neces- 
sity, concerning  what  you  desire,  but 
also  the  reflections  we  have  made 
thereupon  ;  we  beseech  you  to  weigh 
them,  as  becoming  a  virtuous,  wise, 
and  Christian  prince.  We  also  beg 
of  God  to  direct  all  for  his  glory  and 
your  Highness's  salvation. 

XXIII.  As  to  your  Highness's 
thought  of  communicating  tliis  afKvir 
to  the  emperor  tefore  it  be  concluded 

;  seems  to  us  that  this  prince  counts 


BIGAMY    OF   LANDGRAVE    0?    HESSE. 


491 


nopere  yerendum,  ilium  Papistica, 
CardinalitiH,  Italic 'i,  Hispanic'i,  Sara- 
cenic&.  imbutinn  fide,  noii  curaturuni 
vestrae  Celsitudinis  postulatum,  et  in 
propriuin  omoluineiitmn  vanis  verbis 
sustentaturum,  sicut  iriteiligimus  per- 
fiduin  ac  fallacem  vinnu  esse,  moris- 
que  Germanici  oblitum. 


XXTV.  Videt  Celsitudo  vestra 
ipsa,  qund  nuUis  necessitatibus  Chris- 
tianis  sincere  consulit.  Turcam  «init 
impei'turbatuni,  excitat  tantum  rebel- 
liones  in  Gei'niani\  ut  Biu'gundicam 
potentiam  etferat.  Quare  optandum 
ut  nuUi  Christiani  Principes  illius 
infidis  machinationibus  se  niisceant. 
Deus  conservct  vestram  Celsitudi- 
nem.  Nos  ad  serviendum  vestrae 
Celsitudini  sumus  promptissimi.  Da- 
tum Vittenbergaj,  die  Mercurii  post 
festum  Sancti  Nicolai,  1539. 


Vestrse  Celsitudinis  parati  ac  subjecti 
servi, 

Martinus  Luther. 
Philippus  Melancthon. 
Martixus  Bucerus. 
■    Antonius  Corvinus. 
Adam. 

Joannes  Leningus. 
Justus  Wintferte. 
DiONYSius  Melanther. 


adultery  among  the  lesser  scirts  of 
sins  ;  and  it  is  very  much  to  be  feared 
lest  his  faith  being  of  the  same  stamp 
with  that  of  the  Pope,  the  Cardinals, 
the  Italians,  the  Spaniards,  and  the 
Saracens,  he  make  light  of  your 
Highness's  proposal,  and  turn  it  to 
his  own  advantage  by  amusing  j'our 
Highness  with  vain  words.  We 
know  he  is  deceitful  and  perfidious, 
and  has  nothing  of  the  German  in 
him. 

XXIV.  Your  Highness  sees,  that 
he  uses  no  sincere  endeavor  to  redress 
the  grievances  of  Christendom  ;  that 
he  leaves  the  Turk  unmolested,  and 
labors  for  nothing  but  to  divide  the 
empire,  that  he  may  raise  up  the 
house  of  Austria  on  its  ruins.  It  is 
therefore  ver}'  much  to  be  wished 
that  no  Christian  prince  would  give 
into  his  pernicious  schemes.  May 
God  preserve  j'our  Highness.  We 
are  most  read}^  to  serve  3'our  High- 
ness. Given  at  Wittenberg  the 
Wednesday  after  the  feast  of  Saint 
Nicholas,  1539. 

Your  Highness's  most  humble  and 
most  obedient  subjects  and  ser- 
vants, 

Martin  Luther. 

Philip  Melancthon. 

Martin  Bucer. 

Antony  Corvin. 

Adam. 

John  Leningue. 

Justus  Wintferte. 

Denis  Melanther. 


CEETIFICATE  OF  THE  NOTAKY  PUBLIC. 


Ego  Georgius  Nuspicher,  accepta 
a  Csesare  potestate,  Notarius  publi- 
cus  et  Scriba,  testor  hoc  meo  chiro- 
grapho  public ('  qu  ~;d  hjnc  copiam  ex 
vero  et  inviolato  originali  proprii 
manu  a  Philippo  Melancthone  exar- 
ato,  ad  instantiam  et  petitionem  mei 
clementissimi  Domini  et  Principis 
Hassiae  ipse  scrii)serim,  et  quinque 
foliis  numero  except  i  inscriptione 
coraplexus  sim,  etiam  omnia  proprio 
et  diligenter  auscult'irim  et   contu 


I  George  Nuspicher,  Notary  Im- 
perial, bear  testimony  by  this  present 
act,  written  and  signed  with  my  own 
hand,  that  I  have  transcribed  this 
present  copy  from  the  true  original 
which  is  in  Melancthon's  own  hand- 
writing, and  hath  been  faithfully  pre- 
serveil  to  this  present  time,  at  the 
rei]uest  of  the  most  serene  Prince  of 
Hesse ;  and  have  examined  with  the 
greatest  exactness  every  line  and 
every  word,  and  collated  them  with 


492 


NOTE    C. 


leriin,  et  in  omnibus  cum  original!  et 
subscriptione  nominum  concordet. 
De  quS,  re  tester  propria  manu. 


Georqiup  jJ^uspicher, 
Notarius 


the  same  original ;  and  have  founo 
them  conformable  thereunto,  not  only 
in  the  things  themselves,  but  also  in 
the  signs  manual,  and  have  delivered 
the  present  copy  in  five  leaves  of 
good  paper,  whereof  I  bear  witness. 
George  Nuspicher, 

Notary. 


III.— DOCUMENT  IN  LATIN  AND  ENGLISH, 


Instrumentum  Copulationis  Philippi 
Landgravii,  et  Margaretae  de  Saal. 

In  nomine  Domini  Amen. 

Notum  sit  omnibus  et  singulis,  qui 
hoc  pi.blicum  instrumentum  vident, 
audiunt,  legunt,  qu'id  Anno  post 
Christum  natum  1540,  die  Mercurii 
mensis  Martii,  post  meridiem  circa 
secundam  circiter,  Indictionis  Anno 
13,  potentissimi  et  invictissimi  Ro- 
manorum  Imperatoris  Caroli-quinti, 
clementissimi  nostri  Domini  Anno 
reginiinis  21,  coram  me  infrascripto 
Notario  et  teste,  Rotemburgi  in  arce 
comparuerint  serenissimus  Princeps 
et  Dominus  Philippus  Landgravius 
Comes  in  Catznelenbogen,  Dietz,  Zie- 
genhain,  et  Nidil  •,  cum  aliquibus  suae 
Celsitudinis  consiliariis  ex  unk  parte  ; 
et  honesta,  ac  virtuosa  Virgo  Marga- 
reta  de  Saal,  cum  aliquibus  ex  sua 
consanguinitate  ex  alteri  parte  ;  ilia 
intentione  et  voluntate  coram  me 
publico  Notario  ac  teste  publice  con- 
fessi  sunt,  ut  matrimonio  copulentur ; 
et  postea  ante  memoratus  mens  cle- 
mentissimus  Dominus  et  Princeps 
Landgravius  Philippus  per  Reveren- 
dum  Dominum  Dionysium  Meland- 
rumsuEe  Celsitudinis  Concionatorem, 
curavit  proponi  fernxi'  hunc  sensum. 
Cum  omnia  aperta  sint  oculis  Dei,  et 
homines  pauca  lateant,  et  sua  Celsi- 
tudo  velit  cum  nominate  virgine  Mar- 
garet'i  matrimonio  copulari,  etsi  prior 
suae  Celsitudinis  conjux  adhuc  sit  in 
vivis,  ut  hoc  nc  n  tribuatur  levitati  et 
cariositati,  ut  evitetur  scandalum,  et 


The  Marriage  Contract  of  Philip, 
Landgrave  of  Hesse,  with  Mar- 
garet de  Saal. 
In  the  name  of  God,  Amen. 
Be  it  known  to  all  those,  as  well 
in  general  as  in  particular,  who  shall 
see,  hear,  or  read  this  public  instru- 
ment, that  in  the  year  1540,  on 
Wednesday,  the  fourth  day  of  the 
month  of  March,  at  two  o'clock  or 
thereabouts,  in  the  afternoon,  the 
thirteenth  year  of  the  Indiction,  and 
the  twenty-first  of  the  reign  of  the 
most  puissant  and  most  victorious 
Emperor  Charles  V.,  our  most  gra- 
cious lord  ;  the  most  serene  Prince 
and  Lord  Philip  Landgrave  of  Hesse, 
Count  of  Catznelenbogen,  of  Dietz, 
of  Ziegenhain,  and  Nidda,  with  some 
of  his  Highness's  Counselors,  on  one 
side,  and  the  good  and  virtuous  Lady 
Margaret  de  Saal  with  some  of  her 
relations,  on  the  other  side,  have  ap- 
peared before  me,  Notary,  and  wit- 
ness underwritten,  in  the  city  of  Ro- 
tenburg,  in  the  castle  of  the  same 
city,  with  the  design  and  will  pub- 
licly declared  before  me.  Notary 
public  and  witness,  to  unite  them- 
selves by  marriage ;  and  accordingly 
my  most  gracious  Lord  and  Prince 
Philip  the  Landgrave  hath  ordered 
this  to  be  proposed  bj'  the  Reverend 
Denis  Melander,  preacher  to  his 
Highness,  much  to  the  sense  as  fol- 
lows : — "  Whereas  the  eye  of  God 
searches  all  things,  and  but  little 
escapes  the  knowledge  of  men,  his 
Highness  declares  that  his  will  is  to 


BIGAMY    OF    LANDGRAVE   OF   HESSE.. 


493 


nominatae  virgini«  et  illius  honestae 
consanguinitatis  honor  et  faina  non 
patiatur ;  edicit  sua  Celsitudo  hie  co- 
ram Deo,  et  in  suam  conscientiam  et 
animam  hoc  non  fieri  ex  levitate,  aut 
curiositate,  nee  ex  aliqua  vilipensione 
juris  et  superiorum,  sed  argeri  aU- 
quibus  gravibus  et  inevitabilibus  ne- 
cessitatibus  conscientiae  et  corporis, 
adeo  ut  irapossibile  sit  sine  alia  su- 
perinducta  legitima  conjuge  corpus 
suura  et  animam  salvare.  Quam 
multiplicera  causam  ctiam  sua  Celsi- 
tudo multis  praedoctis,  piis,  prudenti- 
bus,  et  Christianis  Pr«dicatoribus 
antehac  indicavit,  qui  etiam  con- 
sideratis  inevitabilibus  caiisis  id 
ipsum  suaserunt  ad  sua3  Celsitu- 
dinis  animge  et  eonscientiie  con- 
sulendum.  Quae  causa  et  neces- 
sitas  etiam  Serenissimam  Princi- 
pem  Christianam  Ducissam  Saxoniae, 
suae  Celsitudinis  primam  legitimam 
conjugem,  utpot?  alt\  principali  pru- 
deutia  et  \r.k  mente  praeditam  novit, 
ut  suae  Celsitudinis  tanquam  dilectis- 
simi  mariti  animae  et  corpori  serviret, 
et  honor  Dei  promoveretur  ad  gra- 
tiose  consentiendum.  Quemadrao- 
dum  suse  Celsitudinis  hase  super 
relata  syngrapha  testatur ;  et  ne  cui 
scandalura  detur  eo  quod  duas  con- 
juges  habere  moderno  tempore  sit 
insolitum ;  etsi  in  hoc  casu  Chris- 
tianum  et  licitum  sit,  non  vult  sua 
Celsitudo  i)ublice  coram  pluribus 
consuetas  ceremonias  usurpare,  et 
pal  am  nuptias  celebrare  cum  memo- 
rata  virgine  Margarets  de  Saal ;  sed 
hie  in  privato  et  silentio  in  praesentia 
subscriptorum  testium  volunt  invi- 
cem  jungi  matrimonio.  Finito  hoc 
sermone  nominati  Philippus  et  Mar- 
gareta  sunt  matrimonio  juncti,  et 
unaquaeque  persona  alteram  sibi  des- 
ponsam  agnovit  et  acceptavit,  adjunc- 
ta  mutua  fidelitatis  promissione  in 
nomine  Domini.  Et  antememoratus 
princeps  ac  Dominus  ante  hunc  ac- 
tum me  infrascriptum  Notarium  re- 
quisivit,  ut  desuper  unum  aut  plura 
instrumenta  conficerem,  et  mihi  etiam 
tanquam  personie  publicae,  verbo  ac 


wed  the  said  Lady  Margaret  de  Saal, 
although  the  princess  his  wife  b3  still 
living,  and  that  this  action  may  not 
be  imputed  to  inconstancy  or  curi- 
osity ;  to  avoid  scandal  and  maintain 
the  honor  of  the  said  Lady,  and  the 
reputation  of  her  kindred,  his  High- 
ness makes  oath  here  before  God,  and 
upon  his  soul  and  conscience,  that  he 
takes  her  to  wife  through  no  levity 
nor  curiosity,  nor  from  any  contempt 
of  law,  or  superiors ;  but  that  he  is 
obliged  to  it  by  such  important,  such 
inevitable  necessities  of  body  and 
conscience,  that  it  is  impossible  for 
him  to  save  either  body  or  soul,  with- 
out adding  another  wife  to  his  first 
All  which  his  Highness  hath  laiU 
before  many  learned,  devout,  prudent, 
and  Christian  preachers,  and  consulted 
them  upon  it.  And  these  great  men, 
after  examining  the  motives  repre- 
sented to  them,  have  advised  his 
Highness  to  put  his  soul  and  con- 
science at  ease  by  this  double  mar- 
riage. And  the  same  cause  and  the 
same  necessity  have  obliged  the  most 
serene  Princess,  Christina  Duchess 
of  Saxony,  his  Highness's  first  lawful 
wife,  out  of  her  great  prudence  and 
sincere  devotion,  for  which  she  is  so 
much  to  be  commended,  freely  to 
consent  and  admit  of  a  partner,  to 
the  end  that  the  soul  and  body  of 
her  most  dear  spouse  may  run  no 
further  risk,  and  the  glory  of  God 
may  be  increased,  as  the  deed  writ- 
ten with  this  Princess's  own  hand 
suflBciently  testifies.  And  lest  occa- 
sion of  scandal  be  taken  from  its  not 
being  the  custom  to  have  two  wives, 
although  this  be  Christian  and  law- 
ful in  the  present  case,  his  Highness 
will  not  solemnize  these  nuptials  iu 
the  ordinary  way,  that  is,  publicly 
before  many  people,  and  with  the 
wonted  ceremonies,  with  the  said 
Margaret  de  Saal ;  but  both  the  one 
and  the  other  will  join  themselves 
in  wedlock,  privately  and  without 
noise,  in  presence  only  of  the  wit- 
nesses underwritten." — After  Me- 
lander  had  finished  his  discourse,  the 


494 


NOTE    C. 


fide  Principis  adrlixit  ac  promisit,  se 
omnia  ha^c  inviolabilittr  semper  ac 
firmiter  servaturum,  in  prajsentia 
reverendorum  piiedoctorum  Domin- 
orum  M.  Philippi  Melancthonis,  M. 
Martini  Buceri,  Dionysii  Melandri, 
etiam  in  prajsentia  strenuorum  ac 
prjcstantium  Eberhardi  de  Than 
Electoralis  Consiliarii,  Hormanni  de 
Malsborg,  Hermanni  de  Hundelshau- 
3en,  Domini  Joannis  Fegg  Cancel- 
larise,  Lodolphi  Schenck.  ac  honestae 
ac  virtuostB  Domina)  Annte  natae  de 
Miltitz  viduiti  defuncti  Joannis  de 
Saal  memorata3  spons<e  mati-is,  tan- 
quam  ad  hunc  actum  requisitorum 
testium. 


Et  ego  Balthasar  Eand  de  FuMk, 
potestate  Cajsaris  Notarius  publicus, 
qui  huic  sermoni,  instructioni,  et 
matrimoniali  sponsioni,  et  copulationi 
cum  supra,  memoratis  testibus  inter- 
fiii,  et  haec  omnia  et  singula  audivi,  et 
vidi,  et  tanquam  Notarius  publicus 
requisitus  fui,  hoc  instrumentum 
publicura  mefi  manu  scripsi,  et  sub- 
scripsi,  et  consueto  sigillo  munivi,  in 
Qilem  et  testimonium. 

Balthasar  Rand. 


said  Philip  and  the  said  Margarei 
accepted  of  each  other  for  husband 
and  wife,  and  promised  mutual  fidel 
ity  in  the  name  of  God.  The  saia 
Prince  hath  required  of  me,  Notary 
underwritten,  to  draw  him  one  or 
more  collated  copies  of  this  contract, 
and  hath  also  promised,  on  the  woid 
and  faith  of  a  prince,  to  me  a  public 
person,  to  observe  it  inviolably,  always 
and  without  alteration,  in  presence 
of  the  reverend  and  most  learned 
masters  Philip  Melancthon,  Martin 
Bucer,  Denis  Melander  ;  and  likewise 
in  the  presence  of  the  illustrious  and 
valiant  Eberhard  de  Than,  counselor 
of  his  electoral  Highness  of  Saxony, 
Herman  de  Malsberg,  Herman  de 
Hundelshausen,  the  Lord  John  Fegg 
of  the  Chancery,  Rudolph  Schenck ; 
and  also  in  the  presence  of  the  most 
honorable  and  most  virtuous  Lady 
Anne  of  the  family  of  Miltitz,  widow 
of  the  late  John  de  Saal,  and  mother 
of  the  spouse,  all  in  quality  of  requis- 
ite witnesses  for  the  validity  of  the 
present  act. 

And  I  Balthasar  Rand,  of  Puld, 
Notary  public  imperial,  who  was 
present  at  the  discourse,  instruction, 
marriage,  espousals,  and  union  afore- 
said, with  the  said  witnesses,  and 
have  heard  and  seen  all  that  passed, 
have  written  and  subscribed  tho 
present  contract,  being  requested  so 
to  do ;  and  set  to  it  the  usual  seal, 
for  a  testimony  of  the  truth  thereof. 

Bai^thasar  Rand 


NOTE  D,  Page  392. 

ROME  AND  GENEVA :  A  LETTER  TO  THE  REV.  MM.  MERLE  d'AUBIGN^ 
AND  BUNGENER,  PROTESTANT  MINISTERS  OF  GENEVA;  BY  A 
YOUNG  STUDENT  OF  LAW,  {  M.  FONTAINE.)  POST  TENEBRAS,  LUX. 
TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH.  WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 
M.  J.  SPALDING,  D.D.,  ARCHBISHOP  OF  BALTIMORE. 

INTRODUCTION. 

While  the  Hight  Rev.  Dr.  Mermillod,  the  indefatigable 
Auxiliary  Bishop  of  Geneva,  was  absent  at  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil, the  ministers  of  Geneva,  under  the  leadership  of  Merle 
D'Aubigne  and  Bungener,  delivered  a  series  of  lectures  against 
the  Catholic  Church,  with  a  view,  probably,  of  diminishing 
or  thwarting  the  influence  of  the  great  Council.  These  lec- 
tures contained  nothing  new;  they  merely  dealt,  for  the  thou- 
sandth time,  in  the  old  staple  of  misrepresentation  and  special 
pleading,  to  which  the  instructed  Catholic  had  been  long 
accustomed,  and  for  which  he  was  fully  prepared  with  a  suit- 
able reply.  Still,  as  the  wolves  were  seeking  to  devour  the 
lambs  of  the  flock,  in  the  absence  of  the  shepherd,  the  zeal  of 
a  young  Catholic  student  of  law,  in  Geneva,  was  aroused,  and 
in  reply  he  addressed  to  the  two  ministers  a  Letter,  which  we 
have  had  translated  for  re-publication  in  this  country.  "We 
were  induced  to  take  this  step,  partly  because  our  old  acquaint- 
ance, Merle  D'Aubigne,  was  concerned,  and  partly  because 
the  subject-matter  of  the  Letter  itself,  making  due  allowance 
for  the  youth  and  inexperience  of  the  writer,  is  well  worth}'- 
of  perusal.  For  reasons  which  will  readily  occur  to  every 
reader,  no  answer  whatever  was  furnished  by  the  ministers  to 
the  terse  and  stringent  arguments  contained  in  this  Letter. 

We  will  introduce  it  with  some  remarks  on  the  city  of 
Geneva,  where  we  recently  spent  some  most  agreeable  days 
of  vacation  after  the  labors  of  the  Council,  referring  chiefly  to 

495 


496  NOTE    D. 

its  present  and  past  religious  condition.  Geneva  and  Berne 
may  be  regarded  as  the  great  religious  centres  of  Swiss  Pro- 
testantism; but  the  history  of  the  former  is  much  more  varied 
and  interesting  than  that  of  the  latter.  It  is  not  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  the  last  three  centuries,  that  Geneva  has 
l)]aced  herself  in  antagonism  with  Rome,  though  her  religious 
prestige  is  now  almost  gone. 

Geneva  is  a  beautiful  city,  with  about  forty-five  thousand 
inhabitants.  It  is  situated  on  both  sides  of  the  Rhone,  where 
this  river,  after  having  formed  lake  Lcman,  comes  gushing 
out  of  the  lake,  on  its  impetuous  course  towards  the  South  of 
France.  Its  position  is,  in  this  respect,  similar  to  that  of 
several  other  Swiss  cities,  which  are  built  on  sites  equally  pic- 
turesque and  refreshing.  Thus,  Zurich  is  situated  on  the  river 
Limat,  as  it  leaves  the  beautiful  lake  of  Zurich ;  Luzerne,  on 
the  Preuss  as  it  emerges  from  the  lake  of  the  Four  Cantons; 
and  Interlacken,  on  the  Aar,  at  the  point  where  this  river  con- 
nects the  two  lakes  of  Brientz  and  Thun.  There  is  something: 
peculiarly  cheering  in  the  rushing  of  living  waters,  especially 
when,  as  is  the  case  with  all  those  above  named,  the  streams 
are  as  pure  and  limpid  as  chrystal,  and  almost  as  rapid  as  tor- 
rents in  their  movement.  All  that  is  wanting  to  tlie  com- 
pleteness of  the  picture  is  the  fresh  verdure  of  trees  along  the 
margin  of  the  waters,  and  this  defect  is  especially  felt  at 
Geneva.  The  eye  instinctively  looks  for  green  foliage  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  limpid  streams. 

Geneva,  with  its  surrounding  country  extending  but  a  few 
miles  in  every  direction  along  the  Rhone  and  both  borders  of 
the  lake,  has  constituted  the  twenty-second  Canton  of  the 
Swiss  Confederation  since  the  year  1815,  when  the  French 
government  gave  up  the  department  of  the  Leman,  which  it 
had  held  since  the  revolution.     For  many  centuries  it  had 


ROME    AND    GENEVA.  497 

been  a  free  city,  with  its  franchises  extending  far  back  into  the 
middle  ages.  It  owed  all  its  liberties  and  privileges  to  the 
good  old  Catholic  times;  and  they  were  placed  under  the  spe- 
cial guardianship  of  its  prince  Bishops,  who  for  centuries  had 
defended  them  against  the  attempted  encroachments  of  the 
Dukes  of  Austria  and  Savoy,  thus  performing  for  Geneva, 
without  bloodshed,  and  through  moral  influence  only,  what 
William  Tell  and  his  associates  achieved  by  arms,  at  Morgar- 
ten,  for  the  mountain  Cantons.  The  mild  sway  of  the  Bishops 
of  Geneva  proved  a  source  of  innumerable  blessings,  during 
long  centuries,  to  the  city  of  Geneva. 

Then  came  the  reformation,  so  called.  This  revolution 
began  by  throwing  oif  the  mild  yoke  of  the  prince  Bishop, 
and  it  was  soon  followed  by  his  banishment  and  the  confis- 
cation of  his  property,  together  with  that  of  the  Catholic 
churches,  monasteries,  and  convents.  The  clergy  were  ban- 
ished, after  having  been  grievously  persecuted,  the  convents 
of  the  nuns  were  invaded  by  ruthless  mobs,  and  these  poor 
women,  whose  lives  had  been  passed  in  solitude  and  prayer, 
were  driven  out  into  the  streets,  and  hunted  like  wild  beasts 
from  the  hitherto  free  city.  The  altars  were  overturned, 
master-pieces  of  painting  and  statuary  were  destroyed,  and  in 
the  midst  of  all  this  abomination  of  desolation  the  7-eformed 
service  was  performed  by  new  comers,  whose  faces,  like  their 
meagre  and  jarring  creeds,  were  unfamiliar  and  saddening  to 
the  astounded  people.  Geneva  became  the  theatre  of  civil 
turbulence  and  endless  bloody  broils.  Its  past  peace  and 
liberties  had  given  place  to  present  anarchy  and  open  tyranny. 

Next  succeeded  the  iron  theocracy  of  John  Calvin,  which, 
in  the  name  of  religious  reformation  and  liberty,  crushed  out 
the  last  sparks  of  both  civil  and  religious  ireedomj  and  set  up 
in  their  stead  a  system  of  blue  laws,  in  comparison  with  which 


498  NOTE    D. 

the  code  of  our  own  Puritans,  in  New  England,  was  mild  and 
harmless!  Patriots  who  had  the  courage  to  cry  out  for  a  por- 
tion of  their  time-honored  civil  franchises  were  stigmatized  as 
Libertines,  were  imprisoned,  and  either  executed  at  the  block 
or  ruthlessly  banished  from  the  city.  Church  and  state  were 
united,  and  one  legislation  controlled  both,  and  that  legisla- 
tion was  the  expressed  will  and  wish  of  John  Calvin,  himself 
a  Frenchman  and  a  foreigner,  banished  from  his  own  country 
for  what  were  deemed  amply  sufficient  reasons.  Against  his 
iron  and  heartless  sway,  Gentilis,  Grouet,  Castalio,  and  hun- 
dreds of  other  patriots,  rose  up  in  vain;  all  opposition  was 
crushed  out  in  blood,  or  by  terrible  pains  and  penalties.  The 
civil  councils'  became  but  the  organs,  instruments,  and  execu- 
tioners of  the  religious  Consistory,  presided  over  and  directed 
by  John  Calvin.  At  his  instigation,  Michael  Servetus  was 
burnt  at  the  stake,  while  the  heartless  theocrat  gloated  over 
his  death  writhings,  and  derided  his  sufferings  as  "  the  bel- 
lowings  of  a  Spanish  bull."  And  yet,  Servetus  did  but 
logically  carry  out,  according  to  his  lights,  the  principle  of 
private  judgment  in  matters  of  religion,  upon  which  his  very 
executioner  professed  to  base  his  entire  system  of  reformation ! 
Geneva  has  been  called  the  Protestant  Rome,  on  account  of 
its  having  been  for  so  long  a  period  the  headquarters  of  the 
opposition  to  the  Catholic  Religion.  But  it  is  Protestant 
Rome  no  longer,  simply  because  it  has  ceased  to  be  Protestant 
in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term.  Nearly  one-half  of  the  city, 
and  considerably  more  than  half  of  the  Canton  is  now  Catho- 
lic; while  nine-tenths  of  the  remaining  portion  have  gone  off 
into  the  ranks  of  Unitarianism  and  Rationalism,  the  latter 
verging  on  downright  infidelity.  The  name  of  John  Calvin 
is  now  seldom  heard,  and  his  last  resting-place  is  utterly 
unknown  ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  his  predecessors  and 


ROME    AND   GENEVA.  490 

co-workers  of  iniquity  under  the  mask  of  religion, — Viret, 
Farel,  and  others.  Their  memory  is  wholly  gone,  their  very 
names  have  well  nigh  perished.  The  principal  and  real  non- 
Catholic  patron  Saints  of  Geneva  are,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau, 
a  native  of  the  city,  who  has  a  statue  erected  to  him  on  an  island 
of  the  Hhone,  in  a  position  prominent  and  central,  and  Vol- 
taire, a  foreigner,  the  philosopher  of  Fcrncx,  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  ;  Avhile  the  secondary  patrons  may  be  said  to  be  two 
other  infidel  foreigners.  Gibbon  and  Byron.  You  hear  the 
names  of  these  worthies  at  every,  step  of  your  progress  through 
Geneva,  and  along  the  borders  of  the  beautiful  lake  Leman. 
Servetus,  the  Socinian,  has  been  amply  avenged,  on  the  very 
spot  of  his  martyrdom,  by  the  very  children  of  his  fierce 
executioner ! 

A  spasmodic,  though  really  very  feeble  effort,  has  indeed 
been  lately  made  by  Merle  D'Aubigne  and  his  associates  to 
revive  in  Geneva  -what  is  called  Evangelical  Protestantism. 
But  it  has  hitherto  met  with  very  slight  results,  and  it  is  likely 
to  have  still  less  success  in  the  future.  As  we  have  already 
intimated,  it  has  as  yet  gained  ov..,  or  rather  retained,  not 
more,  probably,  than  one-tenth  of  the  non-Catholic  population; 
and  it  is  likely  that  in  a  very  few  years  more,  it  will  not  be  able 
to  retain  even  one-tenth  of  this  small  minority.  The  tendency 
of  Genevan  Protestantism,  like  that  of  Protestantism  every- 
where else,  is  downward  instead  of  upward ;  it  gravitates 
towards  the  abyss  of  doubt  and  unbelief,  rather  than  elevates 
itself  to  the  bracing  heights  and  the  sublime  summit-level  of 
Christian  truth.  The  rebound  from  Genevan  Calvinism  to 
Genevan  Rationalism  was  indeed  startling,  but,  considering 
the  weakness  of  unaided  human  reason  puffed  up  with  its  own 
pride  of  self-sufficiency,  it  was  not  so  unnatural,  or  even  so 
very  illogical  as  it  might  appear  at  fiist  sight.     The  active  and 


500  NOTE    D. 

elastic  human  mind,  crushed  down  under  the  weight  of  iron 
Calvinism,  not  unnaturally  sprang  up  again  when  the  pres- 
sure was  withdrawn  ;  and  having  once  rebounded  and  felt  its 
shackles  removed,  it  was  inclined  to  assert  its  freedom  from 
all  restraint  whatsoever,  and  to  revel  in  the  new  born  luxury 
of  its  own  unfettered  speculations  and  theories.  Thus,  Kous- 
seau  and  Voltaire  were  a  terrible,  but  a  very  natural  sequel  to 
John  Calvin. 

Accordingly,  we  find  that  in  Geneva  the  Protestant  churches 
are  usually  called  temples ;  a  not  unsuitable  designation  for 
houses  of  worship  dedicated  to  what  may  be  called,  without 
any  exaggeration  or  breach  of  charity,  a  system  of  vague  and 
bald  Christianity  dashed  with  a  revived  paganism.  Plato, 
Socrates,  and  Epictetus  might  well  preach  in  these  temples,  if 
they  could  only  school  themselves — which  they  might  readily 
do — to  speak  respectfully  of  Christ,  as  a  great  reformer  and 
philosopher. 

Many  of  the  old  Catholic  churches  in  Switzerland,  desecra- 
ted though  they  have  been  for  centuries  by  Protestant  service, 
are  still  grand  in  their  proportions  and  exquisite  in  their 
architecture.  In  fact,  it  may  be  said  that,  in  many  places, 
the  grandest  edifices  of  Protestant  Switzerland  are  precisely 
those  which  were  erected  by  Catholics  in  the  olden  time,  and 
which  at  the  time  of  the  reformation  were  violently  wrested 
from  their  descendants  for  the  purposes  of  Protestant  worship. 
AVitness  the  magnificent  old  Catholic  Cathedral  of  Lausanne, 
and  the  scarcely  less  magnificent  Cathedral  of  St.  Peter's  in 
Geneva.  We  shall  never  forget  the  impression  made  upon 
us  on  our  visit  to  the  latter.  Stripped  of  its  altars,  its  paint- 
ings and  statuary,  it  appeared  to  us  a  grand  picture  of  desola- 
tion, a  temple  instead  of  a  church,  a  shell  without  a  kernel, 
a  bodv  without  a  soul !     How  our  heart  sunk  within  us  at  the 


ROME    AND   GENEVA.  501 

sad  spectacle  of  desecration,  especially  when,  in  reply  to  our 
implied  question,  while  we  pointed  to  the  empty  and  desolate 
sanctuary  and  said,  "  there  once  stood  the  high  altar ! "  the 
elderly  female  sexton  said,  with  a  lurid  smile  worthy  of  John 
Calvin,  "avc  Protestants  have  no  altar!"  Cold  walls  and 
empty  benches — that  was  all.  "VYe  felt  aroused  in  our  souls  a 
zeal  similar  to  that  which  our  dear  Lord  exhibited,  when  he 
drove  the  traffickers  out  of  the  holy  temple.  And  here, 
within  these  hallowed  walls,  which  once  resounded  with  the 
Gloria  in  Excelsis  and  the  Psalms  of  David,  are  now  heard  but 
lifeless  canticles  and  sermons  filled  with  the  platitudes  of  So- 
cinianism  and  Eationalism !  God  and  Christ  has  been  driven 
from  Plis  own  holy  sanctuary,  and  man,  with  his  pigmy  but 
grandiloquent  huraanitarianism,  has  been  enthroned  in  His 
place !     And  this  thing  has  been  called  reformation  ! 

From  the  church  of  John  Calvin  we  went  to  his  house,  and 
here  our  spirits  were  suddenly  refreshed.  What  a  change,  and 
how  unexpected  by  us  until  we  found  ourselves  on  the  very 
spot !  The  Sisters  of  Charity,  with  their  angelic  ministrations, 
now  occupy  the  ample  residence,  where  the  once  great  apostle 
ofunchariti/  had  his  abode,  and  where  he  planned  his  heartless 
system  !  Hundreds  of  Catholic  children  now  fdl  the  religious 
schools  taught  by  them,  and  receive  in  the  very  salons  of  Cal- 
vin the  elements  of  a  sound  Catholic  education  !  Time  hath 
wrought  a  wondrous  change. 

Better  days  have  happily  dawned  on  Geneva.  God  has 
raised  up  an  apostle,  who  is  a  worthy  successor  of  St.  Francis 
de  Sales.  ]\Iousignor  Mermillod  has  already  built  tAvo  splendid 
churches,  one  of  them  the  spacious  Gothic  Cathedral  of  Notre 
Dame,  and  the  other  the  large  parish  church  of  St.  Joseph ; 
and  he  is  completing  a  third  dedicated  to  God  under  the 
special  patronage  of  St.  Francis  de  Sales.  Add  to  these  the 
2 


502  NOTE   D. 

old  parish  church  of  St.  Germain,  restored  to  Catholic  worshif, 
by  the  French  while  they  held  Geneva,  and  Ave  have  four 
spacious  Catholic  parish  churches  in  the  city  itself,  besides  a 
greater  number  in  the  immediate  vicinity.  This  church  of 
St.  Germain  was  the  first  one  seized  on  by  the  reformers,  and 
it  is  the  first  one — and  perhaps  it  will  be  tlio  last — restored  to 
Catholic  worship.  Catholics  will  willingly  build  their  own 
churches,  so  fast  as  these  may  be  needed.  Hcstitutions  of  this 
or  any  other  kind  are  unusual  in  Protestant  history;  and  that 
of  St.  Germain  accordingly  was  not  made  by  Protestants,  but 
by  the  French  government,  apparently  in  spite  of  them.  ■  The 
contrary  precisely  has  been  the  usual  course  of  events ;  and  it 
was  not  without  a  meaning  irony,  that  a  non-Catholic  gentle- 
man of  Geneva  once  remarked  to  a  zealous  Genevan  Protest- 
ant, M'ho  bitterly  comjjlained  of  the  activity  of  Monsignor 
Mermillod  in  erecting  new  Catholic  churches: — "Let  him 
alone ;  he  is  doing  very  well ;  we  can  take  them  for  our  own 
use  hereafter  when  we  will  need  them  ;  it  i.j  much  cheaper  for 
us  to  have  him  build  our  churches  !  " 

We  are  told  by  Protestant  tourists  tlirough  Switzerland, 
that  the  Protestant  are  far  superior  to  the  Catholic  Cantons  in 
culture,  productiveness,  and  general  prosperity ;  and  that,  in 
fact,  the  dlucrencc  is  so  marked  that  a  traveller  may  know  at 
a  glance  when  he  passes  from  the  one  into  the  other.  Sup- 
posing this  to  be  the  case,  what  would  it  prove?  It  might 
perhaps  show  that  Protestants,  thinking  more  of  tliis  world 
than  of  the  next,  pay  more  attention  to  accuiuulating  the  good 
things  of  earth  than  Catholics,  and  therefore  succeed  better ; 
which  would  be  rather  a  compliment  to  tlic  Catholics  than 
otherwise.  Those  v/ho  seek  only  this  world  may  better  suc- 
ceed in  finding  v/hat  they  seek  ;  but  a  divine  Voice  has  uttered 
the  solemn  and  startling  declaration — which  they  would  do 


ROME    AND    GENEVA.  503 

well  to  lay  to  heart — '^They  have  received  their  reward!^' 
Christ  did  not  certainly  establish  His  Religion  to  enable  men 
to  lay  up,  more  easily  and  abundantly,  treasures  on  this 
earth ! 

But  is  the  fact  really  as  stated?  We  think  not.  We 
believe  that  whatever  difference  exists  between  the  Catholic 
and  Protestant  Cantons,  in  point  of  culture  and  progress,  may 
be  fairly  traced  to  other  causes  than  that  of  difference  of  Re- 
ligion. In  general,  it  may  be  said,  that  at  the  period  of  the 
reformation,  so  called,  and  thereafter,  the  Protestants  took 
possession  of  the  j^lains  which  constituted  the  most  fertile  por- 
tion of  Switzerland,  leaving  to  the  Catholics  the  mountainous 
and  therefore  least  productive  portion  ;  or,  to  speak  more  ac- 
curately, that  the  inhabitants  of  the  plains,  being  already  more 
wealthy  and  probably  more  worldly-minded  and  corrupt, 
became  Protestants ;  while  those  of  the  mountains,  for  a  con- 
trary reason,  remained  steadily  attached  to  the  old  faith  of 
their  fathers.  AVe  believe  the  impartial  tourist  will  come  to  the 
conclusion,  that,  other  things  being  equal,  there  is  very  little, 
if  any  difference,  between  the  general  appearance  and  cultiva- 
tion of  the  two  classes  of  Cantons.  We  ourselves  passed 
through  eleven  out  of  the  twenty-two  Cantons,  and  we  could 
remark  no  strikino;  difference  of  the  kind  referred  to.  In  a 
single  day  we  went  rapidly  from  Geneva  to  Zurich ;  passing 
successively  through  the  Cantons  of  Vaud  (Protestant,)  Frei- 
burg (Catholic,)  Berne  (Protestant,)  Basel  (mixed,)  Soleure 
(majority  Catholic,)  and  Zurich  (Protestant;)  and  we  could 
discover  no  such  difference  as  that  stated  by  Protestant  tourists. 
The  boundaries  of  the  Cantons  were  marked  by  no  such  indi- 
cations as  are  so  often  alleged  ;  and  we  would  have  defied  any 
one,  from  any  such  pretended  difference  of  culture,  to  point 
out  the  line  of  transition  from  one  Canton  into  the  other. 


504  NOTE   D. 

Passing  from  the  plains  into  the  mountains  the  tourist  is 
forcibly  struck,  not  merely  by  the  bold  and  picturesque  scenery, 
but  also  by  the  hardy  industry  and  persevering  toil  by  which 
lands  so  very  unpromising  could  be  rendered  even  partially 
productive.  Scarcely  a  spot  is  seen,  even  on  the  acclivities  of 
the  bleakest  hills  or  mountains,  which  does  not  show  the 
triumph  of  patient  labor  over  the  barren  ruggedness  of  the 
soil.  AVe  do  not  so  much  wonder  that  these  mountain  dis- 
tricts are  so  little  cultivated,  as  that  they  are  cultivated  at  all. 
Those  bold  mountaineers  are  Catholics  almost  to  a  man ;  and 
it  was  their  fathers,  the  men  of  Sweitz,  Uri,  Unterwalden,  and 
Zug,  who  were  the  first  pioneers  of  Swiss  nationality,  and  the 
founders  of  Swiss  independence  and  freedom.  All  honor  to 
them  for  their  hardy  courage  and  patriotism,  but  chiefly  for 
their  steadfast  adherence  to  the  grand  old  Heligion  of  their 
fathers ! 

Geneva,  October  10,  1870. 


P.  S.  It  is  a  most  remarkable  fact,  that  since  the  sacrilegious  invasion 
of  Rome,  and  the  virtual  imprisonment  of  the  benevolent  and  noble  Pon- 
tiff^  Pius  IX.,  Geneva  has  shown  herself  to  bo,  at  present,  no  longer  the 
"Protestant  Piome,"  but  the  very  organ  and  head-quarters  of  Fiomo  her- 
self! The  Pope's  Encyclical,  excommunicating  Victor  Emmanuel  and 
his  satellites,  proscribed  and  sequestrated  in  Eome,  by  the  Florentine  gov- 
ernment, was  issued  from  Geneva,  from  which  city  wo  are  bound,  hence- 
forth, to  look  for  the  latest  and  most  authentic  news  from  Eome !  The 
^^ Correspondance  de  Geneve"  may  be  regarded  as  the  official  organ,  at  least, 
the  echo  of  Rome. 

Baltimore,  March.  1st,  1871. 


LETTER 

OF    A 

Young  Student  of  Law 

TO 

Rev.  MM.  Merle  D'Aubigne  and  Bungener. 


Gentlemen : 

I  have  been  present  at  your  lectures.  I  came  to  them  a 
Catholic,  and  I  returned  more  firmly  convinced  of  the  divinity 
of  my  religion.  I  came,  expecting  that  men,  who  have  grown 
old  in  theological  studies  and  meditations  on  Holy  Writ, 
would  show  me  the  truth.  But  my  expectations  have  not 
been  realized;  you  have  attempted  by  sophism  and  prejudice 
to  extinguish  the  last  spark  of  faith  remaining  in  certain 
hearts;  you  have  tried  with  sarcasm  and  irony  to  inflame 
your  auditory  with  a  hatred  of  a  divine  religion,  and  I  have 
seen  those  who  pretend  to  be  the  ministers  of  truth  and  justice 
descend,  without  fear  of  disgracing  their  years  and  religion, 
even  to  deceit  and  calumny. 

Yes,  you  have  deceived;  yes,  you  have  calumniated!  faith- 
ful to  Voltaire:  "Lie!  lie!  there  will  always  remain  some- 
thing behind !"  But,  Gentlemen,  if  some  poor  bewildered 
souls  have  been  led  astray  by  your  eloquence,  I  feel  assured 
that  the  enlightened  part  of  your  hearers  perceived,  under 
your  hypocritical  words,  passion,  hate,  and  bad  faith.  For, 
when  one  defends  a  holy  and  just  cause,  he  does  not  argue  as 
you  have  done;  you  have  asserted,  continually  asserted;  your 
most  conclusive  proofs  have  been  but  assertions.  Ah!  when 
one  feels  that  he  is  the  champion  of  truth,  it  is  with  ]()^;icthat 
he  attempts  to  convince  the  mind,  and  it  is  with  the  sword  of 
philosophy  that  he  cuts  the  Gordian  knot  of  religious  jjrob- 

505 


(306  NOTE    D. 

lems.  But  you  knew  that  the  errors  of  Protestantism  could 
not  endure  the  light  of  true  logic,  and,  thereibre,  you  have 
tried,  in  order  still  to  deceive,  to  contaminate  the  purest  insti- 
tutions; you  have  piled  injury  upon  injiiiy,  calumny  upon 
(alumny,  to  crush  what  Voltaire  called  the  infamous!  All 
the  prejudices  and  hatred  that  your  heart  contained,  your 
mouth  has  vomited  forth  upon  the  purest  and  most  sacred  of 
truths. 

But,  Gentlemen,  your  calumnies  are  not  Avorthy  even  of 
disdain;  yet,  when  I  think  of  the  poor  souls,  deprived  of  all 
light,  who  perhaps  have  been  deceived  by  your  false  philoso- 
phy, I  cannot  help  defending  the  cause  of  truth  and  showing 
those  deluded  hearts  how  you  have  deceived  them,  how  you 
have  seduced  them,  and  how  even  you  would  lead  them  to 
perdition. 

I  challenge  you,  Gentlemen,  to  discuss  this  matter  philo- 
sophically and  with  common  sense,  taking  as  witnesses  the 
Gospel  and  history. 

I  will  not  confine  myself  in  this  letter  to  refuting,  one  by 
one,  the  arguments  you  have  advanced  in  your  lectures;  for, 
a  discussion  should  not  commence  ■with  details,  but  principles. 

I  will  then  confine  myself  sim])ly  to  proving  that  truth  is 
found  only  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  not  in  Pro- 
testantism. For  this  is  an  incontestable  principle:  Tndh  alone 
has  the  right  to  exid,  to  be  mcmi/csfcd  and  to  be  i^ropagaied ; 
error  has  not.  And  if  I  prove  that  you  are  in  error,  and  that 
we  are  in  the  truth,  then  I  will  have  sufficiently  refuted 
your  arguments,  since  the  foundation  of  your  lectures  will 
no  longer  exist. 

I. 

1.  God  alone  has  the  right  to  institute  a  religion.  Man 
has  not. 

Then,  Gentlemen,  who  established  Protestantism?  God  or 
man  ?  An  incontestable  fact  is,  that  Calvin  established  it. 
In  virtue  of  what  right  did  he  do  it?       In  virtue  of  an 


KOME    AND   GENEVA.  507 

inherent  right? — But,  he  was  only  a  man.  In  virtue  of  a 
right  conceded  to  liim  by  God,  of  a  mission  confided  to  him 
by  heaven? — Yv'here  are  your  proofs?  Show  me  one,  a 
single  one,  and  I  am  a  Protestant. 

2.  Jesus  Christ,  you  will  tell  me,  is  God,  and  we  are  the 
true  followers  of  Jesus  Christ.  Yes,  Christ  is  God;  but  when 
did  Christ  establish  Protestantism?  Find  ii  tne  Gospel, 
which  you  have  chosen  as  the  fundamental  principle  of  your 
religion,  a  passage,  a  text,  a  single  word,  which  authorises 
your  existence,  which  approves  of  your  belief,  or  justifies  your 
faith.  I  will  go  further  and  say,  find  me  a  single  page  upon 
which  your  condemnation  is  not  written. 

Oh !  fatal  blindness !  You  have  in  your  very  hands  the 
light  of  the  Gospel  and  yet  you  do  not  see  it!  You  hear 
the  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  yet  you  do  not  understand 
them  !     Open  then  that  book  of  divine  truth  and  read  : 

"Go,  teach  all  nations."  ^  said  Jesus  Christ  to  his  disciples. 
"He  that  heareth  you,  heareth  me;  he  that  despiseth  you, 
despiseth  me."  ^ 

Saint  Paul  said  to  the  Bishops  :  "  Take  lieed  to  yourselves 
and  to  the  flock  over  which  the  Holy  Ghost  has  jilaced  you 
Bishops,  to  govern  the  Church  of  God."  "Obey  your  pre- 
lates and  be  submissive  to  them;  for  they  watch  over  you,  as 
being  to  render  an  account  for  your  souls."  "  And  you  reject 
all  teaching;  your  only  guide  is  the  Gospel  interpreted  by 
individual  reason. 

"Faith  without  works  is  dead  in  itself"*  "What  will  it 
profit  a  man  to  say  that  he  has  faith,  if  he  has  not  works?""'' 
"If  you  wish  to  enter  into  life,  keep  the  commandments."® 
And  you  pretend  that  to  be  saved,  faith  is  sufficient  without 
works. 

"Whose  sins  you  shall  forgive  they  are  forgiven  them; 
whose  sins  you  sliall  retain,  they  are  retained."  ^  And  you 
do  not  wish  to  acknowledge  this  power  in  the  priests. 


1  Matthew,  xxviii,  19.  -  St.  Luke,  x,  IG.         '  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  xiii,  17. 

*  St.  James,  ii,  £0.        ^  St.  James,  ii,  14.        '  Matthew,  xix,  17.        'John,  xx,  22. 


508  NOTE    D. 

"This  is  my  body This  is  my  blood."  ^     "My 

flesh  is  meat  indeed,  and  my  blood  is  drink  indeed,"  ^  And 
you  deny  the  real  presence,  and  trausubstantiation  in  the 
sacramental  species. 

"  Wherefore  labor  tlie  more  to  secure  by  good  works  your 
vocation  and  election."  *  "  Work  out  your  salvation  with 
fear  and  trembling."  *  And  you  believe  in  an  absolute  pre- 
destination, which  leaves  man  nothing  to  do. 

"  Do  penance."  ^  "  If  you  do  not  do  penance  you  shall  all 
likewise  perish."  ^  "  Mortify  therefore  your  members."  ''  And 
you  say,  that  the  sufferings  of  Jesus  Christ  are  sufficient  in 
themselves  to  insure  our  salvation. 

These  passages,  and  many  others  that  could  be  easily  given, 
are  sufficiently  explicit  to  condemn  your  religion. 

3.  But  let  us  continue  our  philosophical  discussion. 

Your  religion  either  dates  from  Jesus  Christ,  or  from  Lu- 
ther, Calvin,  and  Henry  VIII.  If  it  dates  from  Jesus  Christ, 
where  was  it  before  the  Reformation  ?  What  nation  recog- 
nized it?  What  people  practiced  it?  Where  were  its  temples, 
its  ministers,  and  its  followers?  And  if  your  religion  dates 
only  from  Luther  and  Calvin,  how  can  it  be  the  religion 
established  by  Jesus  Christ? 

Does  it  seem  probable  that  the  Son  of  God,  descended  from 
Heaven  to  establish  a  Church,  should  have  permitted  that 
Church  to  remain  for  fifteen  centuries  in  oblivion?  Is  it  pos- 
sible that  God,  who  jiromised  to  be  with  Ilis  Church  even  to 
the  consummation  of  time,  should  have  abandoned  it  at  the 
instant  of  His  death  and  permitted  it  to  disappear  entirely 
from  the  surface  of  the  globe  ? 

4.  I  go  still  further.  According  to  your  own  assertion 
you  base  your  religion  on  the  Holy  Scriptures.  But  it  was 
tlie  Catholic  Church  which  preserved,  during  fifteen  hundred 
years,  and  transmitted  the  Scriptures  to  Luther  and  Calvin. 
Here  then  is  a  dilemma ;  either  the  Catholic  Church  is  the 


*Luke,  xxii,  19  ;  Matthew,  xxvi,  20,  23  ;  Mark,  xiv,  22.  -John,  vi,  50. 

811.  St.  Peter,  i,  10.  ■'Phi..,  ii,  12.  *  Mauhew,  iv,  17.   «St.  Luke,  xiii,  3.  '  Colosa.,  iii,  5. 


ROME    AND   GENEVA.  509 

true  Church,  or  it  is  not.  If  it  is  not  true,  what  proofs  will 
you  give  to  show  that  the  Gospel  is  truly  the  Yv^ord  of  God, 
and  that  it  has  reached  us  pure  and  intact,  without  change  or 
alteration?  And  if  you  cannot  furnish  the  proofs,  your  reli- 
gion is  based  upon  an  hypothesis,  and  you  can  only  say  that 
probably  you  possess  the  truth,  never  assuredly ;  for  every 
hypothesis  engenders  a  probability,  never  a  certainty.  But 
if  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  true  Church,  why  did  the  re- 
formers abandon  it  ?  In  this  case,  most  assuredly,  the  truth 
could  not  be  in  contradiction  with  the  truth ;  consequently, 
in  rejecting  the  teachings  of  the  Catholic  Church,  to  projiose 
others  contradictory  to  them,  the  reformers  did  inevitably  fall 
into  error.     There  is  a  dilemma ;  get  out  of  it,  I  dofy  you. 

5.  Do  you  desire  otlier  proofs  ? 

I  lay  down  as  a  truth,  that  a  holy  religion  should  be  estab- 
lished by  a  holy  man,  and  that  it  should  produce  saints — I 
fay  that  the  founder  should  be  a  saint,  because  the  effect  can 
not  be  more  perfect  than  the  cause;  this  is  an  axiom. 

But  was  Protestantism  established  by  a  saint?  Luther, 
Calvin,  Henry  VIII.,  are  they  saints,  yes  or  no  ?  If  they 
are,  prove  it.  If  not,  your  religion  is  not  holy,  and  a  religion 
that  is  not  holy,  is  not  true ;  for  a  true  religion  is  that  which 
comes  from  God,  and  that  which  comes  from  God  is  holy  by 
its  very  nature. 

No !  I  say  that  the  founders  of  Protestantism  were  not 
saints,  and  history  proves  the  fact.  No,  Luther  Avas  not  a 
saint,  because  he  made  converts  by  the  sword  and  animal  force, 
not  by  persuasion  and  logic ;  because  it  was  upon  the  smoking 
ruins  of  seven  cities,  one  thousand  monasteries,  three  hundred 
churches,  that  he  established  his  religion ;  because  he  shed 
torrents  of  blood  merely  to  satiate  his  ambition,  and  excited 
princes  to  war,  saying:  "As  long  as  there  will  rest  a  drop  of 
blood  in  your  veins,  pursue  as  wild  beasts,  and  consume  like 
wolves  these  miserable  peasants;"  because  he  violated  the 
most  sacred   principles  of  morals  by  permitting   bigamy;^ 

'Philip  of   Hesse  was    permitted  by  Luther  to  marry  a  second  wife  during  the  life 
of  his  first. 


510  NOTE    D. 

because  his  morals  were  so  corrupt,  that  even  Calvin  was 
compelled  to  say  :  "  Surely,  Luther  is  very  Avicked.  Would 
to  God  that  he  would  take  more  pains  to  curb  the  intemper- 
ance which  consumes  him — would  to  God  that  he  would  think 
more  of  acknowledging  his  own  vices!" 

No,  Calvin  was  no  saint,  because  he  tyrannized  over  both 
body  and  soul,^  because  he  wrote  his  laws  with  human  blood, 
and  ruled  by  the  assistance  of  butchers  and  instruments  of 
torture;  because  he  was  the  persecutor  of  Peter  Amcaiix,^  of 
Henry  de  la  Marc,^  of  Francis  Favre,*  of  Jerome  Bolsec;^ 
because  he  was  the  assassin  of  Gruet,^  and  of  Servetus;'^ 
because  his  theological  system,  according  to  a  Protestant 
minister,^  is  "  the  most  horrible  ever  conceived  by  any 
human  being." 

No,  Henry  VIII.  was  no  saint,  because  he  possessed  the 
most  corrupt  heart,  the  most  degraded  and  debased  character 
perhaps  of  his  time ;  because  he  outraged  the  consciences  of 
his  subjects,  by  the  bill  of  the  Six  Articles,  in  forcing  them  to 
believe  under  j^ain  of  imprisonment  or  death  Avhat  he  dosired; 
because  he  dyed  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  Fisher  and  Thomas 
More;  because  he  violated  five  different  times  his  marriage 
vows  ;  because  he  was  the  assassin  of  Anne  Boleyn  and  Cath- 
erine Howard,  his  wives;  and  because  he  was  a  monster  of 
cruelty,  of  debauchery,  and  of  intemperance.^ 

^  Calvin  at  Geneva,  Pamphlet  by  M.  I'Abbe  Fleury. 

"  lie  was  condemned  to  pass  through  the  streets  of  Geneva  in  liis  shirt,  a  torch  in 
his  hand,  his  head  and  foet  bare,  and  obliged  to  ask  pardon  for  whjit  he  had  said.  He 
had  siaid  that  Calvin  was  a  "  wicked  man  ....  announcing  false  doctrine  ! ! !  " 

^  Was  exiled  for  having  said,  that  he  always  considered  Peter  Ameaux  a  peaceable 
and  worthy  man,  but  that  when  Calvin  had  a  spite  against  any  one  he  waa  never 
satisfied. 

*  Was  imprisoned  with  his  daughter,  son-in-law,  and  friends,  for  having  danced. 

^  Was  exiled,  for  having  "  proposed  an  opinion  false  and  contrary  to  the  Evangelical 
religion." 

8  Ho  was  beheaded,  and  his  head  afterwards  nailed  to  a  post.  He  was  suspected  of 
being  the  author  of  a  placard  against  Abel  Poupin,  and  letters  in  which  Calvin  was 
ridiculed  were  lound  in  his  house. 

1  Accused  of  being  a  "sower  of  heresies,"  Servetus  was  thrown  into  prison,  where 
he  remained  for  two  long  months,  eaten  by  vermin,  without  clothes  and  with  very 
little  food.  He  left  the  prison  only  to  march  to  execution.  He  was  burnt  alive  at 
Champel.  *  Mr.  Pouzait. 

9  He  became,  in  consequence  of  his  excesses,  so  corpulent  that  he  had  to  be  moved 
about  by  machinery. 


ROME   AND   GENEVA.  511 

i  sav  tnen  again,  tliat  a  holy  religion  should  produce  saints, 
siiioe  a  guud  tree  always  bears  good  iruic/  and  the  eh^ect 
alv/ays  corresponds  with  the  cause.  Then,  ]\as  Protestantism 
ever  produced  saints  ?  Sliow  me  one,  a  single  one.  And  if 
your  religion  Avas  neither  established  by  a  saint,  nor  has  pro- 
duced saints,  it  is  not  holy ;  therefore,  it  is  not  true. 

C.  But  it  is  not  sufficient,  Gentlemen,  to  have  demonstrated 
so  far  the  falisity  of  Protestantism,  I  should  also  vindicate  the 
truth  of  Catholicity. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Catholic  Church  is  holy,  because  she 
was  established  by  Jesus  Christ.  History  and  tradition  prove 
beyond  doubt  her  divine  and  holy  origin.  But  if  you  desire 
to  deny  this,  tell  me  simply  and  precisely,  from  whom  she 
comes,  and  whence  she  dates?  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
establishment  of  Catholicity  is  an  event  suf&ciently  important, 
to  have  solicited  the  attention  of  the  world,  and  to  have  been 
inscribed  in  the  annals  of  nations. 

In  the  sccoad  place,  the  Catholic  Church  is  holy,  because 
she  has  produced  saints,  and  continues  to  produce  them ;  she 
produces  saints  in  those  virgins  who  pass  their  lives  in  inno- 
cence and  chastity,  in  order  to  have  no  other  spouse  save 
Jesus  Christ;  who  left  the  noise  and  confusion  of  the  world 
to  enclose  themselves  in  the  cloister,  there  to  pray  for  those 
who  have  not  the  thought  to  pray  for  themselves ;  saints  in 
those  women  of  devotedness,  who  mingle  their  tears  willi  those 
of  all  the  world,  who  watch  by  the  bed  of  the  sick,  wounded 
and  dying,  encouraging  them  at  the  final  moment,  when  hell 
tries  by  a  last  and  mighty  effort  to  destroy  their  immortal 
souls;  saints  in  those  holy  hermits,  who  pass  their  lives  in 
every  kind  of  mortification  and  prayer;  saints  in  those  legions 
of  martyrs,  who  have  shod  their  blood  for  the  faith,  and  who 
have  died  whl'e  asking  forgiveness  and  grace  for  their  execu- 
tioners ;  saints  in  those  innumerable  apostles  who,  actuated 
by  iliG  most  sublime  charity,  have  flown  to  the  utmost  parts 
of  the  world,  to  fight  and  gain  souls  to  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ. 

1  Non  potest  arbor  bona  malos  fructua  facere ;  neque  arbor  mala  bonoa  fructu* 
facere. — Matth.,  vii,  18. 


512  NOTE    D. 

7.  This  is  not  all ;  it  is  necessary  to  convince  yoti  that,  the 
Catholic  Chui'ch  is  iu  j^erfect  harmony  with  the  Scriptures. 

I  defy  you  then,  Gentlemen,  to  find  anything  in  the  Scrip- 
tures that  is  cither  contradictory  to  our  faith  or  doctrine.  It  is 
true,  you  Avill  not  perhaps  find  therein  all  our  belief;  but  what 
conclusions  are  you  to  draw  from  that?  None;  this  silence 
proves  absolutely  nothing,  because  the  Holy  Scriptures  neither 
are,  nor  can  be,  the  only  guide  in  reference  to  the  teachings  of 
Christ ;  we  must  accept  tradition  as  a  commentary  and  expla- 
nation. 

Christianity,  in  fact,  was  originally  established,  propagated, 
and  perpetuated  v/ithout  the  New  Testament.  Jesus  Christ 
only  j)reachcd,  he  never  wrote  a  word  ;  Pie  sent  His  apostles 
to  preach,  lie  did  not  command  them  to  ^vritc  a  syllable,  which 
at  least  permits  us  to  believe  that  the  Scriptures  are  neither 
necessary  nor  indispensable  to  Christianity. 

Moreover,  the  Gospel  of  Saint  Matthew  was  not  written 
until  eight  years  after  the  ascension,  and  that  of  Saint  Mark, 
ten  years  after;  the  Gospel  of  Saint  Luke  did  not  appear  until 
about  the  year  51,  and  that  of  Saint  John,  until  towards  98. 
But,  before  the  Gospel  was  written,  were  there  no  Christians? 
And  if  there  were,  what  guide  did  they  use  to  direct  them  in 
the  faiih?     Oral  teaching,  or,  in  another  word,  tradition. 

Permit  me  here.  Gentlemen,  to  reproduce  the  syllogism 
proposed  by  Bishop  Mcrmillod  to  Mr.  Bungener,  in  the  cele- 
brated Conference  of  the  2nd  of  September,  1856,  after  which 
the  minister  declared  and  with  justice,  on  two  diubrcnt  occa- 
sions, that  he  would  not  "cry  victory.^'  Christianity  of  to-day 
should  be  the  same  as  piimitive  Christianity  ;  now  primitive 
Christianity  existed  without  the  reading  of  the  Scriptures. 
Therefore,  Christianity  can  exist  without  that  reading. 

Finally,  open  the  Gospel,  to  be  convinced  that  it  is  not 
sufficient  of  itself.  "Hold  fast  to  the  traditions  which  you 
have  received,  whether  by  word  of  mouth  or  by  my  letters," 
said  St.  Paul  to  the  Thessalonians.^  "^Yhat  you  have  learned 
from  me  before  many  Mitnesses,  commit  it  to  faithful  men 
who  are  able  to  instruct  others,""  wrote  St.  Paul  to  the  Bishop 

1 II.  Thessal.,  ii,  11.  *  II.  Timot.,  ii,  2. 


ROME    AND   GENEYA.  513 

Timothy.  "  Jesus  also  did  many  other  things,  which  if  they 
were  all  written,  I  think  the  world  could  not  contain  the 
books  which  should  be  written,"^  as  we  read  at  the  end  of  the 
Gospel  according  to  St.  John. 

We  should  then  accept  Tradition  as  well  as  the  Scriptures, 
and  the  Catholic  Church  which  receives  both  remains  the 
unshaken  Pillar  of  Truth. 

II. 

1.  Truth  is  always  the  same;  it  changes  neither  with  time, 
place,  nor  individuals.  From  whence  it  is  easy  to  conclude, 
that  the  true  Church  should  possess  unity  of  faith,  and  should 
have  transmitted,  from  age  to  age,  the  same  doctrine  and  the 
same  belief. 

The  Religion  then  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  is  a  divine  Reli- 
gion, should  carry  with  it  the  sacred  seal  of  unity ;  for,  Christ 
wished  that  there  should  be  but  "one  sheep-fold  and  one 
Shepherd — etfiet  unum  ovile  et  unus  Pasto7'J'^ 

And  in  the  prayer  which  Jesus  addressed  to  His  Father  on 
the  eve  of  His  passion.  He  said :  "  Holy  Father,  preserve  in 
thy  name  those  whom  thou  hast  given  to  me,  that  they  may 
be  ONE  as  we  are  one.  .  .  .  But  I  pray  not  for  them  alone, 
(his  apostles,)  but  also  for  those  who  through  them  will  be- 
lieve in  me,  that  they  all  may  be  one  ;  as  thou.  Father,  art 
in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  Us,  that 
the  world  may  believe  that  thou  hast  sent  Me.  And  I  have 
communicated  to  them  of  that  glory  which  thou  hast  given 
Me,  that  they  may  be  one  as  we  are  one.  I  am  in  them  and 
thou  art  in  Me,  that  they  may  be  perfect  in  unity,  and  that 
the  world  may  know  that  thou  hast  sent  Me,  and  that  thou 
hast  loved  them  as  thou  hast  loved  Me."^ 

Thus,  reason  and  the  Gospel  both  proclaim,  that  unity 
should  be  a  distinctive  mark  of  the  true  Church. 

Now,  which  religion,  the  Catholic  or  the  Protestant,  pos- 
sesses unity  ? 

iSt.  John,  xxi,  25.        2  gi.  John,  x,  16,        'St.  John,  xvii,  11,  20,  and  the  following. 


514  NOTE   D. 

2.  Can  the  answer  be  doubtful?  "Where  will  you  find  a 
more  perfect  unity  than  that  of  the  Catholic  Church?  Unity 
of  doctrine,  unity  of  sacraments,  unity  of  government,  unity 
of  discipline ;  behold  the  divine  seal  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
Do  you  not  find  here  one  Shepherd  and  one  Sheep-fold? 

I  cannot  refrain  here  from  introducing  a  few  lines  from  the 
Geneva  Journal,  of  the  27th  of  December,  1869,  where  we 
see,  notwithstanding  its  religious  antipathy,  a  formal  avowal 
of  the  unity  of  the  Catholic  Church.  "  The  hierarchical  gov- 
ernment of  Rome  is  so*  carefully  arranged, .  .  .  that  it  is  impos- 
sible for  it  to  be  seriously  impaired.  Do  not  believe  then  the 
rumors  which  would  lead  us  to  expect  grave  dissension  in  the 
Council,  the  possible  dissolution  of  that  assembly,  etc.  I 
must  tell  you  the  truth,  nothing  of  that  nature  will  occur." 

3.  But  to  continue.  The  Protestant  Church,  on  the  con- 
trary, has  a  diversity  of  faith,  diversity  of  teaching,  and  diver- 
sity of  doctrine.  If  proofs  are  necessary,  recall  only  the  synods 
of  Miinstcr,  Paris,  Bremen,  Berlin,  and  Geneva.  Where  have 
all  these  re-unions  ended,  but  in  giving  a  most  striking  proof 
of  your  disunion  and  diversity?  And  after  each  one  of  those 
religious  debates,  what  could  you  say,  but :  "That  ice  agree  in 
that  in  which  we  do  not  disagree.'^ ' 

4.  From  this  I  draw  the  following  conclusion  : 

That  God,  cither  inspires  each  individual  in  particular  in  a 
free  examination  of  the  Scriptures,  which  serve  as  rules  for 
his  belief,  or  he  does  not.  If  he  does,  the  inspiration  sliould 
be  necessarily  the  same  for  all,  or  at  least  should  never  be 
contradictory  ;  for  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  God,  the  source 
of  all  truth,  could  contradict  Himself,  and  consequently  you 
should  all  have  unity  of  faith  and  belief  If  he  does  not 
inspire,  you  can  not  possess  unity,  because  reason  varying 
with  each  individual,  the  interpretation  should  vary  also. 

Now,  you  have  not  unity.  Therefore,  I  am  permitted  to 
conclude,  that  God  does  not  inspire  each  one  of  you  in  par- 
ticular. 

'  Words  of  a  Protestant  minister,  Mr.  Tesswar,  at  the  synod  of  Berlin. 


ROME   AND   GENEVA.  515 

And,  if  God  does  not  inspire  each  one  in  particular,  what 
is  Protestantism  ? 

It  is  no  longer  a  religion,  but  a  confusion  of  beliefs  opposed 
directly  to  one  another,  a  chaos  of  horrible  contradictions,  a 
perpetual  conflict  of  diverse  ideas  and  opinions.  Thus  we  see 
that  Mr.  Naville  -was  correct,  when  he  wrote  in  his  "  Ministry 
of  the  Christian  Church:"  "The  Reformers,  in  proclaiming 
the  principle  of  free  examination  of  the  Scriptures,  were  far 
from  foreseeing  and  wishing  all  the  consequences  thereof." 

5.  And  cv^cn  if  I  should  admit,  that  in  the  interj^retation  of 
the  Gospel  by  the  individual  reason,  there  is  some  assistance 
from  divine  inspiration,  the  diversity  of  faith  in  the  Protestant 
churches  still  remains  the. same.  Now,  one  truth  cannot  be  in 
direct  contradiction  with  another. 

Therefore,  if  some  of  you  possess  the  truth,  others  do  not. 
But  then  by  Nvhat  signs,  by  what  witnesses,  by  what  proofs, 
or,  in  fact,  how  ai^e  we  to  know  those  who  possess  the  truth  ? 
By  the  Gospel?  But  it  is  precisely  in  following  the  Gospel, 
that  human  reason  has  arrived  at  conclusions  and  ideas  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  one  another.  Thus,  Protestants  are 
compelled  to  say  that,  perhaps  we  possess  the  truth,  but  there 
is  not  a  single  one  who  can  affirm  with  certainty  that  his 
religion  is  the  true  one.  This  is  skepticism  in  religion,  and 
yet  you  dare  proclaim,  that  you  are  the  followers,  the  chil- 
dren, of  Jesus  Christ? 

What !  a  religion  which  by  its  logical  consequences  leads  to 
doubt  and  absurdity,  a  religion  in  which  you  have  as  much 
right  to  believe  what  is  not  true  as  what  is,  that  religion  is  the 
religion  of  the  true  God  !  What  idea  then  have  you  of  God, 
if  Pie  can,  without  injuring  His  infinite  perfections,  cherish 
falsehood  equally  with  truth ;  if  He  can  admit  the  absurd  and 
foolish,  and  have  revelations  contradictory  one  to  the  other? 
To  sustain  this  is  to  sustain,  that  the  most  perfect  Being  is  the 
most  imperfect. 


516  NOTE   D. 


III. 

1.  "There  would  be  too  much  obscurity,  if  the  truth  did 
not  possess  some  distinctive  and  visible  marks/'  said  justly 
Blaise  Pascal. 

A  religion,  then,  which  is  truly  divine  should  be  marked 
with  a  seal  which  no  other  religion  could  bear.  This  seal 
must  bo  miracles,  since  none  save  God  and  those  commissioned 
by  Him  can  perform  them. 

I  hope.  Gentlemen,  that  you  will  not  deny  the  possibility 
of  miracles ;  for  reason  itself  tells  us  that  God,  who  established 
the  laws  of  nature,  can  suspend  them,  as  well  as  a  legislator 
can  annul  the  laws  which  he  has  promulgated.  I  hope  also 
that,  besides  the  possibility  of  miracles,  you  will  admit  their 
reality,  since  you  acknowledge  the  Gospel,  and  on  nearly 
every  page  of  this  book  you  find  an  account  of  them. 

2.  We  notice  in  the  history  of  the  Jewish  nation,  that  when- 
ever God  confided  a  special  mission  to  any  one  lie  performed 
miracles  to  convince  him  of  His  power,  and  also  enabled  the 
person  commissioned  to  work  them  to  prove  to  others  from 
whom  he  came. 

Here  it  is  the  flaming  bush,  which  burns  without  being 
consumed,  and  from  which  cometh  the  voice  commanding 
Moses  to  deliver  Isx-ael ;  the  Angel  sent  to  Gideon,  who 
changes  stones  into  bread;  the  voice  of  an  invisible  being, 
who  calls  to  Samuel  from  the  midst  of  the  darkness.  There 
it  is  Moses,  who  chastises  Egypt  with  ten  plagues  to  toucli  the 
heart  of  the  incredulous  Pharaoh;  Elias,  who  confounded  the 
priests  of  Baal  by  causing  fire  to  descend  from  heaven  on  the 
altar;  Eliseus,  who  restores  to  life  the  son  of  the  Sunamite 
woman ;  Daniel,  who  comes  forth  twice  from  the  lions'  den 
untouched ;  finally,  Isaiali,  who  causes  the  shadow  of  the  sun 
to  recede  on  the  dial  of  Ezechias. 

3.  It  is  plain,  then,  that  God  manifests  His  divine  will  in 
the  most  forcible  manner  by  miracles.  Also,  when  Jesus 
Christ  came  upon  earth,  He  performed  miracles  to  convince 


ROME    AND   GENEVA.  517 

mankind  of  His  divine  mission,  and  He  gave  to  His  apostles 
the  same  power  in  order  that  the  world  might  believe  them. 
Therefore  the  Church  of  Christ,  which  was  established  to  live 
during  all  ages,  must  necessarily  possess  at  all  times  this 
divine  mark  which  distinguishes  her  from  all  false  religions; 
for  if,  as  Pascal  said,  "  it  is  man's  duty  to  God  to  receive  the 
Religion  which  He  desires  to  give  him,  it  is  also  God's  duty 
not  to  lead  man  into  error." 

But,  Gentlemen,  which  has  this  mark  of  truth,  Protestant- 
ism or  Catholicity? 

4.  Of  what  miracles  can  Protestantism  boast?  Which  one 
of  your  founders  performed  a  single  one?  Is  there  one  of  you, 
who  ever  made  the  blind  to  see,  the  deaf  to  hear,  the  lame  to 
^alk  ?  Is  there  any  one  of  you,  who  ever  approached  a  coffin 
and  saw,  suddenly  at  his  command,  an  inanimate  body  rise  into 
life  and  vigor?  I  know  very  well  that  Calvin  tried  to  work 
a  miracle;  but  his  attempt  was  a  miserable  failure,  and  it  dis- 
gusted him  to  such  an  extent,  that  he  never  had  the  courage  to 
renew  the  exj^eriment.  It  is  related  that  one  day,  as  he  was 
walking  with  some  of  his  friends,  he  met  a  poor  woman  weep- 
ing, mourning,  and  pulling  her  hair  in  a  most  piteous  manner. 
The  sympathising  heart  of  the  executioner  of  Michael  Servetus 
and  tyrant  of  Geneva  is  touched  with  compassion  ;  the  misfor- 
tune of  this  poor  woman  interests  him,  he  approaches  her, 
and  demands  the  cause  of  her  tears.  She  tells  him  that  her 
husband  has  just  died;  Calvin  consoles  her,  and  requests  to  be 
led  to  the  coffin.  Arrived  here,  he  commands  the  dead  man 
in  the  most  solemn  voice  to  rise,  but  he  does  not  move ;  a 
second  time  he  commands  him,  but  with  the  same  result. 
Then  the  wife  becoming  enraged  heaps  every  kind  of  injury 
upon  the  Reformer;  "Coward!  monster!"  she  cries,  "you 
have  been  the  death  of  my  husband.  It  was  at  your  com- 
mand that  he  entered  that  coffin,  in  order  to  come  out  at  your 
wisli.  He  entered  it  alive,  and  there  now  he  is  dead  !  "  And 
Calvin,  covered  with  confusion,  could  only  say  :  "  But  do  you 
not  see,  that  she  is  crazy." 


618  NOTE   D. 

5.  Thus  we  see  not  a  single  miracle,  which  can  attest  that 
Protestantism  is  really  the  Church  of  God. 

But  in  the  history  of  the  Catholic  Church,  it  is  by  thousands 
that  we  count  them.  You  will  say,  no  doubt,  that  this  is  not 
true,  but  history  tells  you  that  it  is;  the  tond^s  of  our  Saints 
say  that  it  is;  Loretto,  Einsiedeln,  Fourviere,  Notre  Dame 
des  Yictoires,  all  proclaim  its  truth. 

6.  But  still  I  hear  you  say  that  this  is  not  true;  for  denials 
are  the  only  proofs  of  those  who  have  no  others.  Then  to 
convince  you,  let  us  examine  the  thing  philosophically. 

In  the  first  place,  we  can  easily  distinguisli  miracles  from 
natural  events.  A  miracle  is  an  event,  which  is  an  exception 
to  one  of  the  laws  which  govern  the  physical  world.  But  to 
be  able  to  judge  of  a  miracle,  is  it  necessary  to  know  all  the 
laws  of  the  physical  world?  No,  for  these  laws  are  all  in  such 
perfect  harmony,  that  whatever  derogates  from  one  derogates 
from  the  others.  Thus,  if  I  should  see  a  blind  man's  eyes 
suddenly  opened  to  the  light,  a  paralytic's  members  receive 
suddenly  their  vigor  and  force,  a  body  already  decayed  rise 
full  of  life,  although  I  should  not  know  all  the  laws  of  nature, 
would  you  suppose  me  crazy,  if  I  cry  out  miracle  !  miracle  ! 
CouldyouyourselveSjGentlemen,  restrain  this  cry?  But  sup- 
pose instead  of  seeing  it  myself,  I  should  have  it  from  the 
mouths  of  twenty,  a  hundred,  a  thousand  witnesses  of  diverse 
ages,  interests,  ideas,  passions  and  characters,  what  would  you 
say  then?  To  say  that  it  is  not  true,  would  be  absurd; 
because  it  would  be  necessary  that  these  witnesses  should  have 
all  had,  at  the  same  instant  and  during  the  same  length  of 
time,  the  same  hallucination;  it  would  be  necessary,  that  they 
should  have  all  imagined  to  have  seen  what  they  saw  not,  to 
have  heard  what  they  heard  not,  to  have  touched  what  they 
touched  not,  and  instead  of  one  miracle,  you  would  have  a 
hundred,  three  hundred,  a  thousand,  in  fact  as  many  as  there 
were  witnesses.  Let  us  conclude,  that  man's  testimony  is  as 
reliable,  when  it  relates  to  supernatural  events  as  when  it  has 
reference  to  natural  ones.  And  if  we  can  believe  man's  testi- 
mony concerning  miraculous  events,  will  you  yet  dare,  in 


ROME    AND    GENEVA.  519 

regarding  with  hatred  the  annals  of  the  Catholic  Church,  to 
say  with  a  contemptuous  smile:  "  Miracles  are  but  supersti- 
tion." Do  you  know,  Gentlemen,  that  "  nothing  proves 
better  the  truth  of  history  in  reference  to  miracles  than  the 
multitude  and  diversity  of  theories  by  which  they  are  denied  ? 
No  argument  has  ever  proved  their  falsity,  but  every  one  has 
shown  the  emptiness  of  those  theories  which  preceded  it.  To 
say  that  miracles  are  useless  or  impossible,  is  not  to  prove  them 
such,  but  to  show  more  clearly  that  you  can  not  prove  them 
false."  ' 

7.  Now,  if  the  Catholic  Church  performs  miracles  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ,  ^  and  if  she  alone  works  them,  can  I 
not  and  should  I  not  cry  in  the  greatest  faith  and  admiration : 
Oh  Catholic  Church,  you  indeed  can  alone  justly  claim  to  be 
the  Church  of  God,  you  are  truly  the  guardian  of  truth,  your 
t  jmples  are  really  those  of  the  Lord,  your  altars  are  truly 
ijose  whence  ascend  prayers  and  incense  pleasing  to  God; 
r>r,  you  perform  those  things,  which  you  could  not  per- 
form were  not  God  with  you;  nemo  enim  potest  haec  signa 
facere  quce  tufaciSf  nisifuerit  Deus  cum  eo.  ^ 


IV. 

God  can  not  impose  upon  man  a  religion  which  is  incom- 
patible with  his  nature ;  to  suppose  the  contrary  is  to  doubt 
the  infinite  wisdom  of  the  Most  High. 

Now,  which,  Protestantism  or  Catholicity,  is  the  most 
adapted  to  our  nature. 

This,  Gentlemen,  the  following  remarks  will  decide : 

1,  I  maintain,  in  the  first  place,  that  man  is  necessarily  an 
instructed  being,  that  his  mind  left  to  its  own  force  could 
never  arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  certain  truths.  Now,  if 
there  are  any  truths  which  are  too  elevated  for  the  human 

*  Du  Doute,  par  M.  Henri  de  Cossoles. 

*  He  who  worketh  miracles  in  My  name  can  not  at  the  same  time  speak  ill  of  me. — 
St.  Mark,  ix,  38.  ''  St.  John,  iij,  -A. 


520  NOTE   D. 

reason  to  grasp  by  itself,  they  are  certainly  these  wiiich  have 
reference  to  the  supernatural  order. 

However,  these  truths  of  a  supernatural  order  Protestant- 
ism does  not  desire  to  teach,  she  offers  them  for  free  examina- 
tion, she  says  to  each  individual,  giving  him  the  Bible:  read, 
reason,  and  decide  for  yourself. 

"All  the  societies  separated  from  the  Catholic  Church," 
said  Feuelon,  "  found  their  separation  but  upon  the  offer  of 
making  each  individual  absolute  judge  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
of  making  him  see  that  the  Gospel  contradicts  the  Roman 
Religion.  The  first  step  an  individual  is  compelled  to  make  in 
order  to  hearken  to  these  sects,  is  to  constitute  himself  judge 
between  them  and  the  Church  which  they  have  abandoned. 
Now,  what  ignorant  woman,  or  what  artisan,  can  say  without 
appearing  ridiculous  and  presumptuous,  I  am  going  to 
examine  if  the  Catholic  Church  has  well  interpreted  the  text 
of  the  Scriptures?"  ^ 

Permit  me  here  to  make  a  little  digression.  Can  that  igno- 
rant woman  and  that  artisan  be  mistaken  in  their  interpreta- 
tion, yes  or  no  ?  If  they  can,  then  Protestantism  may  be  in 
error,  and  consequently  it  is  not  the  true  religion.  If  they 
cannot,  you  then  declare  that  infallibility  can  exist  in  a  human 
being,  and  why  then  do  you  proclaim  that  it  is  absurd,  morally 
speaking,  that  the  Pope  should  be  infallible. 

Let  us  make  now  a  supposition.  Here  is  a  man  with  a 
narrow,  uninformed  mind,  but  who,  however,  can  read.  He 
has  an  immortal  soul,  as  precious  in  the  sight  of  God  as  any 
other,  and  of  course  he  has  the  same  right  to  the  truth.  But 
now  how  will  he  acquire  it?  By  himself?  He  is  not  capable, 
or  he  is  infallible.  By  the  teaching  of  a  friend  or  a  minister? 
But  then  he  acquires  his  knowledge  no  longer  by  a  free  exami- 
nation, but  by  tradition.  Thus  there  is  no  alternative,  the 
ignorant  must  either  give  up  all  hope  of  ever  knowing  the 
truth,  or  tradition  will  replace  free  examination,  and  if  it  is 
thus,  a  free  examination  is  not  necessary;  and  if  it  is  not  neces- 

1  LeUer  on  Religion,  by  Fenelon. 


ROME    AND   GENEVA.  521 

sary,  why  adopt  it  as  the  fundamental  principle  of  your 
religion,  and  reject  tradition? 

Let  us  continue,  and  instead  of  an  ignorant  man,  let  us  take 
the  most  learned  in  the  world.  Now  there  he  is  with  the 
Bible  and  his  reason  and,  as  a  good  Protestant,  rejecting  of 
course  tradition.  But  before  he  opens  the  Book,  as  a  reason- 
able man,  he  projioses  to  himself  this  question:  Why  do  I 
take  this  Book  as  a  guide  for  my  faith  ?  Because  it  is  tlie  inspi- 
ration of  God.  But  how  do  I  know  it  is  an  inspired  work? 
It  is  not  by  myself;  neither  my  reason  nor  a  free  examination 
could  teach  it  to  me,  but  it  is  a  faith  which  has  been  trans- 
mitted. And  if  that  belief  has  been  transmitted  to  me,  it  is 
necessary,  then,  that  I  should  take  for  my  point  of  departure 
tradition.  Thus  again  there  is  no  alternative,  tliis  man  is 
either  compelled  not  to  open  the  Bible  at  all,  and,  therefore, 
not  to  have  any  faith,  or  he  must  violate  the  fundamental 
principles  of  Protestantism  to  be  a  Protestant. 

These  are  tlie  horrible  contradictions  to  which  Protestant- 
ism leads,  in  refusing  to  give  to  man  what  is  most  necessary 
to  him,  oral  instruction. 

The  Catholic  Church,  on  the  contrary,  commands  our  rea- 
son to  submit  to  revealed  instruction ;  she  forbids  our  narrow 
minds  to  discuss  what  has  been  ordained  by  divine  wisdom; 
she  wishes  us  to  accept  a  holy  doctrine  in  crying  with  all  our 
sincerity  :  Credo — I  believe  !  And  do  not  say,  that  this  sub- 
mission of  the  mind  degrades  man,  since  it  elevates  him  to 
the  divine  region  of  eternal  and  infinite  truths,  whilst  your 
pride  or  pedantry,  Avhich  wishes  to  discuss  and  decide  all, 
condemns  you  to  error. 

It  is  thus,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  is  transmitted 
from  generation  to  generation  always  pure,  always  intact, 
always  true  and  always  holy,  as  in  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ. 
It  is  thus,  that  truth  is  in  the  reach  of  both  the  learned  and 
the  ignorant.  It  is  thus,  that  the  simplest  child  and  the 
poorest  woman,  when  they  know  their  catechism,  have  more 
perfect  ideas  of  the  Divinity,  than  those  which  the  most  per- 
fect reason  or  the  genius  of  Socrates  and  Plato  can  ever  give, 


522  NOTE    D. 

and  it  is  tlius  that  child  and  woman  can  cry  from  the  depth 
of  their  hearts :  "Confileor  tlbi,  Pater,  Domine  coeli  et  terrce, 
quia  abscondisti  hcec  a  sapientibus,  et  prudentibus,  et  revdasti  ea 
parvuUs/'  "I  confess  to  thee,  oh  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth,  because  thou  hast  hidden  these  things  from  the  great 
and  prudent  ones  and  revealed  them  to  the  little  ones.  ^ 

2.  Man,  on  account  of  the  imperfections  of  his  nature,  is 
inclined  to  sin. 

And  what  does  Protestantism  do  to  raise  up  the  poor  fallen 
soul  ?  A  man  has  fallen.  What  Protestant  pastor  will  go  to 
reclaim  the  lost  sheep?  What  friendly  hand  will  be  stretched 
forth  to  aid  him  ?  What  voice  will  be  raised  to  forgive  him  ? 
Poor  miserable  creature!  He  is  condemned  to  a  continual 
remembrance  of  his  crime,  to  perpetual  reproach,  torment,  and 
shame  !  During  the  day  he  can  find  no  repose ;  at  night  no 
sleep ;  unceasing  remorse  !  Horrible  suffering  which  can  only 
end  with  life. 

But  in  the  Catholic  Church  there  is  a  tribunal  of  mercy, 
where  the  sinner  comes  to  throw  himself  at  the  feet  of  a 
spiritual  father  crying :  Father  forgive  me ;  I  have  sinned ! 
And  then  the  hand  of  a  Priest  is  raised  over  the  head  of  the 
guilty  to  absolve  him  from  his  sins. 

Ah  !  that  revolution  which  is  creating  such  excitement  in 
England,  that  cry  almost  unanimous  demanding  a  confessor, 
that  enthusiasm  with  which  the  tribunals  of  penance  have 
been  erected  in  mnny  churches,  all  attest  how  the  conscience 
is  oppressed,  when  the  penitent  can  not  find  a  place  to  pour 
forth  his  soul's  sorrow,  a  voice  to  pardon,  a  hand  to  absolve. 

3.  "  You  must  count  on  your  weakness  in  temptation  and 
also  in  grief,"  says  the  pious  author  of  Consolation  for  the 
Suffering.  ^  In  fact,  man  is  comdemned  to  misery,  to  tears 
and  to  suffering,  and  the  soul  without  a  support  must  succumb 
under  the  weight  of  its  sufferings. 

Now  what  consolation  or  support  does  Protestantism  offer 
to  the  afflicted  ?     Its  temples  are  nearly  always  shut,  and  the 

'  Matthew,  xi,  25,  ami  St.  Luke,  x,  21.  =  Rev.  Abbe  Nambride  de  Nigri. 


ROME   AND   GENEVA.  523 

poor  miserable  sinner  can  not  visit  them  to  weep  in  silence: 
its  churches  are  naked,  empty,  and  more  melancholy  even 
than  their  silence  and  solitude!  The  sinner  at  least  will  find 
in  his  faith  some  hope  of  reward;  but  no,  works  are  useless, 
and  consequently  patience,  resignation,  submission  to  the  will 
of  God,  are  acts  null  and  without  merit.  And  thus  the  poor 
heart  must  remain  without  consolation  ;  happy,  if  it  does  not 
fall  into  blasphemy  and  despair,  which  leads  to  suicide.  And 
then  if  poverty  is  devoid  of  merit,  the  poor  envy  the  rich ;  if 
humility  is  worthless,  those  whose  duty  it  is  to  obey  will 
revolt  against  their  masters,  and  confusion  and  ruin  in  society 
must  follow. 

Oh!  all  of  you  who  weep,  all  of  you,  who  are  poor,  sorrow- 
ful, broken  hearts,  it  is  to  the  Catholic  Church  that  you  should 
come ;  she  alone  pours  the  divine  balm  of  consolation  into 
every  wound,  lightens  every  burden,  and  comforts  every  heart. 
She  opens  her  churches  for  you  to  pray,  because  she  knows 
that  man  is  always  in  need  of  aid  and  consolation,  and  that 
prayer  is  the  best  means  to  obtain  these  blessings.  Then,  the 
Church  yet  assists  us  by  her  faith.  "  Happy  are  those  who 
weep,  happy  are  those  who  suifer ;  for  theirs'  is  the  kingdom 
of  heaven."  And  the  suffering  heart  knowing  this,  is  resigned, 
it  blesses  its  oppressors  because  it  hopes  for  an  eternal  reward; 
the  poor  do  not  envy  the  rich,  the  feeble  do  not  hate  the 
powerful,  and   thus  society  is  never  troubled. 

4.  Man  is  governed  by  certain  moral  obligations.  There  is 
a  secret  voice  within  him,  which  tells  him  to  act  when  he 
would  do  good,  and  which  forbids  him  when  he  would  do  evil. 

But  Protestantism  says  to  its  followers :  faith  alone  is  suffi- 
cient without  works ;  man  is  not  in  the  least  responsible  for 
his  actions.     - 

Consider,  for  an  instant,  the  perplexity  of  an  honest  and 
virtuous  Protestant,  who  wishes  to  do  something  forbidden  by 
the  moral  law  and  permitted  by  the  doctrine  of  his  religion. 
How  will  he  reconcile  a  formal  prohibition  with  a  formal  per- 
mission? How  will  he  act ?  "What  part  will  he  take?  He 
does  not  know,  and  his  heart  remains  in  a  cruel  suspense  and 
uncertainty. 


524  NOTE    D. 

The  principles  of  the  Catholic  Church,  on  the  contrary,  arc 
perfectly  conformable  with  the  moral  law ;  they  are,  in  fact, 
but  a  complement  and  perfection  of  the  moral  law.  If  you 
but  do  what  the  Church  commands,  you  will  be  in  perfect 
peace. 

Then,  either  the  moral  law  comes  from  God,  or  it  does  not.  • 
If  it  does  not,  will  you  explain  by  what  natural  causes,  by  what 
means  purely  human  it  is  the  same  in  all  nations,  in  all  places 
and  all  times?  This  you  can  never  do.  If  it  has  its  origin 
in  Him,  Protestantism  has  not;  because  the  principles  and 
doctrine  of  the  Protestant  Church  are  in  contradiction  with 
the  moral  law,  and  God  can  not  contradict  Himself. 

What !  Jesus  Christ,  who  came  upon  earth  to  instruct  man, 
to  redeem  the  world,  to  console  the  afflicted,  and  to  give  us  a 
moral  law,  could  He,  divinely  perfect,  establish  a  Eeligion  in 
which  divine  teaching  is  rejected,  the  power  to  forgive  sins 
denied,  in  which  our  .sufferings  are  not  appeased^  and  the 
.  moral  law  is  disregarded?  Again,  could  God  commit  such 
errors  ?  Could  He  have  purposes  opposed  to  one  another  ? 
Who  M'ould  dare  sustain  an  impiety  evidently  so  absurd? 
And  yet  Protestantism  leads  to  all  this. 

5.  Let  us  then  give  the  conclusion  to  which  these  facts 
must  logically  bring  us. 

God  can  not  impose  upon  man  a  Religion  incompatible 
with  his  nature. 

Now,  Catholicity  is  suitable  to  man's  nature;  Protestant- 
ism is  not. 

Therefore,  Catholicity  is  truly  a  divine  Religion ;  Protest- 
antism is  not. 

V. 

Of  all  the  religions  that  exist,  there  is  and  can  be  but  one 
true  one ;  because  truth  is  one. 

The  true  Church  should  naturally,  and  I  might  say  neces- 
sarily, be  hated  by  all  the  others,  and  should  combat  victori- 
ously against  them  all. 


ROME    AND    GENEVA.  525 

JSTow,  what  Church  is  held  in  horror  by  all  the  sects,  and 
struggles  continually  and  victoriously  against  them?  It  is 
the  Catholic  Church. 

Therefore  the  Catholic  Church  is  the  true  one. 

This  universal  hatred,  which  so  plainly  indicates^the  truth 
and  holiness  of  the  Catholic  Religion,  can  easily  be  proved. 

1.  Eighteen  hundred  years  have  passed,  since  Jesus  Christ 
spoke  to  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles  these  memorable  words : 
"Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  My  Church, 
and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it."  ^  And, 
for  eighteen  hundred  years,  these  words  of  our  Saviour  have 
each  day  been  solemnly  fulfilled.^ 

Hell  has  put  all  its  infernal  machinery  in  operation ;  it  has 
exercised  all  its  rage,  displayed  all  its  hate;  it  has  created  tem- 
pests, excited  revolts;  but  its  rage  and  hate  have  produced  no 
effect ;  its  tempests  and  revolts  have  broken  powerless  against 
the  rock  upon  -which  reposes  the  Catholic  Church. 

If,  however,  at  times  the  Church  seemed  to  be  perishing, 
anrl  the  faithful  raised  their  hands  towards  heaven  crying: 
" Dom'ine,  salva  nos,  jjerimus ;  Lord  save  us,  we  perish"  ^ — 
God  replied  to  them,  "  Why  fear  ye,  quid  timidl  estis  ? "  ^ 
"  And  at  His  voice  the  winds  and  the  sea  were  quieted,  and 
there  came  a  great  calm,  et  facta  est  trrmquUlitas  magna."  * 
The  preservation  of  the  Church  attested  the  greatness  of  the 
protection  of  God,  in  proportion  as  the  danger  was  threatening. 

2.  For  eighteen  hundred  years  the  Church  has  existed ;  for 
eighteen  hundred  years  the  cry  has  been  raised  continually  : 
"  The  Church  is  falling  !  "     "  The  Church  is  dying  !  " 

Yet  she  remains  full  of  life  and  vigor,  erect  among  the 
ruins  of  thrones  and  the  destruction  of  nations.  She  has  seen 
the  throne  of  the  Caesars  crumble  into  dust.  She  has  seen 
the  ineffective  rage  of  Constantius,  of  Julian  the  Apostate, 
and  of  the  Iconoclasts. 

She  has  seen  the  barbarous  hordes  of  the  ferocious  Attila 
dispersed.     She  has  seen  the  Huns,  the  Goths,  the  Visigoths, 

« Matth.,  xvi,  18.  »Matth.,  viii,  25.  a  Matth.,  viii,  26.  « Matth.,  viii,  26. 

6 


526  NOTE   D. 

the  Normans,  the  Lombards,  and  the  Vandals  successively 
disappear.  She  has  seen  the  cimetar  drop  from  the  enfeebled 
hands  of  the  Moslems.  She  has  seen  the  crown  fall  from  the 
head  of  the  Henrys  and  the  Fredericks.  She  has  seen  the 
formidable  power  of  the  Albigenses  and  the  Waldeuses  pass 
away.  She  has  seen  enkindled  and  extinguished  all  the  succes- 
sive revolutions.  She  has  seen  the  birth  of  all  the  heresies  and 
of  all  the  persecutions,  and  she  has  assisted  at  their  death. 

Now,  if  all  this  is  not  a  visible  sign  of  the  protection  of 
God,  I  will  ask  you  to  explain  in  a  manner  merely  human, 
how  so  much  feebleness  has  conquered  so  much  force? 

3.  The  world  lived  in  corruption,  vice,  and  debauchery, 
and  the  Church  came  and  told  this  degraded  world :  you 
gratify  the  flesh,  you  must  mortify  it ;  you  lived  in  pleasure, 
you  must  live  in  temperance ;  you  are  voluptuous,  be  chaste ; 
you  are  proud,  be  humble ;  you  seek  riches,  desire  poverty ; 
you  contemn  the  poor,  love  them  as  your  brothers ;  you  hate 
your  enemies,  love  them  as  yourself.  And  the  Avorld  sub- 
mitted! In  vain,  during  three  centuries,  the  Caesars  employed 
all  their  force  to  drown  in  blood  the  yet  infant  Church :  the 
martyr's  blood  was  a  fruitful  seed  to  produce  Christians. 
And  again,  if  this  is  not  a  visible  mark  of  the  protection  of 
God,  I  will  ask  you  to  explain,  in  a  manner  merely  human, 
how  the  conquest,  not  only  of  nations,  but,  what  is  far  more 
difficult,  of  so  many  souls,  was  made  by  a  few  illitei'ate  men 
armed  with  the  cross  alone  ? 

Ah !  but  it  is  not  in  this  manner  that  Protestantism  was 
established.  That  religion,  in  which  according  to  Bucer's 
avowal,  "  nothing  was  sought  so  much  as  the  pleasure  of  living 
in  it  according  to  one's  fancy,'^  could  never  subdue  by  quiet- 
ing conscience  except  through  violence.  It  was  with  fire  and 
the  sword,  that  the  reformers  and  their  disciples  evangelized 
nations. 

4.  Now,  Gentlemen,  I  defy  you  to  find  in  history  a  single 
epoch,  at  which  the  Church  had  not  to  contend  either  against 
the  hate  of  persecutors,  of  princes,  of  heretics,  or  of  infidels. 


ROME   AND   GENEVA.  527 

And  do  you  think  that,  if  the  Catholic  Church  is  not  really 
a  divine  institution,  she  could  have  overcome  so  much  hate? 
that,  when  the  most  powerful  thrones  crumbled  into  dust,  she 
alone,  without  any  human  support  or  force,  could  have  come 
forth  victorious  from  so  many  combats  ?  And  do  you  think 
that,  if  the  Catholic  Church  is  not  really  the  true  one,  she 
could  ha\  v3  survived  those  terrible  wars  waged  against  her  by 
all  false  religions,  sects,  and  heresies?  The  Ebionites,  the 
Nazarenes,  the  Cerinthians,  the  Docetes,  the  Gnostics,  the 
Montanists,  and  the  Manicheans,  have  all  passed  away,  attest- 
ing at  the  same  time  the  impotency  of  their  hate  and  the 
strength  of  the  Church.  After  them,  Arius,  Macedonius, 
Pelagius,  Nestorius,  and  Eutyches,  attacked  the  Church,  but 
their  impotent  hatred  was  but  another  proof  of  her  veracity. 

5.  Even  in  our  own  days,  is  not  the  Catholic  Church 
the  hated  object  of  all  the  sects,  and  of  all  the  powers  of  the 
earth  ? 

And  in  order  to  ruin  her,  do  they  not  wish  to  destroy  her 
visible  foundation,  the  Papacy?  Look  at  that  august  and 
venerable  sovereign  at  the  Vatican  ?  Seated  upon  the  Pon- 
tifical throne,  he  extends  his  hand  to  bless  the  world,  and  the 
world  curses  him ;  he  loves  the  world,  and  the  world  hates 
him  ;  he  desires  to  save  the  Avorld,  and  the  world  swears  his 
ruin.  How  often  have  not  the  mountains  of  Italy  heard  the 
cry :  "War  against  the  Papacy,  Rome  or  death !  and  the  echoes 
from  all  parts  of  the  world  have  repeated  the  cry. 

But  the  Pope,  calm  and  serene  in  the  midst  of  the  tempest, 
defied  the  revolution  and  convoked  an  CEcumenical  Council. 
Who  would  have  thought.  Gentlemen,  two  years  ago,  when 
Pope  Pius  IX.  made  that  magnificent  appeal  to  the  Bishops 
of  the  entire  world,  that  at  the  time  fixed,  the  8th  day  of 
December,  1869,  Rome  would  still  be  the  Pontifical  city, 
the  bulwark  of  Catholicity  ?  Who  would  have  thought  that 
the  Papacy  would  still  remain  erect,  and  that  that  feeble  and 
aged  man  would  still  see  the  world  at  his  feet?  Impiety 
laughed  at  so  much  audacity :  because  it  considered  victory 
certain.   To-day  it  is  enraged:  because  it  feels  itself  conquered. 


528  NOTE   D. 

Where  is  the  boasting  General,  who,  at  the  Congress  of 
Geneva,  declared  so  solemnly,  the  Papacy  has  fallen  ?  ^  He 
conceals  his  shame  in  some  obscure  retreat,  now  that  his  sword 
has  been  broken  at  Monte-Hotondo  and  Mentana.  Did  he 
not  know,  tluit  God  destroys  the  great  as  pots  of  clay,  and  that 
he  crushes  the  proud  as  grapes  in  a  press  ? 

6.  You  desire  Rome  :  take  it,  .  .  .  what  stops  you  ?  Does 
that  old  man  without  force,  whose  life  is  almost  ended,  frighten 
you?  Do  you  fear  that  small  bond,  which  has  ranged  itself 
under  the  standard  of  the  Catholic  Church  ?  Without  doubt 
they  are  heroes;  but  you  have  thousands  of  soldiers  and  assas- 
sins, and  you  can  crush  those  heroes  by  numbers,  as  at  Castel- 
fidardo,  and  make  martyrs  of  them.^  Do  you  fear  France? 
But  France  is  assuredly  not  invincible,  and  perhaps,  not  in- 
flexible :  and  then,  there  is  so  much  hatred  in  France  against 
the  Pope.  What  stops  you  then  ?  You  do  not  know  your- 
selves, but  I  know :  it  is  the  hand  of  God. 

The  past  makes  us  sure  of  the  future.  Forty-five  times 
the  Popes  have  left  Rome,  and  forty-five  times  they  have 
re-entered  it.  And  if  God  in  His  wisdom  should  permit  His 
Church  to  suffer  again  such  tribulations,  if  He  wish  that  His 
Vicar  should  again  go  into  exile,  to  seek  among  strangers  that 
hospitality  which  his  own  people  deny  him,  we  will  say  with 
resignation  :  "  Thy  will  be  done  Oh  Lord  !  fiat  voluntas  tua." 
And  our  saddened  hearts  will  be  consoled ;  for  God  never 
deceives,  and  Jesus  Christ  has  said  :  "  And  behold,  I  am  with 
you  all  days,  even  to  the  consummation  of  time  —  et  ecce 
ego  vobisoum  sum  omnibus  diebus  usque  ad  consummationem 

SCBCUIL"  ^ 

7.  It  is  easily  seen,  that  there  is  not  a  Religion  which 
depends  less  upon  human  power  for  jirotection  than  the 
Catholic  Religion. 

1  "The  Papacy  is  declared  abolished,"  words  of  Garibaldi. 

2  Since  the  above  was  written,  the  Florentine  government  has  wickedly  repeated, 
and  by  overpowering  force  of  arms  completed  the  work  of  spoliation  begun  at  Castel- 
fidardo;  but  the  iniquity  cannot  be  enduring.  Two  hundred  million  Catholics  cannot, 
will  not  permit  the  Pope  to  remain  long  a  prisoner,  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies. 

3  St.  Matth.,  xxviii,  20. 


ROME    AND   GENEVA.  529 

Protestantism  has  for  its  support  England,  Prussia,  Sweden, 
and  Holland. 

The  Greeks  have  for  defense  the  sword  of  the  Czars. 

Islaraisni  is  protected  by  the  Sultans. 

Catholicity  alone  is  left  to  itself,  without  any  human  pro- 
tection. Show  me  a  single  State,  a  single  Prince  who  really 
defends  it  without  reserve  and  through  conviction  ?  There  is 
not  one.  Nay,  not  only  there  are  none  to  sustain  it ;  but  you 
see  directed  against  it  the  hate  of  kings  and  nations,  who  desire 
to  destroy  it  by  undermining  its  immovable  base,  the  Papacy. 
And  yet  the  Catholic  Church  stands  always  erect ;  waving  in 
the  face  of  the  world  her  victorious  banner,  the  cross,  and 
defying  the  wrath,  the  rage,  and  the  hatred  of  '  lankind. 
When  you  see  so  much  human  power  humbled  by  such  feeble- 
ness, how  can  you  not  recognize  the  hand  of  God?  And  if 
God  protects  the  Catholic  Church,  how  is  it  you  can  not  see 
that  she  is  really  the  true  Church,  and  the  guardian  of  the 
pure  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ? 

But  I  will  conclude.  Gentlemen.  If  I  have  spoken,  it  was 
not  because  I  hoped  to  convince  minds  already  convinced,  but 
systematically  incredulous.  These  words  will  perhaps  sur- 
prise you ;  however,  I  utter  them  not  at  hazard ;  for  I  think 
that  serious  and  instructed  men,  that  ministers,  above  all,  who 
have  spent  their  lives  in  the  study  of  the  Gospel  and  of  his- 
tory, and  whose  minds  must  have  examined  all  religious  ques- 
tions, can  not  be  ignorant  of  the  absurdities  and  contradictions 
which  are  found  in  Protestantism. 

If  I  have  spoken,  it  was  with  the  hope  of  showing  to  those 
who  have  heard  your  lectures,  that  your  words  i^ossess  not  the 
least  truth,  and  that  the  applause,  which  you  have  attained, 
has  been  bought  by  vile  abuse  and  base  calumny. 

Again,  if  I  have  spoken,  it  was  not  because  I  was  unable  to 
contain  my  indignation  ;  for  what  is  contemptible  merits  only 
contempt. 

But  I  considered  it  the  duty  of  every  good  Catholic  to  show 
those  who  triumph  at  your  lectures,  and  think  that  we  have 
been  astounded  and  confused  by  your  sophistry,  that  it  is  not 
sufficient  to  falsify  history  to  destroy  the  truth. 


530  NOTE    D. 

But  as  to  yourselves,  Gentlemen,  remember  that  God  will 
one  day  demand  of  you  an  account  of  the  talent  Avhich  you 
have  received,  and  if  you  have  received  much,  that  much  will 
be  demanded  of  you. 

Take  care,  God  is  the  God  of  clemency  and  forgiveness ; 
but  He  is  also  the  God  who  punishes. 

Take  care,  His  anathemas  are  terrible.  He  who  gives  scan- 
dal, let  him  be  anathema!  He  who  deceives  his  brother,  let 
him  be  anathema!  He  who  disregards  the  truth,  let  him  be 
anathema !  He  who  flatters  the  human  passions,  let  him  be 
anathema !  He  who  is  proud,  let  him  be  anathema !  He 
who  seeks  human  applause,  in  calumniating  the  Religion  of 
God,  let  him  be  anathema ! 

In  conclusion,  let  me  ask  of  the  God  of  mercies  to  open 
your  eyes,  touch  your  hearts,  and  give  you  the  courage  to 
defend  what  you  have  contended  against,  and  to  contend 
against  what  you  have  defended.  This  is  my  most  fervent 
desire,  my  most  ardent  wish. 

Receive,  Gentlemen,  the  assurance  of  my  respect;  and  believe 
that  these  pages  have  not  been  dictated  by  passion  or  malice, 
but  by  the  desire  of  destroying  old  prejudices,  and  of  showing 
the  truth  to  the  poor  souls  who  know  it  not. 

A  Student  of  Law. 
Geneva^  1870. 


END  OP  VOLUME  I. 


THE  HISTOKT 

OF    THE 

Protestant  Reformation. 

I  N 

Germany  and  Switzerland. 


AND     IN 


England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  the  Netherlands, 
France,  and  Northern  Europe. 

In  a  Series  of  Essavs,- 

Reviewing  D'Aubigne,  Menzel,  Hallam,  Bishop  Short,  Prescott, 
Ranke,  Frtxell,  and  Others. 

IN  TWO  VOLUMES. 

By  M.  J.  Spalding,  D.  D. 

ARCHBisnop  OP  Baltimore. 

ATol.    II. 

Reformation  in  England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  the  Nether- 
lands, France,  and  Northern  Europe. 

Twelfth   Edition,  Revised   and  Enlarged, 


BALTIMORE: 

Published  by  John  Murphy  &  Co. 

182    Baltimore    Street. 


Entered,  according;  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1860,  by  Rt.  Rev. 
M.  J.  Spalding,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  tlio  District  Court  of  the 
United  States  for  the  District  of  Kentucky. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S75,  by 

JOHN  MURPIl  r, 
in  ihe  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Preface  to  Volume  II. 

IN  this  Volume,  I  have  endeavored  to  trace  the  history  of  the  Protes* 
tant  Heformation  in  the  principal  European  countries  outside  of  Germany 
and  Switzerland. 

As,  among  these,  England  and  its  dependencies  possess  most  interest 
for  the  American  or  English  reader,  more  space  in  proportion  has  been 
devoted  to  the  history  of  the  Anglican  Schism  than  to  that  of  any  other 
European  country.  Besides  an  introduction,  in  which  the  religious  his- 
tory of  England  preliminary  to  the  Eeformation  is  discussed,  four  Chap- 
ters arc  devoted  to  the  English  Reformation,  besides  separate  Chapters 
on  the  Reformation  in  Scotland  and  Ireland.  The  statements  of  the  great 
English  historian,  Lingard,  are  shown  to  be  substantially  confirmed  by 
ilallam,  Macaulay,  Eichop  Short,  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  Agnes  Strick- 
land, and  other  accredited  Protestant  historians;  and,  unless  I  am  grcatlv 
mistaken,  it  will  bo  seen  from  the  comparison  of  authorities,  that  not  one 
important  fact  alleged  by  Lingard  has  ever  been  successfully  contro- 
verted, even  by  the  most  determined  opponents  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

The  excellent  Miss  Strickland,  in  her  Lives  of  the  English  and  Scottish 
Queens,  has  incidcntly  thrown  much  additional  light  on  what  may  be 
called  the  internal  history  of  the  Anglican  and  Scottish  Reformation. 
Though  a  decided  Protestant,  she  has  done  justice  to  the  memory  of 
Mary  of  England  and  of  Mary  of  Scotland  :  and  also,  in  another  sense, 
to  Queen  Elizabeth  and  John  Knox.  Availing  herself  with  much  indus- 
try and  fidelity  of  her  ample  opportunities  for  investigation,  she  has 
published  several  new  documents  from  the  English  State  Paper  Office ; 
and,  what  is  still  better  and  more  commendable,  she  has  dared  tell  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  truth,  in  spite  of  fashionable  obloquy  and 
stcrcolype  misrepresentation.  She  has  drawn,  what  might  be  called  a 
Dcfjucrrcoiype  Ulcncss  of  John  Knox  in  his  relations  with  Mary  Stuart, 
whom  the  Scottish  -reformer  fiercely  hunted  to  death  in  the  name  of  the 
Religion  of  lovo ! 

In  the  Chapter  on  the  fruitless  attempts  to  thrust  the  Reformation  on 
Ireland,  I  have  endeavored  to  present,  on  the  most  unexceptional  Pro- 
tcstnnt  authority,  together  with  a  summary  of  the  principal  facts,  a  con- 
densed but  somewhat  detailed  account  of  the  truly  infamous  Penal  Code 
enacted  by  the  British  parliament  against  the  members  of  the  ancient 
Church  in  that  faithful  Island,  which,  in  spite  of  almost  incredible  hard- 
ships and  the  most  atrocious  persecutions,  has  preserved  untarnished  the 
precious  jewel  of  faith  bequeathed  to  her  by  St.  Patrick. 

The  Chapter  on  the  Reformation  in  the  Netherlands  is  a  Review  of 
Prescott's  Philip  II. ;  and  it  presents  an  appreciation  of  the  stern  Spanish 
monarch  and  of  his  cruel  lieutenant  Alva,  together  with  a  portraiture  of 
the  atrocities  committed  against  the  Catholics  by  the  Dutch  Calvinists, 
who  are  shown  to  have  raged  more  fiercely  than  Alva  himself.  The 
history  of  the  French  Huguenots,  together  with  that  of  the  great  central 


iv  PREFACE. 

tragedy  in  this  history — the  Massacre  of  St.  Batholoinew — is  sketched  in 
the  Chapter  on  the  French  lleformation,  which  is  a  llcvicw  of  Ranke's 
History  of  the  Civil  Wars  of  France.  It  will  be  seen,  that  Catholics 
have  nothing  whatsoever  to  fear  from  the  verdict  of  history,  even  as  the 
facts  are  furnished  by  Protestant  historians,  in  the  comparison  between 
the  cruelties  committed  by  the  French  Ilugucnots  and  those  charged  on 
their  opponents. 

Two  Chapters  are  devoted  to  the  Reformation  in  Northern  Europe. 
These  review  the  statements  of  the  Protestant  historians  of  Sweden, 
Pryxell  and  Geijer,  and  present  a  summary  account  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  Reformation  was  introduced  into  Denmark,  Norway,  and 
Iceland.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  I  have  relied  chiefly  on  Protestant  autho- 
rity, copious  extracts  from  which  I  have  sought  to  interweave  with  the 
narrative. 

In  the  eight  Notes  appended  to  this  Volume,  the  reader  will  find  sev- 
eral useful  and  interesting  documents  confirmatory  of  the  statements 
made  in  the  text ;  besides  some  brief  Essays  on  important  matter  con- 
nected with  the  history  of  the  Reformation  in  England  and  Scotland. 

To  the  lovers  of  historic  truth  I  confidently  present  these  Essays,  com- 
posed with  the  sincere  desire  of  exhibiting  the  Protestant  Reformation  in 
its  true  light.  Those  who  have  derived  their  information  on  this  import- 
ant subject  from  prejudiced  or  partisan  writers  owe  it  to  themselves,  as 
well  as  to  the  cause  of  justice  and  truth,  to  examine  the  other  side. 
Though  I  have  written  plainly,  I  trust  that  I  have  employed  no  lan- 
guage which  may  be  justly  construed  qs  harsh  or  offensive,  and  that  I 
have  sought  to  meet  fairlj'  and  roundly,  if  summarily,  the  various  issues 
of  fact  and  argument  presented  by  the  great  religious  revolution  of  the 
sixteenth  century. 

Balti.moiie,  Easter  Monday,  lS65. 

Announcement  op  a  New  Edition. 

AncHBisnop  Spalding  had  intended  to  issue  a  complete  and  uniform 
edition  of  all  his  worlcs ;  and  he  was  occupied  with  this  task  when  his 
last  illness  came  upon  him.  The  new  and  revised  edition  of  the  IIistoky 
OF  THE  Refokmation,  the  Evidences  of  Catholicity,  and  the  Mis- 
cellanea, which  is  now  offered  to  the  Public,  was  prepared  by  Arch- 
bishop Spalding  himself — the  corrections  and  additions  being  from  his 
own  hand.  To  the  Evidences  of  Catholicity,  as  the  reader  will  perceive, 
he  has  added  his  Pastoral  Letter  on  the  Infallibility  of  the  Pope;  and  to 
the  History  of  the  Reformation,  he  has  appended  an  Article  entitled: 
Rome  a7id  Geneva. 

The  Lifo  of  Bishop  Flagct  and  the  Sketches  of  Kentucky,  which  Archbishop  Spalding 
intended  to  rc-writo  and  publish  in  one  volume,  arc  not  contained  in  present  edition 
of  his  works,  since  the  corrections  and  additions,  which  it  had  been  his  purpose  ta 
make,  are  incomplete. 

Baltimore,  t^cpt.  S,  lS7o. 


Contents  of  Yolume  II. 


INTRODUCTION. 


England  before  the  Reformation,  pp.  17-58. 


Preliminary  view  useful 17 

Earl.v  rrlitjious  history  of  England 18 

EngliiiKi  iiiilflitod  for  every  thing  to  Rome...  18 

Testimony  of  liishoj)  Short 21 

Her  conversion   tlirough   St.  Gregory  the 

Great 23 

The  early  British  Churches 23 

Their  controversv  with  iSt.  Augustine,  first 

Archbishop  of  Canterbury 23 

Morality  of  their  Clergy 24 

GiUlas 24 

Massacre  of  British  Monks 24 

The  Anglo-Saxon  Church 25 

St.  Wilfrid 26 

Testimony  of  Bishop  Short 26 

St.  Dunstan 28 

The  Primacy  recognized 28 

Nomination  of  Bishops 29 

Gruwini;  en  roachments  of  the  Civil  power...  30 

Under  tlu-  .Vuf^lo-Saxon  Princes 30 

Anil  uiiilcr  till-  Xiirnian  Kings 30 

Archbishi.ps  of  Canterbury 30 

Lantiane  and  \\  illiani  the  Conqueror 31 

William  Rufiis  and  St.Anselm 33 

Varied  fortunes  and  persecution  of  St.An- 
selm   34 


Two   English   Piime   Ministers,   Flambard 

and  Cromwell,  compared 34 

General  remarks  and  inferences 37 

St.  Thomas  a  Hecket 38 

And  St.  Kdmund  Rich 40 

Increasiuf;  assiimiitions  of  English  Kings 41 

Statute  (it  I'nivisors 41 

And  of  Pra'iuuuire 41 

Dr.  Lingard  reviewed 45 

And  Bisho])  Short  quoted  on  Investitures....  46 

The  Primacy  always  recognized 47 

Superiority  of  the  Bishops  named  by  Rome..  47 

Protestant  authority 48 

Cardinal  l^angton 48 

And  Lanfranc 48 

Simon  of  Sudbury. 49 

And  William  of  vVykeham 49 

Monastic  Chronicles 50 

Curious  developments 50 

And  tragical  incidents 50 

Modern  histiiric  justice 53 

The  true  key  to  the  contests  between  Eng- 
lish Kings  and  Roman  Pontiffs  in  mid- 
dle ages 54 

Eve  of  the  Reformation 54 

Spirit  of  servility  and  slavery  increasing 54 

Recapitulation 55 


CHAPTER  I. 


Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI.,  pp.  59-119. 


The  way  now  prepared 

The  "pear  ripe" 

Henry  VIII.  the  founder  of  the  English 
Reformation 

Two  theories 

One  of  them  refuted 

And  the  other  defended 

Bishop  Short 

And  the  B..nk  of  Homilies 

Wliat  we  ]iri)pose  to  examine 

Five  (|uestions 

Was  Henry  sincere? 

Auspicious  beginning  of  his  reign 

Defender  of  the  Faith 

The  Divorce 

Henry's  scruples 

Anne  Boleyn 

Sir  James  Mackintosh  and  Miss  Strickland.. 

The  Sweating  Sickness  a  test 

D'Aubigne's  moral  standard 

Heroism  of  Clement  VII 

Noble  answer  of  Campeggio 

Cardinal  Wolsey 

Thomas  Cromwell 

Was  Henry  licentious  and  cruel? 

Treatment  of  his  six  wives 

Anne  Boleyn,  Anne  of  Cleves,  and  Catha- 
rine Howard 

Satanic  cons])iracy 

Catharine  Parr 

Was  Henry  a  tyrant? 

Confiscation  of  monasteries 

Bishop  Short  testifies  again 


Protestant  testimony 84 

Exorliitant  taxation 86 

Atrocious  tyranny 86 

Trampling  on  ancient  Catholic  liberties  of 

England 86 

Hallam's  testimony 87 

Means  of  Reformation 90 

CromwelPs  advice 91 

Royal  supremacy 91 

Cromwell  Vicar-General 93 

Degradation  of  bishops 93 

Testimony  of  Bishop  Short 94 

Imaginary  and  real  despotism 94 

Horrid  butcheries 95 

Fisher  and  More 95 

Pole's  brother  and  relatives 96 

And  his  mother 96 

The  Friars  Peyto  and  Elstow 98 

Hallam's  testimony 100 

Bishop  Short  on  Henry's  murders 100 

A  system  of  espionage  established 101 

Curious  examples 101 

Froude's  idea  of  law 102 

His  defending  Henry  VIII.  and  persecution..  102 

Character  of  the  Anglican  Reformation 103 

The  Six  Articles 104 

Catholics  and    Protestants    butchered   to- 
gether    105 

Cranmer  aids  and  abets 105 

Edward  VI ., 107 

Reformation  has  now  an  open  field 107 

Cranmer  and  Somerset 107 

Gradual  Reformation 108 


CONTENTS. 


Book  of  Common  Prayer 108 

And  Articlfs  of  KcliHioii lOS 

Iniiuit-itioii  cstablislied lO'.l 

Joan  lioilKT  iHiini'd lO'.l 

Ilcr  answer  tci  C'raunier 110 

Barbarous  law  ajjainst  mendicants Ill 

PeojilH  ojiposed  to  tlie  new  religion 112 

Popular  insurrections 112 


Put  down  hy  foreign  soldiers 112 

State  of  luiblie  morals 114 

Suppression  of  monasteries  a  master-stroke 

of  policy 114 

Analysis  of  Ilallam's  testimony  and  rea«on- 

iuf;  on  this  subject 115 

The  three  concu|iiscence8 118 

Conclusion 119 


CHAPTER   II. 
Mary;  the  Catholic  Religion  Restored,  pp.  120-158. 


What  Mary  and  Elizabeth  did 

Mivcaulay's  testimony 

Current  opinion 

What  we  pi"opose  to  establish 

Mary's  accession 

Conspiracy  and  rebellion 

The  reformed  preachers 

The  popular  enthusiasm 

Mary  resolves  to  restore  the  ancient  reli- 
gii"! 

Her  constant  devotion  to  it. 

Ridley's  attempt  to  convert  her 

Steps  liy  which  the  restoration  was  accom- 
lilished 

Deprived  Catholic  bishops  reinstated 

The  acts  of  Edward  VI.  on  religion  re- 
pealed  

A  compromise  with  the  Holy  See  concern- 
ing church  property 

Solemn  scene 

Cardinal  Pole 

His  address 

The  old  Church  restored 

Chancellor  Gardiner's  last  speech  and 
death 

Th"  (jueen's  noble  disinterestedness 

The  spoilers  retain  their  prey 

"Bloody  Mary" 

The  persecution 

The     principle    of    intolerance    generally 


avowed  and  acted  on  by  early  Protest- 
ants   1.30 

The  "original  sin"  of  the  Reformation IW 

Hallam  and  Miss  Strickland 131 

Number  of  victims 132 

Causes  which  provoked  the  persecution 1.33 

Political  motives  and  action 134 

Insurrections  and  rebellions 135 

Mary  not  naturally  cruel 1.36 

Proofs  of  her  clemency 136 

Her  merciful  treatment  of  Elizabeth 137 

Contrasted  with  the  latters  treatment  of 

"   Mary  of  Scots 1.37 

Candid  testimony  of  Agnes  Strickland 137 

Mary  restored  the  Pritish  Constitution  to- 
gether with  Catholicity 138 

Mary's  merciful  treatment  of  Cranmer 139 

The  career  of  this  man  dissected 139 

His  seven  recantations 141 

His  death 141 

Macaulay's  portraiture 145 

Other  provocations  and  palliating  circum- 
stances    147 

Bonner  and  Gardiner LW 

And  other  Catholic  bishops 150 

Miss  Strickland's   theory  on  the  persecu- 
tion   151 

Cardin.al  Pole 154 

Mary's  difficulty  with  the  Pope 157 

Bishop  Short's  estimate  of  Mary 158 


CHArTER  III. 
Elizabeth — The  A\glican  Church  Firmly  Established  by  Law,  pp.  159-207. 


Glance  at  the  four  reigns  of  Henry  A'lII., 
Edward  VI.,  Mary,  and  Elizabeth 

Elizabeth  the  real  foundress  of  the  Angli- 
can Church 

Four  questions  propounded 

The  first  question 

Temporal  interests  and  political  expedi- 
ency  

Elizabeth  and  the  Pontiff. 

Stern  consistency  of  the  Papacy 

Elizabeth  takes  her  stand 

Sir  William  Cecil 

Her  insincerity  and  his  intrigues 

Measures  adopted  for  re-establishing  Angli- 
canism  

Cecil's  plan 

Firm  opjiosition  of  the  Catholic  bishops 

Reiusiins  for  their  alarm 

The  queen  crowne<l 

And  immediately  lireaks  her  solemn  oath... 

The  seconil  qnestion 

Did  the  .\n};liian  church  reform  itself? 

A  packed  parliain(!nt.. 

The  convocation  in  the  opposition 

How  its  voice  was  hushed 


The  public  discussion 170 

Bisho])  Short  reviewed 171 

Catholic  bishops  imprisoned 171 

The  acts  enforcing  conformity 171 

And    establishing    the   Book   of  Common 

Praver  and  Thirty-Nine  Articles 172 

The  cinnch  established  by  law 173 

Cathcdic  bishops  dejiosed 174 

The  non-juring  clergy 176 

Vacancies  in  parishes 175 

Mechanics  appointed  to  read  the  new  service.  175 

Bishop  Short's  testimony 175 

Third  question 176 

Foundations  of  Anglican  hierarchy 176 

Embarrassment 178 

Parker's  consecration 178 

Three  great  difficulties  stated 178 

The  validit  V  of  Anglican  ordinations  at  least 

dmthtful'. 183 

The  i|uestion  of  jurisdiction 183 

The  fourth  question  stated 184 

And  answered 184 

A  curious  "bull"  of  Elizabeth 1S6 

Elizabeth  swears 186 

Testimony  of  Hallam 1S6 


CONTENTS. 


vu 


Penal  laws  of  1562-3 186 

Lord  Montague's  noble  speech 187 

Hallaui  on  Camden  and  Strype 189 

Northern  insurrections 189 

A  terrible  and  bloody  code 190 

Hallam  on  Lingard 190 

Elizabeth's  Inquisition 19'2 

Her  "Pursuivants" 193 

Fines  for  recusancy 193 

The  prisons  filled 194 

And  the  magistrates  complaining 194 

Nobility  and  gentry  ruined 194 

Bloody  executions 194 

Number  of  victims 194 

Bull  of  Pope  Pius  V 196 


Did  not  cause,  but  greatly  aggravated,  the 

persecution 196 

Hallam's  testimony 19T 

He  confirms  all  our  important  statements...  198 

The  rack  seldom  idle 198 

Loyalty  of  Catholics 198 

Cecil  defends  the  use  of  the  rack 198 

The  hunted  priests 201 

The  cluirch  spoilers 203 

Nothing  can  sotten  Elizabeth 204 

Bishop  Short  on  her  rapacity,  sacrilege,  and 

tyranny 204 

Fate  of  the  church  spoilers 205 

Three  other  Protestant  witnesses 206 

The  verdict  of  history  rendered 207 


CHAPTER  IV. 
Mary  and  Elizabeth  Compared,  pp.  208-222. 


Relative  length  of  their  reigns 208 

Their  respect  lor  their  mothers 209 

Their  religious  feelings  .and  conscience 210 

Plautus  in  the  church  on  Sunday 210 

Their  respective  relations  to  tlie  Church 211 

Their  comparative  niimil  cluiracter 211 

Their  disinterestedness  and  selfishness 211 

The  one  merciful,  the  other  cruel 212 

The  one  liberal  in  government,  the  other  a 

tyrant 212 

Hallam  on  Lingard's  authorities 212 

Testimony  of  Miss  Strickland  and  of  Mac- 

aulay 213 

Their     restoring     and     crushing    English 

liberty 214 

Their  foreign  policy 215 


That  of  Mary  single  and  honest 215 

That  of  Elizabeth  tortuous  and  insincere....  215 

Her  motto  "Divide  and  conquer" 216 

The  success  of  Elizabeth  the  chief  element 

of  her  popularity 216 

Herministers  compared  with  those  of  Mary, 

and  particularly  Gardiner 216 

Their  respective  persecutions  compared 217 

Hallam  answered 219 

Macaulay's  statement 219 

Their  deaths 221 

Success  of  Elizabeth  no  evidence  of  divine 

approval 221 

Awful  death  of  Elizabeth,  the  real  found- 
ress of  modern  Anglicanism 222 


CHAPTER  V. 

Reformation  in  Scotland — John  Knox,  pp.  223-276. 


Distinctive  characteristic  of  tlie  Scottish 
Reformation,  compared  with  that  of  Eng- 
land.....   224 

It  works  its  way  from  low  to  high 224 

Condition  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  Scot- 
land in  the  sixteenth  century 224 

Abuse  of  patronage 225 

McCrie's  statement  reviewed 225 

Exaggeration 227 

The  real  secret  of  the  degeneracy —  227 

John  Knox 228 

His  motto 228 

Compared  with  Calvin 228 

His  life  skrtilic'il 229 

The  feiuful  stru.i;gle 230 

Ancient  Catholic  glories  scattered 230 

■What  we  propose  to  prove 231 

The  Scottish  Reformation  the  work  of  vio- 
lence   231 

Assassination  of  Cardinal  Beatoun 231 

Previous  negotiations  with  Henry  VIII 232 

The  Scottish  proto-martyr  Wishart  con- 
cerned   232 

Knox  approves  the  deed 233 

His  horrible  ''vein  of  humor" 233 

The  Scottish  nobles  seek  plunder 233 

The  "  Lords  of  the  Congregation" 2.34 

Two  Solemn  Leagues  and  Covenants 234 

Knox's  ideas  of  religious  liberty  and  tolera- 
tion   235 

Conciliation  thrown  away 2.35 

Burning  and  destructive  zeal 235 


Refm-mation  at  Perth 

At  St.  Andrew's 

And  elsewhere 

Horrible  destruction  and  desolation 

McCrie  defends  it  all,  as  removing  the  monu- 
ments of  idolatry 

The  queen  regent  offers  religious  liberty.... 

Her  offer  spurned 

Knox's  idea  of  religious  liberty 

Two  armies  in  the  field 

Elizabeth  of  England  meddling 

The  qtieen  regent  deposed 

Treaty  of  peace 

How  the  Kirk  was  established  by  law 

Mary  of  Scots  arrives 

Her  first  reception  and  treatment 

She  is  imprisoned  at  Lochleven 

John  Knox  her  relentless  enemy 

He  clamors  for  her  blood 

Glance  at  her  subsequent  history  and  death.. 

Miss  Strickland  and  Mackintosh 

How  she  was  treated  in  Scotland 

She  is  hated  by  Knox 

Her  marriage  with  Darnley 

Sermon  of  Knox 

Who  approves  of  the  assassination  of  Rizzio.. 

He  flies  from  Edinburgh 

Mary  innocent 

A  cluster  of  wicked  men 

Murray  the  worst 

Mackintosh  reviewed... 

"  The  end  justifies  the  means" 


236 
237 
237 
237 

238 
239 
239 
240 
240 
240 
241 
242 
242 
245 
245 
245 
246 
246 
246 
246 
247 
247 
247 
247 
247 
247 
248 
249 
249 
249 
252 


CONTENTS. 


Forgery 252 

Wliitakcr  on  Knox  and  Buchanan 252 

Moral  character  of  Knox 253 

His  death 263 

Quotations  from  Miss  Strickland  confirm- 
atory of  the  above  narrative  of  facts 254 

Mary's  reception  in  Edinburgh 254 

The  "Rebels  of  the  Crafts'" 255 

Tumult  on  her  first  attendance  at  Mass.....  255 

Her  chaplain  narrowly  escapes  death 256 

Mary's  firmness  in  her  faith 256 

Knox  abhors  her  music  a.Tidjoyousity 258 

Malignant  intolerance 258 

Cruel  hard-heartedness  of  the  Scottish  no- 
bles   259 

Who  will  not  wear  mourning  on  the  anni- 
versary of  the  death  of  Mary's  husband..  260 

Church  property 261 

Greediness  of  lay  Protestant  impropriators..  261 
Kno.x's  "humorous"  lament  over  the  desti- 
tution of  the  ministers _ 261 

The  queen  dancing 262 

Sermon  of  Knox  tliereupon 262 


His  interview  with  the  queen 263 

Another  interview 264 

Still  fiercer  intolerance 2(4 

Another  interview  of  Knox  with  the  queen..  265 

He  opposes  her  marriage 265 

Knox's  account 265 

Still  another  interview 266 

He  mocks  at  the  queen's  tears 267 

Signs  and  wonders  against  her 268 

She  is  blamed  for  the  weather! 269 

Knox  calls  her  a  slave  of  Satan 269 

Is  arraigned  before  the  Kirk  assembly 270 

His  answer  and  behavior 270 

Protests  again  against  Mary's  freedom  of 

conscience 270 

Tumult  at  her  marriage 271 

Mary  promises  and  asks  for  freedom  of  con- 
science    271 

Her  eloquent  speech 271 

Darnley 272 

Horrid  plot 273 

Butchery 275 


CHAPTER   VI. 

Reformation  in  Ireland,  pp.  277-303. 


Ireland  a  noble  exception 

England  labors  in  vain  to  destroy  her  faith.. 

Ireland  compared  with  England,  Scotland, 
France,  Bavaria,  and  Austria 

Progressive  cruelty  of  the  English  govern- 
ment  

Successive  steps  taken  to  reform  Ireland.... 

Under  Henry  VIII 

Under  Edward  VI 

Attempts  to  thrust  the  new  service  on  Ire- 
land  

Its  failure 

Heylin's  testimony 

Glaring  inconsistency 

Elizabeth  trying  to  reform  Ireland 

Extracts  from  McGee 

The  terrible  contests  under  Elizabeth's 
reign 

The  O'Neill 

The  revolt  of  Desmond 

And  of  Tyrone 


■Wholesale  confiscation 288 

Confiscation  of  Ulster,  Munster,  and  Con- 
naught  288 

The  Deputy  Mountjoy 288 

Miss  Strickland's  testimony 288 

McGee  mi  martyred  Irish  bishops 289 

The  English  Je'/.abel 290 

The  system  of  colonization 291 

Rather  one  of  extermination 292 

Elizabeth's  land  partnership  with  Essex 292 

The  English  penal  laws  enforced  in  Ireland..  293 
Another  more  formidable  code  established..  294 

Its  details  furnished  by  Bancroft 299 

A  horrible  picture 299 

Other  I'rcitestant  opinion  and  testimony 299 

North  Anierican  Review 300 

Svdney  Smith  and  Junius 301 

Ireland  faithful  to  the  last 302 

The  result  summed  up 303 

Intolerance  nobly  rebuked 30S 

Conclusion 303 


CHAPTER  VII. 
Reformation  in  the  Netherlands,  pp.  304-348. 


Interest  which  attaches  to  the  subject 305 

Prescott's  Philip  II 306 

His  prejudices  glanced  at 306 

The  Netherlands  in  the  sixteenth  century..  307 
Their  highly  prosperous  condition  in  com- 
merce and  manufactures 308 

The  new  doctrines  penetrate  into  the  Neth- 
erlands   308 

Policy  of  the  emperor  Charles  V 309 

His  edicts 310 

He  does  not  establish  the  Inquisition 310 

His  repressive  policy  fails 310 

The  Netherlands  continue  to  flourish 310 

Accession  of  Philip  II 310 

View  of  the  religious  condition  of  Europe 
in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century...  311 

The  "fiery  cross"  of  the  Reformation 311 

It    everywhere    brings   about   a  union   of 
church  and  state 312 


Results  in  civil  commotions 313 

AVhich  weaken  the  cause  of  liberty 313 

Guizofs  testimony 313 

Character  of  Philip  II 313 

The  hereditary  Spanish  feeling  beautifully 

portrayed  by  Prdscott 314 

Sublime  sternness  of  Philip 314 

Wo  have  no  mission  to  defend  him 315 

Much  less  Alva 310 

Philip's  war  with  the  Pope 316 

Prescott's  position  reviewed 317 

ChiHcli  not  responsible  for  Philip's  policy...  317 

Case  of  Caranza 317 

Philip  defies  the  Council  of  Trent 31^ 

His  opposition  to  the  Pope  in  matters  trench- 
ing on  the  spiritual  order 818 

Nomination  of  bishops 31ti 

The  Pope  and  despotism 319 

Good  qualities  in  Philip's  character 329 


CONTENTS. 


IX 


Tlie  Catholic  liberties  of  the  Netherlanders..  321 

Tlie  strujifile  begins 321 

Catliuliis  :niil  Protestants  at  first  combine 

;.puii>t  I'liilip 322 

Tlio  war-cry  Vivent  les  Gueux ! 322 

Matters  precipitated  by  violence 322 

Horrible  excesses  committed  by  i...-  I'ru- 
testant  party  fully  related  by  I'lescolt....  323 

The  Iconoclasts  and  church  spoilers 323 

The  preachers  take  the  field — And  stir  up 
the    people    to   violence — Churches  and 

convents  sacked 329 

Awful  riot  at  Antwerp 329 

The  Cutlicdnil  plundered 325 

Tlie  "  two  tliieves"  presiding  over  the  work..  325 

Its  lieautiful  ornanient.s  in  ruins 325 

The  sacrilegious  fury  spreads  over  all  Flan- 
ders   326 

Four     hundred     churches    demolished    or 

sacked  in  Flanders  alone 327 

Awful  desolation 328 

Irreparable  injury  to  the  fine  arts 328 

What    the   "  beggars"    really    meant    and 

wanted 329 

Their  idea  of  religious  liberty 330 

Reaction 330 

Tumults  stopped 330 

And  an  insurrection  quelled 330 

Impression    made    by   these    outrages   on 

Pliilip 330 

Duke  of  Alva  the  embodiment  of  his  stern 

resolve 330 

Execution  of  tlie  Cutlicilic  Counts  Egmont 

and  Iloorn,  ami  of  ilontigny 330 

William  of  Oran^je  prudently  flies 331 

Menzel's  account 331 

Two  inferences  drawn 331 

Glance  at  the  subsequent   events   of  the 

struggle 332 

Queen  Elizabeth  meddling 332 

Treasures  of  Alva  seized  by  her 333 

A   general   gloom   in  consequence   of  the 

troops  being  quartered  on  tlio  people 333 

And  of  the   imposition   of  new   taxes   by 

Alva. 333 

A  calm  before  a  storm 333 

The  struggle  begins  in  earnest 333 

Privateers  scour  the  liritisli  Channel 333 

Alva  recalled,  and  Recpusi  ns  appointed 333 

Elizabeth  coquetting  with  the  insurgents...  334 
Requesens  succeeded  by  Don  John  of  Aus- 
tria   33-1 

The  Spanish  soldiery  break  through  all  re- 
straint, and  sack  Antwerp 334 


General  indignation 334 

The  Pacification  of  Ghent 334 

Approved  by  Don  John  in  the  Perpetual 

Edict 334 

Discontent  of  Orange 334 

Tlie  Spanish  troops  dismissed  and  recalled..  334 

The  war  recommences 334 

The  Netherlands  become  the  battle-ground 

of  Europe 334 

The  Catholic  provinces  compelled  to  sepa- 
rate from  the  Protestant 335 

Outrages  on  their  churches  and  themselves 

committed  byCasimir,the  allyofOrange..  335 
An   army   of  Lutheran    Huns — Alexander 

Farnese 338 

Brilliant  in  the  cabinet  as  in  the  field 337 

Renews  the  Perpetual  Edict 337 

And  attaches  the  Catholic  Provinces  to  his 

government 337 

Philip  issues  his  ban  against  Orange 337 

Who  replies  with  a  declaration  of  independ- 
ence    337 

He  is  assas.sinated 337 

Atrocities  committed  against  the  Catholics..  337 

Menzel  and  Motley 339 

Dutch  Catholics  exterminated 339 

Horrid  excesses 339 

"Better  Turks  than  Papists" 339 

Lutherans  do  not  sympathize  with   their 

Dutch  brethren....'. 340 

The  Catholic  religion  suppressed 340 

Diplomacy  of  Orange 341 

His  character 341 

The  butcher  Sonoy S42 

His  horrible  barbarities 343 

Orange  screens  him  from  punishment 344 

Van  der  Marck,   his    predecessor    in    tlie 

butchery 344 

He  slays  more  than  Alva 345 

Testimony  of  Kerroux ■,..  345 

The  subsequent  history  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
public   345 

Final  result  of  the  struggle 346 

Gomarists  and  Arminian.s 346 

King  James  I.  of  England  intermeddling...  346 

Synod  of  Dort 346 

Grotius  persecuted 346 

The  patriot  Barnevelt  beheaded 346 

Many  Protestants  banished 346 

Recapitulation 346 

Fiiur  conclusions  reached 346 

Religious    liberty,  as    understood  by  the 

Dutch  Calvinists 347 

And  as  exhibited  in  their  acts 348 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


Rkformatiox  in  France — The  Huguenots,  pp.  349-393. 


The  whole  history  of  the  French  Reforma- 
tion told  in  two  sentences 350 

Origin  of  the  Huguenots 351 

Calvin  the  founder  and  father  of  French 

Protestantism 352 

Leopold   Ranke's   History  of  the    French 

Civil  Wars  reviewed  in  this  chapter 352 

Lefevro  d'Estaples  the  first  forerunner  of 

Reformation 352 

A  Humanist,  like  Erasmus 353 

Ranke's  portraiture  ct'  him 353 

Ranke  an  intense  I'mtestaiit 353 

William  ]5ri(;oniiet,  Hishop  of  Moaux 353 

The  University  of  the  Sorbonne 354 


The  delegation  for  examining  matters  of 

faith 355 

Francis  1 355 

His  volatile  character  encourages  the  Hu- 
manists and  the  reformers 356 

The  Anabaptists  in  Paris 356 

The  state  policy  of  Francis  tortuous  and 

unprincipled 356 

His  sister.  Queen  Margaret  of  Navarro,  an 

open  friend  of  the  new  gospelers 356 

Her  poetry  and  writings 356 

The  Concordat 356 

And  the  grievous  abuses  which  grew  out  of 
its  perversion  by  the  court 357 


CONTENTS. 


Court  patron!ip:e  the  real  source  of  the  evil...  357 

Ruiikus  testimony 358 

Ki'iiiarks  on  the  great  question  of  Investi- 

tmcs 358 

Hciny  II.,  Fritncis  II..  and  Henry  III 358 

Tlie  (iticcn  re;;(Mit  Catherine  tie  Meilicis 359 

Henry  of  Navarre 3ti0 

Calvin  intriguing  from  Geneva 360 

And  Elizabeth  from  England 360 

The  contest  fairly  begins 360 

Plots,  intrigues,  and  threatened  insurrec- 

tioas 360 

Tortuous  and  unprincipled  policy  of  Cath- 
erine   360 

Conspiracy  of  Amboise 360 

Account  of  Lingard  and  Ranke 361 

Calvin's  agency  examined 362 

Elizabeth  at  the  bottom  of  it 362 

Throckmorton's  interview  with  Antoino  de 

liourbon 362 

IJanke's  statement  examined 362 

Confirmation    of  Lingard's    statement    by 
Morley,  in  his  Life  of"  Palissy  the  Potter"..  .362 

Lingard's  authorities 364 

Ranke  sul)Stautially  confirms  Lingard  and 

Murlc-y 364 

The  conspiracy  defeated  by  Guise,  and  the 

IIui^ucnHt  leailiTs  executed 364 

Eli/,;iiictli's  (l..ulilr  policy 365 

Singular  ilcchuaticni  ot  peacf .' 365 

Warlike  attitude  of  Conde 365 

The  more  the  Huguenots  gain,  the  more 

tliey  ask 366 

Their  liliertv  secured,  but  they  wish  to  crush 

that  of  iitliers 366 

Who  began  the  war? 366 

Aftair  at  Vassy 367 

Ranke  on  the  Duke  of  Guise 307 

The  civil  war  breaks  out 367 

Elizal>eth  aids  the  Huguenots,  who  deliver 

up  to  lier  Havre  and  Dieppe 368 

First  caniiiaign 369 

Battle  of  Dreux 370 

The  two  commanding  generals  taken  pri- 
soners   370 

Guise  and  Culigny 370 

Sic^e  c,f  Orleans 370 

Assassinaliim  of  the  Duke  of  Guise,  brought 

about  Ipv  Coligny 370 

Sudden  iiacilieation 371 

Elizalieth  Inilcd .371 

The  pacification  broken  by  the  Huguenots..  371 


Attempt  to  seize  the  king  at  Monceanx 371 

Its  failure 372 

The  English  ambassador  implicated 372 

Treaty  of  Bayonne  a  fabrication 372 

Lingard,  Hallam,  Ranke,  and  Mackintosh 

alleged 372 

Second  civil  war 372 

The  third  one 373 

Third  general  pacification 374 

Marriage  concluded  between  the  King  of 
Navarre,  and  the  sister  of  Charles  IX.  of 

France 374 

Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew 374 

Lingard's  account 375 

And  Ranke's 376 

Dispatches  of  the  papal   nuncio  at  Paris 

settle  the  question  of  premeditation 377 

Nundjer  of  victims 378 

Religion  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  massa- 
cre   379 

The  Pope 380 

The  Catholic  bishops  and  clergy 380 

Previous  a)trocities  committed  by  Hugue- 
nots   380 

The  Michelade 381 

The  ferocious  Baron  d'Adrets 382 

His  barbarities  against  Catholics 383 

Events  succeeding  the  massacre 385 

The  Huguenots  seize  Rochelle 386 

Renewed  pacifications 386 

.\nd  new  civil  wars 386 

'I  be  Huguenot  Confederacy 386 

And  the  Catholic  League 387 

Assassination  of  Henry  III 387 

And  accession  of  Henry  IV 387 

He  becomes  a  Catholic  on  the  advice  of  the 

Huguenots! 3S8 

Publishes  the  Edict  of  Nantes 388 

Its  revocation  by  Louis  XIV 388 

Motives  for  the  revocation 389 

Did  it  impair  tlic  iimsperity  of  France? 390 

Number  of  Iluguciidt  exiles 390 

Testimony  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  and  of  • 

Caveirac 391 

Atrocities  on  both  sides 391 

Those   of   Huguenots   began    at    an   early 

period 391 

D'Aubigne 391 

The  wool-comber  Leclerc 391 

Recapitulation 393 

The  French  Reformation  and  the  French 
Revolution 393 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Reformation  in  Sweden,  pp.  394-437. 


Keformation  in  Sweden  the  work  of  the 

crown 395 

Gustaf  Wasa  its  author 395 

Conversion  and  civilization  of  Sweden 396 

Its  bishoprics 397 

And  early  .sanctity .397 

Upsala  the  metropolis 397 

Union  of  Calniar 397 

Sweden  reluctant  to  submit 398 

The  Stures  administrators 399 

Contests  and  a  compromise 399 

The  families  of  Sture  and  Trolle 400 

The  fend  between  them 400 

Arehhishop  Trolle  dei)osed  bv  the  diet 400 

Bishop  of  Linkoiiing 401 

The  Po])e   excommunicates  all   who  were 
concerned 401 


The  tyrant  Christian  II 401 

The  "Blood  Bath"  of  Stockholm 401 

Bishop  of  Linkoping  escapes 402 

Gustaf  AVasa,  the  deliverer  of  Sweden 402 

His  treachery  in  breaking  his  parole 403 

His   remarkable   adventures   in   Northern 

Sweden 404 

His  eliKpient  address  from  a  tombstone 404 

Popular  enthusiasm 405 

The  army  of  independence 405 

The  Catholic  bishops 405 

Wasa  intriguing  with  them  and  witli  the 

nobles 405 

Employs  force  when  persuasion  fails 400 

His  army  of  foreign  mercenaries 405 

He  appoints  new  bishops,  and  reorganizes 

the  diet 406 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


He  is  efected  king 406 

Deciden  to  rob  the  Church 407 

Turns  reformer 407 

The  two  brothers  Olaus  and  Lawrence 408 

Beginning  the  work  of  sacrilege 409 

Wasa  deposes  and  appoints  bishops 409 

The  Anabaptists 410 

The  Archbishop  of  Upsala 412 

The  peasants  and  the  Chapter  of  Upsala 413 

Manoeuvring  of  Wasa  to  bend  or  oust  the 

archbishop 414 

He  deposes  him  and  expels  him  from  Swe- 
den   415 

The  exile  and  death  of  the  archbishop 416 

Two  bishops  mocked  and  put  to  death 416 

The  foreign  troops  furnish  the  key  to  AVasa's 

position 417 

Diet  of  Westeras 418 

The  Catholic  religion  abolished 419 

And  Wasa  declared  supreme  in  church  and 

state 420 

Diet  of  Orebro  completes  the  work  of  de- 
struction   421 

Lament  of  the  people 422 


Exile  and  death  of  Bishop  Brask 422 

An  extraordinary  pastoral  visitation 423 

Watching  and  preying 423 

Wholesale  confiscation 424 

New  archbishop  consecrated 424 

Rebellions 425 

Sacrilege  and  taxation 426 

Confiscation  of  church  bells 426 

The  Dalmen 427 

How  disaffection  was  put  down 427 

The  priests  beheaded 428 

How  the  popular  grievances  were  redressed..  428 

Confirmatory  testimony  of  Geijer 429 

Wasa  and  Henry  VIII.  compared 432 

Avarice  of  Wasa 433 

His  hard  swearing 434 

How  he  was  relniked  by  the  two  brothers...  435 

And  how  he  punished  them 436 

The  curse  of  sacrilege 436 

Family  of  Wasa 436 

His  death 436 

Immorality  of  Sweden 436 

Testimony  of  Bayard  Taylor 436 

Conclusion 437 


CHAPTER  X. 

Reformation  in  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Iceland,  pp.  438-454. 


Reformation  in  these  countries  similar  to 

that  in  Sweden 438 

That  of  Denmark  advised  by  Gustaf  Wasa..  439 

Christian  II 439 

His  attempt  to  introduce  Lutheranism 439 

His  injustice  to  the  Church 440 

Humane  provisions  in  his  code  of  laws 440 

The  peasants  liberated 441 

The  nobles  enraged 441 

He  is  deposed 441 

Frederick   I.   begins   the   Reformation    by 

crushing  popular  liberty 441 

And  by  violating  his  solemn  oath 442 

Protestant  testimony 442 

His  measures  for  this  purpose 443 

Contest  after  his  death 444 

Christian  III.  succeeds  him 445 

And  completes  the  work  of  the  Reforma- 
tion in  Denmark 445 

A  Catholic  confessor  and  martyr 446 

The  new  church  organization 440 

Terrible  penal  laws  against  Catholics 446 

Recapitulation 447 


Norway 448 

Determined  opposition  to  the  new  gospel...  448 

How  it  was  quelled  by  force 449 

Penal  laws 450 

Firmness  of  the  monks 450 

Norwegian  independence  destroyed 450 

The  Reformation   and  despotism   triumph 

together 450 

Religious  liberty,  as  understood  in  Norway..  450 

The  bishop  of  the  North  Pole 450 

Interesting  anecdote  by  Bayard  Taylor 451 

Iceland 451 

Its  discovery  and  conversion  to  Christianity..  451 

Its  golden  age 452 

The  great  pestilence 453 

Its  annexation  to  Denmark 463 

The  Reformation  introduced  by  violence....  453 

The  last  Catholic  bi.shop  put  to  death 453 

Its  two  old  Catholic  sees  abolished 454 

Its  decline  since  that  period 454 

The  North  and  the  South 454 

Conclusion =., 454 


NOTES  AND  DOCUMENTS. 

Note  A. — Articles  of  Religion,  and  Book  of  Common  Prater 45<) 

Note  B. — Anglican  Ordinations 459 

Note  C. — Instruments  and  Method  of  Torture  under  Elizabeth 473 

Note  D. — The  Fate  and  Punishment  of  the  Church  Robbers 474 

Note  E. — Sanders  on  the  Anglican  Reformation 483 

Note  F. — Moral  Character  of  John  Knox 489 

Note  G. — Innocence  of  Mart,  Queen  of  Scots 490 

Note  H.— The  Coronation  Oath  of  British  Klnqs  and  Queens &Oft 


HISTOE Y 

OF  THE 

PROTESTANT   REFORMATION. 


INTRODUCTION. 

ENGLAND  BEFORE  THE  REFORMATION. 

Pbeliminary  view  useful — Early  religious  history  of  England  —  Eng 
land  indebted  for  every  thing  to  Rome — Testintiony  of  Bishop  Short — 
Her  conversion  through  St.  Gregory  the  Great — The  early  British 
Churches — Their  controversy  with  St.  Augustine,  first  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  —  Morality  of  their  Clergy  —  Gildas  —  Massacre  of  British 
Monks  —  The  Anglo-Saxon  Church— St.  Wilfrid— And  St.  Dunstan— 
The  Primacy  recognized — Testimony  of  Bishop  Short — Nomination  of 
Bishops — Growing  encroachments  of  the  Civil  power — Under  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Princes — And  under  the  Norman  Kings — Archbishops  of  Canter- 
bury— Lanfranc  and  William  the  Conqueror — William  Rufus  and  St. 
Anselm — Varied  fortunes  and  persecution  of  St.  Anselm — Two  English 
Prime  Ministers,  Flambard  and  Cromwell,  compared — General  remarks 
and  inferences — St.  Thomas  A  Becket — And  St.  Edmund  Rich — Increas- 
ing assumptions  of  English  Kings — Statute  of  Provisors — And  of  Prse- 
munire — The  Primacy  always  recognized — Dr.  Lingard  reviewed — And 
Bishop  Short  quoted  on  Investitures — Superiority  of  the  Bishops  named 
by  Rome — Protestant  authority — Cardinal  Langton — And  Lanfranc — 
Simon  of  Sudbury — And  William  of  Wykeham — Monastic  Chronicles — 
Curious  developments — And  tragical  incidents — Modern  historic  justice 
— The  true  key  to  the  contests  between  English  Kings  and  Roman 
Pontiffs  in  middle  ages — Eve  of  the  Reformation — Spirit  of  servility  and 
slavery  increasing — Recapitulation. 

A  SUMMARY  view  of  the  religious  condition  of  England 
before  the  Reformation  would  seem  necessary,  to  enable  us 
to  understand  how  it  was  that,  after  the  first  quarter  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  almost  the  whole  Island  was  so  suddenly 
drawn  away  from  the  Catholic  Church  into  the  vortex  of  the 
VOL.  II. — 2  ( 17  ) 


18  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

new  religious  opinions.  Of  the  English  Catholic  bishops  of 
the  time,  but  one  stood  firm  and  unyielding  to  the  last ;  all 
the  rest  showed  themselves  ready,  however  reluctantly,  to  do 
the  bidding  of  Henry  VIII.,  in  opposition  to  the  Pope  and 
the  Church.  How  is  this  singular  fact  to  be  accounted  for 
and  explained  ?  There  must  surely  have  been  something 
sadly  out  of  joint  and  grievously  wrong  somewhere,  to  bring 
about  so  sudden  and  so  general  a  defection  from  the  Church 
uf  the  English  body  of  bishops.  What  that  wrong  was,  our 
readers  will  probably  be  better  able  to  pronounce,  after  they 
will  have  read  the  facts  from  previous  English  history,  which 
will  be  contained  in  this  Introduction. 

We  do  not,  of  course,  propose  to  furnish  a  complete  and  a 
connected  summary  of  the  religious  history  of  England  before 
the  Reformation;  this  would  require  one  or  even  several 
volumes,  to  do  the  subject  any  thing  like  justice.  We  intend 
only  to  glance  at  such  facts  in  this  pi'eliminary  history  as  may 
seem  best  calculated  to  throw  light  on  the  startling  religious 
revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century.  We  shall  number  our 
remarks,  and  arrange  them,  in  general,  in  chronological  order. 

1.  There  seems  to  be  nothing  more  certain  in  all  history, 
than  that  England  was  indebted  to  Rome  for  Christianity, 
and  for  all  the  numberless  blessings  which  followed  in  its 
train.  Near  the  close  of  the  sixth  century.  Pope  St.  Gregory 
the  Great  sent  thither  St.  Augustine  and  his  band  of  fortj 
monks;  who,  under  the  auspices  of  that  great  and  holy 
pontifi*,  first  converted  Ethelbert,  King  of  Kent,  and  many  of 
his  people,  and  subsequently  extended  their  successful  mis- 
sionary labors  rapidly  over  the  whole  Island.*     The  present 

*  In  one  of  his  letters,  Pope  St.  Gregory  the  Great  states,  that  at  Christ- 
mas more  than  ten  thousand  of  the  pagan  Saxons  were  baptized  by  St. 
Augustine  and  his  colleagues :  In  solemnitate  Dominicje  Nativitatis  plus 
quam  decern  niillia  Angli  ab  eodem  nunciati  sunt  fratrc  et  co-episcopo  nostro 
baptizati.  (Epist.  Greg.  L.  VII.  Epist.  30.  Smith's  Bede,  app.  viii.) 
Apud  Lingard,  Antiquities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  bhurch,  p.  23,  note  Ameri- 
can edition,  Fithian,  Philadelphia,  one  vol.,  8vo. 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  ENGLAND.  19 

Anglican  church  must  necessarily  derive  its  orders  and  its 
hierarchy — if  at  all  from  any  ancient  source — from  the  see 
of  Canterbury;  and  this  see  was  certainly  established  by 
Pope  St.  Gregory  the  Great.  Its  first  incumbent — so  consti- 
tuted by  the  Pontiff — was  St.  Augustine  himself,  whom  he 
had  sent  out  to  become  the  apostle  of  England.  No  one,  we 
believe,  has  ever  ventured  to  deny  this  fact,  or  has  been  able 
successfully  to  avoid  the  inference  fairly  deducible  therefrom. 

2.  The  present  Anglican  church  has  manifestly  no  histori- 
cal connection  whatsoever  with  the  earlier  British  churches, 
of  which  some  Anglican  writers  make  so  much  account.  It 
is  not  even  pretended,  so  far  as  we  are  informed,  that  the 
former  derives  its  orders  from  the  latter;  which,  in  fact, 
ceased  to  exist,  as  a  distinct  organization,  not  long  after  the 
conversion  of  England  under  Augustine  and  his  immediate 
successors.  Even  the  claim  set  up  by  some  Anglicans,  that 
these  earlier  British  churches  were  founded  without  the 
agency  of  Rome,  and  that  they  existed  not  only  in  a  con- 
dition of  independence,  but  of  antagonism  to  the  See  of 
Peter,  rests  upon  no  solid  historical  foundation  whatsoever, 
riie  best  that  can  be  said  of  this  theory  is,  that  it  is  a  mere 
speculation,  which  may  appear  more  or  less  plausible  to  itf 
friends — not  certainly  a  proposition  supported  by  solid  reason 
ing  based  on  ascertained  facts. 

3.  When  Christianity  w^as  first  introduced  into  England  is 
not  known  with  any  degree  of  certainty.  The  introduction 
evidently  took  place  some  time  before  the  close  of  the  second 
century.  Nennius  and  other  British  writers  tell  us,  that,  late 
in  the  second  century.  Pope  Eleutherius,  acceding  to  the 
pious  request  of  Lucius,  a  British  king,  sent  out  to  England 
two  missionaries,  Fugarius  and  Damian;*  whose  preaching 
and  ministrations,  under  the  regular  apostolic  commission 
derived  from  the  Chair  of  Peter,  converted  great  numbers 

*  Thesa  names  are  diflferently  written  by  various  eariy  authoi-s ;  some  ^ 
spparently  retaining  the  British,  and  others  the  Latin  form. 


20  ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

to  the  faith,  and  tlms  laid  the  foundations  of  Christianity  ic 
Enghmd.*  What  Tertullian  says  of  "places  among  the 
Britons  inaccessible  to  the  Romans,  but  subject  to  Christ," 
tallies  well  with  this  account;  for  Tertullian  wrote  about 
that  very  time,  or  perhaps  a  little  afterward ;  and  it  was 
natural  that,  in  his  defense  of  Christianity  addressed  to 
pagans,  he  should  refer  to  events  which  were  recent  and  well- 
known.  According  to  this  highly  probable  interpretation  of 
his  words,  it  would  appear,  that  the  first  apostles  of  England, 
after  successfully  preaching  the  gospel  to  the  Britons  who 
were  then  under  the  Roman  dominion,  carried  the  light  of 
the  faith  among  the  neighboring  tribes,  inhabiting  districts 
over  which  the  Roman  eagle  had  never  soared. 

The  testimony  of  a  somewhat  earlier  writer  than  Tertullian 
— St.  Irenseus,  Bishop  of  Lyons — on  which  Bishop  Hopkins 
and  other  Anglican  writers  insist  so  strongly,  appears,  from 
the  interpretation  given  to  it  by  Grabe,  the  learned  Protestant 
editor  of  that  father's  works,  to  have  nothing  whatever  to  do 


*  For  a  full  and  learned  vindication  of  the  fact,  that  England  was,  at 
least  partially,  converted  to  Christianity  by  missionaries  sent  out  by  Poi)e 
Eleutherius,  at  the  instance  of  King  Lucius,  see  Milner's  History  of  Win- 
chester, vol.  i.  p.  30,  English  edition.  The  event  took  place  probably 
between  tlie  years  176  and  180  of  the  Christian  era;  that  is,  ]>etween  the 
election  of  Eleutherius  and  the  death  of  the  emperor  Marcus  Aurelius,  both 
of  whom  are  referred  to  by  the  Venerable  Bede  in  his  account  of  the  matter. 
Archbishop  Usher  refers  to  two  ancient  medals  struck  in  honor  of  the  event, 
and  the  English  historian,  Camden,  to  still  another.  Our  readers  are  aware 
that  both  these  authorities  are  Protestant  and  decidedly  Anglican  in  their 
prejudices.  Speaking  of  the  petition  made  to  the  Pontiff  by  King  Lucius, 
Bede  says:  "Obsecrans,  ut  per  ejus  mandatum  Christianus  efficeretur;  el 
mox  effectum  pite  postulationis  consecutus  6st.  Beseeching  that,  by  his 
(the  Pontiffs)  command,  he  might  be  made  a  Christian ;  and  immediately  he 
obtained  the  olyect  of  his  pious  petition."  The  silence  of  Gildas  on  the 
subject  is  a  merely  negative  argainient  devoid  of  all  force  ;  for  what  remains 
to  us  of  his  work,  De  Excidio  Britanniiv;,  is  merely  fragmentary,  besides 
being  rather  a  desultory  discourse  than  a  history  prolessing  to  furnish  a  tiiU 
and  connected  account  of  events. 


THE   EARLY    BRITISH    CHURCH.  21 

with  the  conversion  of  the  Britons  ;*  while  all  other  earlj 
references  to  the  subject  seems  to  be  very  obscure  and  incon- 
clusive, entirely  too  much  so  to  justify  the  airy  fabric  of  con- 
jectures or  fables  which  some  learned  Anglican  writers  have 
attempted  to  build  up  on  them.f 

*  Speaking  of  the  unity  of  the  Church  and  of  its  diffusion  throughout  the 
world,  Irenjeus  "enumerates  the  churches  of  Germany,  the  churches  among 
the  Hibernians,  and  the  churches  among  the  Celts."  So  says  Bishop 
Hopkins,  who  understands  the  Britons  as  being  designated  under  the  name 
Celts.  This  is  an  unfounded  supposition,  refuted  by  Irengeus  himself,  who 
says  (Lib.  1.  adv.  hger.  Praef )  :  "  We  live  among  the  Celts  " — thereby  clearly 
implying  that  the  name  was  given  to  the  people  of  Southern  France  living 
about  Lyons.  "  The  Hibernians  turn  out  to  be  Iberians,  inhabitants  of  Spain," 
as  appears  from  the  third  chapter  of  St.  Irenasus'  first  book  against  heresies. 
See  Archbishop  Kenrick's  "Vindication  of  the  Catholic  Church"  in  reply  to 
Bishop  Hopkins,  p.  303. 

f  See  Dr.  Lingard's  Antiquities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church,  chap.  1,  for 
more  on  this  subject,  which  the  learned  and  judicious  historian  may  be  said  to 
have  exhausted.  The  testimony  of  Eusebius,  the  father  of  Church  History, 
to  the  effect  that  the  apostles  "passed  the  ocean  and  came  to  the  Islands 
called  the  British,"  (Demonstrat.  Evang.,  I.  7.)  is  vague  and  inconclusive. 
He  gives  no  names  nor  specifications,  and  the  sentence  may  have  been  a 
mere  rhetorical  amplification — the  British  Islands  being  then  regarded  as 
the  ultima  thiile.  A  subsequent  historian — Thedoret — probably  copied  or 
imitated  Eusebius,  though  his  language  is  not  at  all  definite,  and  may  admit 
of  a  much  wider  interpretation.  Both  these  writers  lived  hundreds  of 
years  after  the  apostolic  days,  and  their  merely  general  and  vague  allusions 
to  a  matter  so  remote  affords  no  solid  historical  ground  on  which  to  rest  a 
statement  so  important.  If  other  documents  ever  existed  on  the  subject, 
they  have  long  since  perished ;  the  only  facts  at  all  reliable  are  those  referred 
10  in  the  text. 

The  Anglican  bishop  Short  candidly  admits  the  obscurity  which  hangs 
over  the  history  of  the  early  British  churches,  as  well  as  the  uncertainty  of 
the  theory,  that  has  been  broached  at  a  comparatively  recent  period,  that  St. 
Paul  or  one  of  the  apostles  preached  the  Gospel  in  Britain.  He  says :  "  To 
him  who  seeks  only  for  truths  which  may  be  usefiil  for  the  formation  of  his 
own  opinions,  any  considerable  investigation  of  the  records  Avhich  are  left 
us  can  offer  little  beyond  labor,  accompanied  with  very  trifling  hopes  of  re 
ward."  Aflcr  quoting  the  general  and  rather  vague  passages  from  Eusebius, 
Theodoret.  and  others,  usually  alleged  to  prove  that  the  apostles  evangelized 
33 


22  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

4.  Tlie  story  that  the  ancient  British  churches  were  sub- 
jected by  force  to  the  see  of  Canterbury,  through  the  agency 
of  St.  Augustine  and  his  colleagues  or  of  their  immediate 
successors,  is  all  a  mere  fabrication  resting  upon  no  evidence 
whatsoever;  and  it  has  been  long  since  abandoned  by  all 
moderate  and  impartial  writers,  however  a  few  violent  par- 
tisans may  still  love  to  give  it  currency.*     As  the  Venerable 


the  British  Isles,  he  remarks  :  "  If  these  words  are  to  be  taken  in  their  Uteral 
sense,  little  doubt  can  remain  that  the  kingdom  was  converted  to  Christi- 
anity by  the  apostle  to  the  gentiles ;  yet  such  deductions  must  always  be 
regarded  with  suspicion."  Again,  after  stating  all  that  is  supposed  to  be 
known  on  the  subject,  he  adds:  "The  whole  of  the  history  of  the  British 
church  has  been  exhausted  by  Stilling-fleet  in  his  Origines  Britannicae ;  and 
to  any  one  who  will  examine  that  work,  it  will  be  apparent  how  little  is 
known,  and  how  unimportant  that  little  is ;  that  is,  unimportant  as  far  as 
the  present  state  of  the  world  is  concerned."  The  History  of  the  Church 
of  England,  to  the  Revolution,  1688 ;  by  Thomas  Vowler  Short,  D.  D.,  Lord 
Bishop  of  St.  Asaphs.  Fourth  American,  from  the  third  English  edition. 
New  York,  1855.     In  one  vol.,  8vo,  pages  1,  2,  and  8. 

As  this  is  a  standard  work  among  Anglicans,  we  shall  often  have  occa- 
sion to  quote  from  its  pages.  Though  the  author  takes  no  pains  to  disguise 
his  prejudice  against  the  Catholic  Church,  3'et  he  is  learned  and  more  than 
usually  candid  for  writers  of  his  class.  Thus,  speaking  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
thurches,  he  says : 

"The  P]nglishman  who  derives  his  blood  from  Saxon  veins  will  be  un- 
grateful, if  he  be  not  ready  to  confess  the  debt  which  Christian  Europe  owes 
to  Rome ;  and  to  profess  that  whenever  she  shall  cast  off  these  innovations 
of  men  (!),  wliich  now  cause  a  separation  between  us,  we  shall  gladly  pay 
her  such  honors  as  are  (hie  to  the  country  which  Avas  instrumental  in  bring- 
mg  lis  within  the  pale  of  the  universal  Church  of  Jesus  Christ."     Ibid.,  p.  9. 

*  Such  writers,  for  instance,  as  D'Aubigne,  who  evidently  is  more  intent 
on  establishing  a  theory,  than  on  vindicating  the  truth  of  history.  For  this 
purpose,  he  makes  no  scruple  in  garbling  Bedc,  and  malving  the  venerable 
historian  say,  in  effect,  the  very  contrarj'^  of  what  his  language  would  in^jly, 
if  fairl}'  interpreted.  He  also  quotes  Wilkins,  the  Protestant  historian  of 
the  English  councils,  to  prove  that  St.  Augustine  was  not  only  aware  of  the 
'Var  which  proved  so  disastrous  to  the  British  Christians,  but  that  he 
actively  i)romoted  it !  He  forgot,  however,  to  state,  that  St.  Augustine  had 
gone  to  his  reward  several  yairs  before!     See  D'Aubignr,  History  Refor- 


CONTROVERSY    WITH    ST.    AUGUSTINE.  23 

Bede  declares,  and  as  the  whole  tenor  of  the  letters  of  St. 
Gregory  the  Great  clearly  proves,  one  of  the  principal  lessons 
taught  to  King  Ethelbert  by  St.  Augustine  and  his  missionary 
associates  was^  that  "  the  service  of  Christ  ought  to  be  volun- 
tary, not  by  compulsion."*  St.  Augustine  indeed  sought,  by 
earnest  expostulation,  and  by  threatening  the  wrath  of  God 
in  case  of  disobedience,  to  induce  the  prelates  and  clergy  of 
the  British  churches  to  abandon  their  peculiarities  of  obser- 
vance in  matters  of  discipline,  to  acknowledge  his  authority, 
and  to  re-enter  the  pale  of  Catholic  unity,  from  which  their 
remoteness  from  the  other  churches,  together  with  their  ignor- 
ance of  what  was  passing  in  Christendom,  as  much  perhaps 
as  any  other  cause,  had  in  a  measure  severed  them.  They 
proved  obstinate,  and  the  efforts  of  the  English  apostle  thus 
proved  abortive.  He  died  in  605 ;  and  it  was  only  in  613, 
eight  years  afterward,  that  a  ferocious  pagan  king  of  Nor- 
thumbia — Edelfrid — stimulated    by   vengeance    against   the 

aiation,  5  vols,  in  one,  8vo.  Edit.  Carter,  New  York,  1854,  p.  685, 
notes. 

*  This  is  the  testimonj^  of  Bede,  Eccl.  Hist.  L.  1.  b.  xxvi.,  quoted  by  Arch- 
bishop Kenrick  in  his  Vindication,  p.  305. 

We  may  as  well  here,  as  elsewhere,  refer  to  the  singular  theory  of  Bishop 
Short  in  regard  to  the  ancient  Liturgy  of  the  British  churches.  He  says,  (p.  4, 
and  note)  that  it  was  derived  from  the  Gallican  Liturgy,  which  was  itself 
probably  "derived  from  St.  John  through  Polj'carp  and  Irasneus."  The 
differences  between  this  and  the  Eoman  service  he  states  as  follows  :  "  These 
:;onsisted  in  a  confession  of  sins,  wherewith  the  service  began ;  in  proper 
Prefixces,  which  were  introduced  for  certain  daj'S  before  the  consecration  ol 
the  elements ;  in  several  expressions  which  mark  that  the  doctrine  of  trau- 
snbstantiation  had  not  then  been  received ;  and  in  the  attention  to  singing 
paid  in  the  Roman  Church." 

AVhat  he  says,  without  any  proof  whatever,  in  regard  to  the  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation  not  being  then  received,  may  be  simplj'  denied,  as  opposed 
to  the  unanimous  voice  of  all  Christian  antiquit}^,  whether  Roman  or  Greek, 
Gallican  or.  Oriental.  The  other  "differences"  must  provoke  a  smile  from 
every  one  who  has  even  glanced  at  the  Roman  Missal,  which  has  always 
contained  those  very  things,  especially  "the  attention  to  singing  paid  in  the 
Roman  Church!" 


24         ENGLAND  BEFORE  THE  REFORMATION. 

Britons  for  having  given  shelter  to  the  heir  of  a  rival  claim- 
ant of  his  crown,  as  well  as  by  the  feeling  of  inveterate 
hatred  which  existed  between  the  conquerors  and  the  con- 
quered, invaded  their  territory  in  the  fastnesses  of  Wales, 
conquered  them  in  a  great  battle  at  Chester,  and  finding  that 
the  monks  of  Bangor  were  praying  on  a  neighboring  hill  for 
the  success  of  their  British  countrymen,  caused  his  troops  to 
rush  upon  and  to  massacre  them  by  hundreds.  Thus,  St. 
Augustine  had  been  already  in  his  grave  for  fully  eight 
vears,  and  he  could  not  therefore  possil^ly  have  had  any  thing 
to  do  with  the  expedition  of  the  sanguinary  pagan  king ;  who, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  not  likely  to  be  at  all  influenced  by 
Christian  advice.* 

According  to  the  testimony  of  Gildas,  a  contemporary 
writer  and  a  countryman  of  the  Britons,  the  British  clergy 
were  exceedingly  profligate  in  their  morals,  and  many  of 
them  were  addicted  to  disorders  which  were  a  disgrace  to  the 
priestly  character.  They  openly  bought,  or  sacrilegiously 
seized  upon  the  dignities  of  the  Church ;  they  were  ignorant 
and  indolent ;  and,  in  general,  all  ecclesiastical  discipline  was 
greatly  relaxed  among  them.f  It  was  the  view  of  these  cry- 
ing disorders  which  quickened  the  zeal  of  St.  Augustine,  and 
which  induced  the  great  Roman  Pontifl'  to  extend  his  powers 
and  jurisdiction  over  all  England,  in  order  to  enable  him 
efiectually  to  root  out  scandals  so  grievous  and  so  glaring. 


*  For  a  full  account  of  all  these  transactions,  with  a  temperate  but  tri- 
umphant vindication  of  St.  Augustine,  from  the  original  authorities,  see 
Lingard's  Antiquities,  etc.,  sup.  cit.,  chap.  2.  That  St.  Augustine  was  dead 
long  before  the  massacre  of  the  monks  at  Chester,  is  expressly  asserted  by 
Bede :  Ipso  Augustino  jam  multo  ante  temjMre  ad  coelestia  regna  sublato. 
Bede,  p.  81.  Apud  Lingard,  p.  43,  note.  The  absence  of  this  passage  from 
the  very  imperfect  Saxon  version  made  by  King  Alfred,  is  no  argument 
against  its  authenticity ;  for  it  is  generally  admitted  by  the  learned  that  this 
version  was  a  mere  abridgment.  Its  presence  in  the  original  Latin  is  quite 
suiRcient  and  satisfactory.     See  Ibid. 

t  Ep.  Gild.    Edit.  Gale,  pp.  23,  24,  38.    Apud  Lingard,  sup.  cit,  p.  41. 


MORALS   OF   THE   CLERGY.  26 

The  British  prelates  and  clergy  did  not  wish  to  be  reformed 
especially  by  a  pi-elate  who  was  acting  with  their  Saxon  con- 
querors lately  convei-ted  to  Christianity.  At  a  conference 
which  was  held  with  them  on  the  borders  of  Wales,  St.  Au- 
gustine "  reduced  his  demands  to  three :  that  they  should 
observe  the  orthodox  computation  of  Easter ;  should  conform 
to  the  Roman  rite  in  the  administration  of  baptism ;  and  join 
with  him  in  preaching  the  Gospel  to  the  Saxons.  Each  re- 
quest was  refused,  and  his  metropolitical  authority  contempt- 
uously rejected."  *  The  result  was  such  as  we  have  already 
indicated.  The  British  clergy  were  unwilling  to  be  reformed 
by  legitimate  authority ;  they  obstinately  refused  to  unite 
with  the  lawful  pastors  of  the  Church  in  preaching  the  Gos- 
pel to  the  Saxons,  most  of  whom  were  still  pagans.  In 
consequence,  they  experienced  the  anger  of  God  for  their 
obstinacy,  and  they  soon  afterwards  almost  disappeared  from 
the  earth.  The  prophecy  of  St.  Augustine  was  fearfully 
accomplished ! 

*  Ibid.,  p.  42.  The  fact  that  the  British  clergy  refused  to  acknowledge 
the  authority  of  Augustine,  is  no  sufficient  proof  that  they  rejected  the  pri- 
macy of  the  Pope.  Church  history  abounds  with  examples  of  men  who, 
while  fully  admitting  the  doctrine  of  the  papal  supremacy,  refiised  neverthe- 
less to  comply  with  the  commands  of  the  actual  Popes,  on  various  pretexts 
which  they  ingeniously  sought  to  reconcile  with  the  admitted  principle  of 
faith.  The  facts  alluded  to  in  the  text  furnish  a  key  for  understanding  the 
obstinacy  of  the  British  clergy.  The  recognition  of  St.  Augustine's  author- 
ity would  have  carried  along  with  it,  not  merely  the  relinquishment  of  their 
old  and  long-cherished  usages,  or  rather  abuses,  but  also  —  what  was  much 
more  difficult  —  the  correction  of  their  morals.  That  all  of  them  were  not, 
however,  so  immoral  as  Gildas  would  seem  to  imply,  would  appear  from  the 
fact,  that  St.  Augustine  earnestly  invited  their  co-operation  for  the  conversion 
of  the  Saxons. 

Bishop  Short  confirms  the  statement  of  Lingard  in  regard  to  the  demands 
made  by  St.  Augustine,  and  he  adds  :  "  The  question  about  the  time  of  ob- 
serving Easter  was  also  discussed  in  the  council  of  Whitby,  where  Oswi  de- 
cided it  in  favor  of  the  Roman  method,  because  both  parties  agreed  that  St 
Peter  kepi  the  keys  of  heaven,  and  that  he  had  used  the  Roman  method  of 
computing  (A.  D.  6^4)."  Sup.  cit.,  p.  5. 
VOL.  II. — 3 


26  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

5.  Having  thus  founded  the  Anglo-Saxon  CQurch,  ^he 
Roman  Pontiffs  continued  to  watch  zealously  o^-er  its  inter- 
ests, and  to  exercise  over  it  that  apostolical  jurisdiction 
which  all  antiquity  recognized  as  inherent  in  their  sacred 
office.  Their  primacy  was  openly  and  generally  acknowl- 
edged in  England  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  Christians,  by  princes 
and  ])eople,  by  bishops  and  clergy ;  and  the  examples  of  its 
exercise  for  the  organization  and  regulation  of  the  hierarchy, 
the  reformation  of  morals,  the  establishment  of  sound  disci- 
pline, and  the  correction  of  abuses,  abound  throughout  the 
whole  Anglo-Saxon  period  of  English  history,  from  the  first 
advent  of  St.  Augustine  near  the  close  of  the  sixth  century, 
down  to  the  Norman  conquest  after  the  middle  of  the 
eleventh.  During  this  time,  no  less  than  eight  Saxon  kings 
devoutly  made  the  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  to  receive  the  papal 
benediction  ;  and  others,  who  were  deterred  from  performing 
the  journey  by  its  anticipated  difficulties,  sent  their  ambassa- 
dors to  do  homage  to  the  Chair  of  Peter  in  their  name.  The 
Popes  repeatedly  sent  their  legates  into  England,  to  regulate 
discipline,  to  settle  disputes,  and  to  preside  over  councils. 
Those  who  felt  aggrieved  appealed  to  Rome  for  redress,  and 
the  appeal  was  always  heard  and  acted  upon.* 

Thus  St  "Wilfrid,  the  holy  and  celebrated  bishop  of  York 

*  Bishop  Short  virtually  admits  all  this.     He  writes  : 

"  That  the  Church  of  Home  did,  at  an  early  period,  try  to  extend  its  power 
where  it  could,  is  beyond  all  doubt ;  that  it  did  in  after  times  obtain  a  spirit- 
ual supremacy  in  England  is  equally  unquestionable.  The  Roman  Catho 
lic,  by  proving  the  early  date  of  these  encroachments  (!),  touches  not  the 
broad  principles  which  guided  our  church  in  throwing  oif  all  foreign  author- 
ity ;  and  the  Protestants  can  never  prove,  by  denying  these  points,  that 
the  Pope  did  not  afterward  possess  the  supreme  power  over  the  English 
church  ;  while  both  incur  the  danger  of  neglecting  the  pursuit  of  truth,  in 

endeavoring  to  establish  their  own  opinions We  shall  not  be  able  to 

prove  that  our  forefathers  were  Protestants,  even  if  they  had  not  then  fully 
admitted  the  authority  of  the  See  of  Rome."     Ibid.,  p.  6. 

In  proof  of  this  last  statement,  he  goes  into  an  investigation  (p.  9,  seqq.^ 
yf  the  doctrines  and  discipline  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  church ;   ft-ora  which. 


ST.   WILFRID    AND    ST.    DDNSTAN.  27 

when  unjustly  deposed  by  Tlieodore,  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, flew  to  the  Holy  See  for  redress ;  and  he  obtained  it  in 
full  from  the  justice  of  Pope  Agatho,  who  convened  a  coun- 
cil at  Rome  to  assist  him  with  their  advice  in  determining  on 
an  affair  of  so  much  importance.*  The  prelates  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  church  received,  with  reverent  obedience,  the  decision 
of  the  sovereign  Pontiff;  and  archbishop  Theodore,  having 
found  out  and  ucknowleged  his  error,  expostulated  with  the 
^Northumbrian  king  to  have  the  papal  judgment  executed  by 
the  restoration  of  St.  Wilfrid  to  his  see.  But  the  anger  of  the 
wounded  Northumbrian  queen,  whom  St.  Wilfrid  had  offend- 
ed, would  not  be  appeased,  and  she  and  her  husband,  Egfrid, 
continued  to  pursue  the  holy  prelate  with  undying  hos- 
tility. It  was  only  after  the  death  of  the  king,  that  St.  Wil- 
frid recovered  his  see,  from  which  he  was  soon  afterwards 
again  ejected  by  Aldfrid,  successor  of  Egfrid,  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  the  prelate's  enemies.  Again  he  appealed  to  the 
Pope,  who,  after  long  deliberation,  again  restored  him  to  his 
place.  The  same  scenes  are  now  re-enacted :  Aldfrid,  the 
Northumbrian  king,  refused  the  earnest  application  made  to 
him  for  St.  Wilfrid's  restoration  by  Berthwald,  the  successor 
of  Theodore  in  the  see  of  Canterbury ;  who,  like  his  prede- 
cessor, had  received  with  great  respect,  and  was  fully  pre- 
pared to  do  every  thing  in  his  power  to  execute  the  papal 
decision.  It  was  necessary  to  await  the  death  of  Aldfrid, 
before  the  mandate  of  the  Pope  could  be  effectually  executed. 
Thus  we  see  manifested,  as  early  as  the  close  of  the  seventh 


even  as  the  facts  are  unfairly  stated  by  himself,  it  would  appear  that  "  our 
forefathers  "(Were  any  thing  but  Protestants.  Thus,  among  other  things,  ho 
admits  that  "  prayers  and  oblations  for  the  dead  were  probably  established 
in  England  fi"om  the  first." 

*  St.  Wilfrid  was  deposed  at  the  instance  of  Egfrid,  king  of  Northumber- 
land, who  was  instigated  thereto  by  his  unprincipled  wife  Ermenburga, 
whom  St.  Wilfrid  had  grievously  offended  by  endeavoring  to  curb  her  vices, 
and  to  put  an  end  to  her  grievous  scandals.  Bishop  Short  admits  all  the 
facts  connected  with  the  appeal  of  St.  Wilfrid  to  the  Pope.     P.  5-6. 


28  ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

century,  that  evil  spirit  which  prompted,  not  the  bishops  oi 
clergy,  but  the  sovereigns  of  England,  to  interfere  with  the  free- 
dom of  the  Church,  to  thwart  the  efforts  of  the  Popes  for  its  pro- 
per government,  and  to  persecute  its  most  saintly  prelates.  St. 
Wilfrid  felt  the  sting  of  kingly  persecution  during  twenty  years 
of  exile  and  tribulation  ;  but,  in  spite  of  sufferings  so  grievous 
and  so  protracted,  he  faltered  not  in  his  advocacy  of  sound  doc- 
trine, in  the  practice  of  heroic  virtue,  and  in  his  loyal  alle- 
giance to  the  Chair  of  Peter.  And,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
triumphed  at  length  over  all  opposition,  and  his  brethren  sus- 
tained him,  while  the  Church  has  hallowed  his  name.* 

6,  If  the  attempt  of  temporal  princes  to  tamper  with  the 
freedom  of  the  Church,  and  to  trammel  and  persecute  such 
of  her  holy  prelates  as  dared  rebuke  vice  in  high  places,  and 

*  For  a  full  account  of  the  eventful  life  of  St.  Wilfrid,  drawn  from  the 
original  documents,  and  especially  from  the  statements  of  his  contemporar}^, 
the  Venerable  Bede,  and  of  Eddius,  the  companion  of  his  varied  fortunes, 
see  Lingard's  "Anti(}.  Anglo-Saxon  Church,"  p.  106,  seqq.  For  the  life  of 
another  Anglo-Saxon  saint,  Dunstan,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  so 
nobly  rebuked  the  vices  of  King  Edgar,  who  reformed  the  morals  and  re- 
stored the  learning  of  the  monks  and  clergy,  and  who  was  himself  the  vic- 
tim of  much  ol.)loquy  and  persecution  from  corrupt  kings  and  queens  whom 
he  had  the  courage  to  rebuke,  see  the  same  distinguished  historian.  Ibid., 
p.  234,  seqq. 

The  chief  instigator  of  the  persecutions  against  this  saintly  man  was  an- 
other wicked  woman — ^Ethelgiva — to  whom  he  had  given  mortal  offense  by 
thwarting  her  improper  intrigues  with  Prince  Edwin,  his  own  fovorite  pupil. 
She  afterwards  suffered  a  horrible  death  from  the  enraged  princes  and  people. 
Her  forehead  was  branded  with  a  hot  iron,  and  she  was  ignominiously  ban- 
ished the  kingdom  ;  and  returning  afterwards  was  ci-uelly  slain  by  the  insur- 
gents who  had  risen  in  arms  against  her  j'outhfxil  roj'al  lover.  (Ibid.,  p. 
237-8.)  St.  Dunstjin,  like  all  the  holy  prelates  who  ever  lived  in  England, 
always  reverenced  the  Holy  See;  nor  is  the  solitary  instance  of  his  opposing 
the  execution  of  a  papal  decision,  in  the  case  of  a  nobleman  who  had  de- 
ceived the  credulity  of  the  Pontiff  bj  false  representations,  a  valid  exception 
to  the  general  tenor  of  his  loyalty.  His  representations  on  the  subject  to 
the  Holy  See  were  respectful,  and  such  as  an  huinl)le  and  sincere  inferior 
maj'  well  make  to  an  acknowlelged  superior.     See  Ibid. 


EOYAL   ENCROACHMENTS.  29 

struggle  valiantly  for  the  independence  of  the  Church  and 
for  purity  among  the  clergy,  had  already  done  so  much  mis 
chief  under  the  Anglo-Saxon  dynasties,  it  was  destined  to 
accomplish  much  more  evil  under  the  Norman  kings.  Wil- 
liam of  Normandy  eflected  the  conquest  of  England  in  1066 ; 
and  from  this  epoch  an  entirely  new  order  of  things  arose  in 
England  both  in  church  and  state.  Instead  of  the  numerous 
monarchs  who  had  previously  divided  among  themselves,  or 
had  but  feebly  administered  the  government  of  England,  we 
now  find  the  executive  power  in  the  hands  of  one  vigorous 
sovereign.  William  often  wielded  the  sceptre  with  an  iron 
arm,  and  not  unfrequently  he  sought  to  encroach  upon  the 
legitimate  province  of  the  Church,  and  to  enslave  her  minis- 
ters. The  encroachments  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  were,  in  gene- 
ral, as  nothing,  compared  with  the  encroachments  of  the 
ISTorman  kings :  the  former  were  comparatively  few  and 
harmless,  while  the  latter  were  as  frequent  in  their  occur- 
rence as  they  were  mischievous  in  their  results.  Yet  tlie 
Anglo-Saxon  state  policy  had  unfortunately  left  the  germ  of 
the  evil,  which  under  the  Norman  rule  was  easily  developed, 
until  it  produced  its  noxious  fruits.  The  history  of  this  pro- 
gressive development  of  royal  encroachment  is  curious ;  and 
as  the  subject  is  one  of  vital  interest  in  its  bearing  on  the 
Church,  we  shall  be  pardoned  if  we  enter  into  some  details. 

7.  In  regard  to  the  usages  which  had  successively  prevailed 
in  the  nomination  of  bishops  under  the  Anglo-Saxon  dynas- 
ties, we  can  not  state  them  more  clearly  or  succinctly  than  in 
the  language  of  the  learned  author  of  the  Antiquities  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  Church.  He  begins  his  account  with  Theo- 
dore, the  learned  and  zealous  archbishop  of  Canterbury  in 
the  seventh  century: 

By  Theodore  the  discipline  of  the  Saxon  church  was  reduced  to  a  more 
perfect  form.  The  choice  of  bishops  was  secured  to  the  national  synods,  in 
which  the  primate  pi-esided  and  regulated  the  process  of  election.  Gradu- 
ally it  devolved  to  the  clergy  of  each  church,  whose  choice  was  corroborated 
by  the  presence  and  acclamations  of  the  more  respectable  among  the  laity. 


30  ENGLAND   BEFORE    THE   REFORMATION. 

But  the  notions  of  the  feudal  jurisprudence  incessantly  undermined  the  free- 
dom of  these  elections.  As  it  was  dangerous  to  intrust  the  episcopal  power 
to  the  liands  of  his  enemy,  the  king  forbade  the  consecration  of  the  bishop 
elect,  till  the  royal  consent  had  been  obtained ;  and  as  the  revenues  of  the 
church  were  originally  the  donation  of  the  crown,  he  claimed  the  right  of 
investing  the  new  prelate  with  the  temporalities  of  his  bishopric.  As  soon 
as  any  church  became  vacant,  the  ring  and  crozier,  the  emblems  of  episcopal 
jurisdiction,  were  carried  to  the  king  by  a  deputation  of  the  chapter,  and 
returned  by  him  to  the  person  whom  they  had  chosen,  with  a  letter  by 
which  the  civil  officers  were  ordered  to  maintain  him  in  the  possession  of 
the  lands  belonging  to  his  church.  The  claims  of  the  crown  were  pro- 
gressive. By  degrees  the  royal  will  was  notified  to  the  clergy  of  the  vacant 
bishopric,  under  the  modest  veil  of  a  recommendation  in  favor  of  a  particu- 
lar candidate ;  at  last,  the  rights  of  the  chapter  were  openly  invaded ;  and 
before  the  fall  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  dynasty,  we  meet  with  instances  of 
bishops  appointed  by  the  sovereign,  without  waiting  for  the  choice,  or  solicit- 
ing the  consent  of  the  clergy."* 

9,  Kings  seldom  give  up  what  they  have  once  unlawfully 
grasped.  And  no  where,  perhaps,  has  the  force  of  precedent 
been  more  felt  or  more  frequently  acted  on  than  in  England. 
The  Norman  kings  began  where  the  Anglo-Saxon  kings  had 
left  o£F,  and  they  successively  encroached  on  the  rights  of  the 
Church,  especially  in  the  matter  of  the  election  of  bishops, 
until  at  last  her  freedom  of  action  had  well  nigh  disappeared. 
From  the  forcible  thrusting  of  incompetent  or  unworthy  men 
into  the  episcopal  sees  by  the  king,  in  spite  of  the  protests 
of  the  clergy,  the  Church  had  occasionally  suffered  much 
under  the  later  Saxon  rulers.  Abuses  and  scandals  had 
abounded,  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  this  unhallowed 
attempt  of  the  secular  power  to  lay  violent  hands  on  sacred 
things  ;  and  the  subsequent  Norman  conquest,  with  its  horrors, 
was  viewed  by  many  as  a  just  retribution  of  heaven  on  the 
degeneracy  of  morals  among  the  Saxons.  But  the  case  was 
destined  to  be  still  worse  under  the  Norman  rule. 

10.  Fortunately  for  the  Church,  the  first  archbishop  of 
Canterbury  under  the   Norman   dynasty  was   Lanfranc,  an 

*  Lingard,  Ibid.,  p.  47-8. 


LANFRANO  AND  WILLIAM  THE  CONQUEROR.       3J 

Italian  by  birth,  and  a  most  learned,  pious,  and  prudent  man, 
who  was  not  easily  influenced  by  considerations  of  courtly 
policy,  much  less  by  those  of  flesh  and  blood.  William  the 
Conqueror  entertained  feelings  of  great  respect  and  veneration 
for  the  character  of  his  metropolitan,  and  he  proved  a  steady 
friend  and  protector  of  the  archbishop  in  his  frequent  strug- 
gles with  the  rapacious  Norman  barons.  So  long  as  Lanfranc 
lived,  though  the  original  Saxon  bishops  and  clergy  were 
often  harshly  dealt  with  by  their  haughty  conquerors,  yet 
the  freedom  of  the  Church  in  the  appointment  of  her  bishops 
seems  not  to  have  been,  at  least  glaringly,  violated  by  the 
crown.  The  vigor  and  unbending  integrity  of  the  archbishop 
rooted  out  abuses,  restored  ecclesiastical  discipline,  promoted 
learning,  overawed  disafiection,  and  checked  the  rapacity  of 
the  hungry  adventurers  who  had  came  over  in  the  train  of 
the  Conqueror.  He  rendered  willing  homage  to  the  character 
and  oflice  of  the  sovereign  Pontiff,  from  whom,  like  his  pre- 
decessors, he  had  received  the  pallium,  the  badge  of  metro- 
political  jurisdiction. 

William,  though  fierce  and  haughty,  had  many  good  quali- 
ties both  of  head  and  heart.  The  spirit  of  chivalry  had 
tempered  his  native  ferocity ;  and  though  he  could  not  well 
brook  opposition,  much  less  endure  rebuke,  yet  he  was  in- 
clined to  admire  the  boldness  and  courage  of  the  man  who 
dared  thwart  him  in  his  royal  will.  According  to  Orderic,  a 
contemporary  historian,  he  refrained  from  seizing  on  the 
revenues  of  vacant  bishoprics  and  abbeys,  protected  them 
from  the  rapacity  of  his  barons,  and  "  named  a  successor  with 
the  advice  of  the  principal  clergy."*  He  had  a  special  vener- 
ation for  the  bold  character  and  chivalrous  bearing  of  his 
great  contemporary.  Pope  St.  Gregory  VII.,  and  though  often 
blunt  in  his  intercourse  with  the  Pontiff,  he  seems  never  to 
have  fully  broken  with  him,  and  generally  to  have  treated 

'■^  Apud  Lingard,  History  of  England,  vol.  ii,  p.  71.  Edit  of  D&linan 
Loudon,  1844. 


32  ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

him  with  as  much  respect  as  his  haughty  cliaracter  would 
allow  him  to  render  to  any  man  on  earth.  In  return,  Gregory 
commended  him  "■  for  his  attachment  to  the  Holy  See,  for  the 
zeal  with  which  he  enforced  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  and 
for  his  piety  in  not  exposing  to  sale,  like  other  kings,  the 
vacant  abbeys  and  bishoprics."* 

Still  the  Conqueror  discovered  in  his  conduct  and  in  the 
spirit  of  his  enactments,  the  germs  of  that  unworthy  supicion 
of  Rome,  which,  under  his  successors,  produced  fruits  so  very 
disastrous  to  the  English  church.  "  He  would  not  permit  the 
authority  of  any  particular  Pontiff  to  be  acknowledged  in  his 
dominions  without  his  previous  approbation  ;  and  he  directed 
that  all  letters  issued  from  the  court  of  Rome  should,  on 
their  arrival,  be  submitted  to  the  royal  inspection :"  and  "  so 
jealous  was  he  of  any  encroachment  on  his  authority,  that 
without  the  royal  license  he  would  not  permit  the  decisions 
of  national  or  provincial  councils  to  be  carried  into  effect."f 
He  even  went  so  far  in  his  jealousy  of  papal  influence,  as  to 
require  that  no  English  bishop  should  visit  Rome  without  his 
permission !  St.  Gregory  YII.  expressed  his  just  indignation 
at  this  petty  tyranny  in  the  following  energetic  language :  "  No 
one  of  all  kings,  even  pagan,  ever  presumed  to  attempt  so  much 
against  the  Apostolic  See."J  Finally,  though  William  recog- 
nized the  regular  ecclesiastical  courts,  yet  "  he  forbade  them 
either  to  implead  or  to  excommunicate  any  individual  holding 
in  chief  of  the  crown,  till  the  nature  of  the  offense  had  been 
certified  to  himself."§ 

10.  His  son  and  successor  William  H.,  surnamed  Bufus^ 
unhappily  carried  into  full  effect  the  insidiously  encroaching 
spirit  of  these  various  enactments.  He  inherited  the  lunighty 
boldness  of  his  father,  without  any,  or  hardly  any,  of  his  many 
good  traits  of  character.  He  was  extravagant,  licentious,  and 
reckless.     He  ascended  the  throne  in  1087.     So  long  as  Lan- 

*  Greg.  VII.  Epist.  Lib.  1.  10.  Ibid.        f  I^d.       \  Epist.  vii.  1.  Ilnd. 
\  Eadmer,  6.  Ibid. 


WILLIAM   RUFUS    AND   ST.    ANSELM.  33 

franc  lived,  he  was  overawed  into  something  like  decorui  by 
the  influence  of  the  words  and  example  of  the  venerable  pri 
mate.  But  after  the  death  of  the  latter,  two  years  later — ^in 
1089 — he  openly  cast  off  all  restraint,  and  recklessly  trampled 
under  foot  all  the  laws  even  of  common  decency.  To  supply 
himself  with  money,  for  his  own  sensual  gratification  and  for 
squandering  among  his  guilty  favorites,  he  seized  without 
scruple  on  the  revenues  of  the  vacant  benefices,  and  applied 
them  to  his  own  uses.  That  he  might  enjoy  them  the  longer, 
he  kept  the  bishoprics  and  abbeys  vacant  for  years  together, 
to  the  great  injury  of  the  faithful  and  detriment  of  the  Church. 
Thus  he  forcibly  kept  the  see  of  Canterbury  without  a  pastor 
for  four  years — from  the  death  of  Lanfranc  in  1089  to  the  ap- 
pointment of  St.  Anselm  in  1093 ;  and  he  would  probably 
have  protracted  the  widowhood  of  the  piincipal  English  see 
to  a  much  longer  period,  had  not  a  dangerous  illness  overtaken 
him  in  the  midst  of  his  excesses,  and  awakened  remorse  in  a 
heart  not  yet  wholly  dead  to  the  principles  of  faith.  Fearing 
the  approach  of  death,  he  sent  for  the  sainted  monk  Anselm, 
and  gave  his  royal  consent  to  his  appointment  to  the  prima- 
tial  see.*  Well  knowing  the  fickle  character  of  the  king,  and 
fully  appreciating  the  difliculty  and  responsibility  of  the  ele- 
vated position,  the  holy  man  at  first  refused  the  proffered 
honor.  After  much  entreaty,  he  however  finally  consented  to 
accept  it,  but  only  on  condition  that  William  would  restore  the 
church  property  upon  which  he  had  seized,  and  acknowledge 
Pope  Urban  II.  as  legitimate  Pontiff.  The  sick  king  promised 
every  thing  with  willing  alacrity,  and  Anselm  was  accord- 
ingly consecrated. 

But,  as  the  holy  archbishop  had  feared,  William  well  was 
not  what  William  had  been  when  sick.     The  fear  of  death 

*  Like  his  friend  and  preceptor  Lanfranc,  St.  Anselm  was  a  Benedictine 
monk  from  the  renowned  monastry  of  Bee  in  Normandy,  and  he  was  also, 
like  him,  a  native  of  Italy.  He  was  born  at  Aosta,  or  Aouste,  in  Piedmont 
while  Lanfranc  was  a  native  of  Pavia,  in  Lcmbardy. 


34  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

once  removed,  the  king  became  even  worse  than  before  ;  he 
forgot  all  his  solemnly  plighted  promises,  and  plunged  again 
into  all  his  former  excesses.  lie  refused  to  give  up  the  church 
property  and  revenues,  to  allow  the  vacant  benefices  to  bo 
filled,  or  to  permit  the  convening  of  free  ecclesiastical  coun- 
cils, for  re-establishing  decaying  discipline  and  correcting  ex- 
isting abuses.*  In  vain  did  the  zealous  primate  plead  and 
expostulate  with  the  unprincipled  and  infatuated  monarch, 
who  had  now  given  himself  up  wholly  to  the  guidance  of  his 
unscrupulous  prime  minister,  Flambard.  This  reckless  man 
had  purchased  his  royal  master's  confidence  by  pandering  to 
his  worst  passions.  He  played  toward  William  II.  the  same 
unprincipled  part  which  Cromwell  afterwards  acted  towards 
Henry  VIII. ;  and  with  similar  results,  though  fortunately  not 
so  disastrous  to  religion.f  He  was  the  first  who  had  advised 
William  to  seize  on  the  revenues  of  the  Church,  and  in  order 
the  better  to  accomplish  this  purpose,  to  keep  the  sees  and 
abbeys  vacan.t  duringdiis  royal  pleasure. 

Anselm  continued  firm,  the  king  obstinate.    The  latter  even 

*  See  Lingard,  Hist.  England,  vol.  ii,  p.  100,  for  the  original  authorities  ; 
Edit.  Dolman,  London. 

f  Those  fond  of  historical  parallels  may  compare  the  two  cases  in  all  their 
bearings,  as  furnishing  one  out  of  a  thovisand  evidences  that  human  nature  is 
substantially  the  same  in  all  ages,  and  that  similar  agencies  generall}^  pro- 
duce similar  results,  making  proper  allowance  for  difference  of  times  and 
circumstances.  In  the  present  instance,  neither  Henry  nor  William  profited 
much  by  the  riches  of  the  Church  on  which  they  sacrilegiously  seized. 
These  were  speedily  squandered  on  unprincipled  favorites  or  consumed  in 
low  debauchery,  and  the  two  monarchs  remained  in  the  end  none  the  richer 
for  the  unholy  seizure.  The  fate  of  both  these  courtly  prime  ministers 
who  advised  the  sacrilege  was  similarly  disastrous.  Both  perished  suddenly 
and  violently.  Both  monarchs  also  died  miserably  ;  William  by  a  violent 
and  unprovided  death  while  engaged  in  the  chase,  Henry  on  his  bed,  in- 
dec^d,  but  in  the  eyes  of  faith,  in  a  manner  probably  still  more  fearful  and 
terrible.  History  has  its  lessons,  some  of  them  fearftil  ones  indeed,  but  all 
of  them  profitable,  if  we  would  only  learn  wisdom  from  the  treasured  expe- 
rience of  the  past. 


PERSECUTION    OF   ST.    ANSELM.  35 

attempted  to  have  the  former  deposed,  on  the  ground  that 
without  the  royal  assent  he  had  dared  recognize  Pope  Urban 
II. ;  whom  he  himself  nevertheless  had  solemnly  promised  to 
acknowledge  a  short  time  before,  and  whom  he  actually  did 
acknowledge  very  soon  afterwards.  During  the  controversy, 
the  king  won  over  to  his  side  the  bishop  of  Durham  and  some 
other  prelates  more  courtly  than  courageous,  who,  however, 
declarsd  that  they  were  vested  with  no  power  to  depose  the 
holy  archbishop,  and  could  merely  withdraw  themselves 
from  his  obedience,  on  the  ground  of  his  having  acknowledged 
Urban  II.  in  anticipation  of  the  royal  recognition.  The  king 
would  probably  have  succeeded  in  accomplishing  his  wicked 
purpose,  but  for  powerful  opposition  from  an  unusual  and 
unexpected  quarter.  The  barons  stood  up  nobly  and  reso- 
lutely in  defense  of  their  primate.  The  king  then  tried  a  new 
ex])cdient.  He  acknowledged  Urban,  and  wrote  him  an  obse- 
quious letter,  in  which  he  promised  the  Pontiff  a  rich  pension, 
if  he  would  consent  to  depose  Anselm.  The  Pope  spurned 
the  bribe,  and  sternly  refused  his  consent  to  the  punishment 
of  an  innocent  and  holy  man. 

Tired  of  the  seemingly  fruitless  contest,  Anselm  left  England 
in  1007,  and  betook  himself  to  the  feet  of  the  sovereign  Pontifl'. 
in  order  to  disburden  his  conscience  of  the  heavy  responsibilitv 
which  weighed  upon  it,  and  to  obtain  redress  for  the  griev- 
ances of  his  afflicted  church.  If  the  Pope  could  not  assist  him 
in  his  overwhelming  affliction,  who  could?  There  was  no 
other  means  of  redress  left  to  him  on  earth  against  the  injustice 
of  his  all-powerful  and  wholly  unscrupulous  persecutor.  In 
his  letter  to  the  Pope,  the  holy  prelate  presented  the  follow- 
ing reasons  for  leaving  the  kingdom : 

"  The  king  would  not  restore  to  my  church  those  hmrls  belonging  to  it 
which  he  had  given  away  after  the  death  of  Lanfranc  ;  he  even  continue  1 
to  give  more  away  notwithstanding  my  opposition ;  he  required  of  me  griev- 
ous services,  which  had  never  been  required  of  my  predecessors ;  he  at  imlle.^ 
the  law  of  God  and  the  canonical  and  apostolical  decisions,  by  customs  of 
bis  own  creation.     In  such  conduct  I  couid  not  acquiesce  without  the  loss 


36  EUROPE    BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

of  my  own  soul :  to  plead  against  him  in  his  own  court  was  in  vain ;  for  m 
one  dared  assist  or  advise  me.  This  then  is  mj'^  object  in  coming  to  you,  tc 
beg  that  you  would  free  me  from  the  bondage  of  the  episcopal  dignity,  and 
allow  me  to  serve  God  again  in  the  tranquillity  of  my  cell ;  and  that,  in  the 
next  place,  you  would  provide  for  the  churches  of  the  English,  according  to 
your  wisdom  and  the  authority  of  yo'ir  station."* 

The  Pope  received  the  persecuted  primate  with  open  arms, 
but  he  would  not  consent  to  accept  his  resignation.  Anselm 
remained  in  Italy  for  about  three  years,  and  he  attended  the 
synod  held  at  Bari,  and  tne  suDsequent  one  at  Rome  in  1099; 
both  of  which  pronounced  sentence  of  excommunication 
against  laymen  who  would  dure  usurp  the  right  of  granting 
investiture  for  cathedrals  and  abbeys  without  a  previous  free 
and  canonical  election.  In  the  meantime,  his  royal  persecutor 
met  with  a  sudden  and  violent  death  on  the  second  of  August, 
1100 ;  t  and  Anselm  returnea  to  England  in  the  following 
September.  He  was  at  first  well  received  by  the  new  king, 
Henry  I.,  whom  he  had  arreailv  aided  in  securing  the  crown 
against  the  claims  of  his  brotner  Robert,  duke  of  Normandy. 
But  very  soon  afterwards,  the  ungrateful  monarch  lost  sight  of 
all  gratitude,  forgot  all  his  good  resolutions,  and  revived  the 
claim  to  investitures,  very  simuar  to  that  which  had  been  so 
scandalously  exercised  by  the  late  kmg.  Anselm  was  again 
compelled  to  visit  Rome  in  1103,  and  to  lay  his  grievances 
before  Pope  Paschal  II.  Tins  Pontiff  first  condemned  the 
king,  but  afterwards  entered  into  an  accommodation  with  him. 

*  Eadmer,  43.     Apud  Lingard,  Hist.  England,  vol.  ii,  p.  100,  note. 

f  Of  William's  continued  rapacity,  even  to  the  very  hour  of  his  .sudden 
and  unhappy  death.  Dr.  Lingard  bears  the  following  testimony  on  the  au 
thority  of  the  original  documents  : 

"  William  kept  the  vacant  bishoprics  for  several  years  in  his  own  possess- 
ion ;  and  if  he  consented  at  last  to  name  a  successor,  it  was  previously  un- 
derstood that  the  new  prelate  should  pay  a  &am  into  the  exchequer  propor- 
tionate to  the  value  of  the  benefice."  Again  :  "The  king  at  his  death  had 
in  his  Viands  one  archbishopric,  four  bishoprn.&.  and  eleven  abbeys,  all  of  which 
had  been  let  out  to  farm."  (Hist.  England,  vol.  ii,  p.  94,  note.  He  quotes 
Orderic  763,  774,  and  Bles.  iii.) 


ST.    THOMAS    ABECKET.  37 

in  virtue  of  which  Ansehn  was  allowed  to  return  to  England 
Here,  after  struggling  to  the  last  for  the  rights  of  the  Church 
against  royal  rapacity  and  tyranny,  he  died  liolily  in  1109.* 

11.  We  have  given  this  rapid  summary  of  well-known 
facts,  in  order  to  exhibit  the  growing  spirit  of  royal  encroach- 
ment on  the  legitimate  province  of  the  Church,  which  was 
actively  at  work  in  England  at  so  early  a  period  as  the  close 
of  the  eleventh  century.  Unhappily  the  case  of  St.  Anselm  is 
not  a  solitary  one  in  English  history.  It  was  repeated,  at 
least  substantially,  in  almost  every  subsequent  reign,  down  to 
the  period  of  the  lieformation.  The  Henrys  vied  with  the 
Williams,  and  the  Edwards  and  Richards  with  the  Henrys, 
who  should  be  most  exorbitant  in  their  claims  to  the  seizure 
and  administration  for  their  own  benefit  of  church  revenues, 
and  to  the  nomination  to  the  vacant  bishoprics  and  abbeys. 
This  claim,  and  the  intolerable  abuses  and  scandals  to  which 
its  exercise  necessarily  gave  rise,  constituted  the  most  crying 
evil  of  the  times,  and  the  one  which  gave  most  uneasiness  to 
the  holy  men  of  those  ages ;  precisely  because  it  was  the  one 
which  inflicted  the  most  grievous  injury  upon  the  Church. 
It  was  the  fruitful  origin,  not  of  a  single  evil,  but  of  a  whole 
series  of  scandals,  which  were  sure  to  follow  in  the  train  of  a 
bad  appointment  to  a  vacant  bishopric  or  abbey.  Whenever 
a  mere  creature  of  the  king  was  thrust  by  royal  influence  into 
a  bishopric,  he  was  sure  to  neglect  his  own  duties,  and  to  ap- 
point other  clergymen  under  him  who  were  no  better  than 
himself;  and  thus  the  scandal  was  extended  and  perpetuated. 

*  For  all  the  facts  and  authorities  on  this  subject,  see  Alban  Butler,  life  of 
St.  Anselm,  Apl.  21,  and  Lingard  in  loco.  The  facts  are,  so  far  as  we  know, 
disputed  by  no  one. 

Dr.  Lingard  thinks,  that,  in  this  settlement  with  the  Pontiff,  the  king, 
while  resigning  the  form,  retained  the  substance  of  his  mischievous  claim. 
At  any  rate,  he  did  not  discontinue  his  encroachments  on  the  rights  of  the 
bishops,  nor  his  rapacity  in  seizing  the  revenues  of  the  vacant  benefices.  He 
violated  without  scruple  his  solemn  promises,  and  persisted  in  annoying  St. 
An5c  m  to  the  hour  of  the  saint's  death.  (Ibid.,  ii.,  p.  118.") 
34 


38  EUROPE   BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

12.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  which  is  susceptible  of  the 
clearest  proof,  that  all  the  greatest  and  best  archbishops  of 
Canterbury,  under  the  Norman  Kings,  with  the  exception,  per- 
haps, of  Lanfranc,  were  more  or  less  the  victims  of  royal  perse- 
cution, and  that  all  of  them  were  protected  in  their  tribulation 
by  the  sovereign  Pontiffs.  From  St.  Anselm  in  the  eleventh, 
down  to  St.  Edmund  Rich  in  the  thirteenth  century,  we  know 
of  no  exception  to  this  statement ;  unless,  perhaps,  it  be  Car- 
dinal Langton,  who,  aided  by  the  barons  whom  he  headed, 
was  able  to  overcome  the  tyranny  of  King  John,  without  the 
aid,  and  seemingly  in  spite  of  the  Pope,  whose  vassal  John 
had  become.  But  in  this  contest,  Langton  was  struggling  for 
civil  rights  and  franchises,  not  for  the  freedom  of  the  Church.* 

13.  Every  one  is  acquainted  with  the  eventful  career  and 
glorious  martyrdom  of  the  brilliant  and  sainted  Thomas 
A  Becket,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  He  was,  in  some  respects, 
the  Wolsey  of  the  twelfth  century,  but  he  was  composed  of  much 
sterner  material,  and  was  therefore  far  greater  than  Wolsey ; 
for  he  became,  what  Wolsey  was  not  privileged  to  be,  a 
martyr  f:»r  the  freedom  of  the  Church  against  royal  encroach- 
ments and  tyranny.  At  first  he  was,  like  Wolsey,  a  great 
favorite  at  court;  then,  like  him,  he  fell  into  disgrace  for  hav- 
ing dared  follow  his  conscience  and  do  his  duty.  Made 
archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  1162,  he  gave  up,  to  a  great 
extent,  his  worldly  occupations,  and  applied  himself  diligently 
to  the  work  of  a  Christian  bishop.  For  resisting  the  king  in 
the  attempt  of  the  latter  to  enforce  the  pretended  customs  of 
the  kingdom,  which  either  he  or  his  immediate  predecessors 

*  That  the  Pope,  Innocent  TIL,  though  he  at  first  was  led  by  Mse  repre- 
sentations, to  side  witli  John  against  Langton  and  tlie  barons,  was  really 
not  opposed  to  the  liberties  secured  by  the  Magna  Charta  at  Runny mede 
which  instrument  was  afterward  so  often  confirmed  and  renewed  with  the 
full  sanction  of  Ilonorius  and  subsequent  Roman  Pontiffs,  must  be  apparent 
to  all  who  have  diligently  studied  the  history  of  England.  We  have  at- 
tempted to  present  a  summary  of  the  facts  bearing  on  this  case,  chiefly  from 
Hurter's  Life  of  Innocent,  in  the  appendi.x  to  the  Miscellanea. 


ST.    EDMUND    RICH.  39 

had  but  recently  introduced,  he  lost  favor,  was  forced  to  fly  the 
kingdom,  and  was  pursued  with  undying  hostility  by  Henry's 
emissaries.  The  Roman  Pontiff  received  the  persecuted  exile 
with  parental  kindness,  fully  sanctioned  his  noble  resistance 
to  royal  tyranny,  and  employed  every  means  in  his  power  to 
soften  the  heart  of  the  king.  He  succeeded  at  length  in 
bringing  about  an  accommodation,  in  consequence  of  which 
the  archbishop  returned  to  his  see.  But  he  returned  only  to 
die  at  the  foot  of  his  own  cathedral  altar  by  the  hands  of 
courtly  assassins,  who  thought  they  would  thereby  ingratiate 
themselves  into  the  royal  favor.  The  fearful  deed  of  blood 
and  sacrilege  filled  all  Christendom  with  horror,  and  the 
royal  tyrant  himself  trembled  on  his  throne  when  he  heard 
of  its  horrible  details.  Filled  with  remorse,  he  expiated  the 
crime,  which  he  had  only  indirectly  authorized,  by  assuming 
the  humble  garb  of  a  penitent,  and  making  a  memorable 
pilgrimage  to  the  tomb  of  the  martyred  archbishop,  which 
he  bedewed  with  his  tears. 

There  is  a  show  of  consistency,  and  a  species  of  logic,  in  error 
as  well  as  in  truth,  in  crime  as  well  as  in  virtue.  Henry  VHI. 
ruthlessly  destroyed  the  tomb  of  ABecket,  which  admiring 
Christendom  had  erected  and  decked  with  the  richest  orna- 
ments, and  which  Englishmen  had  visited  with  growing  rever- 
ence for  nearly  four  centuries.  He  went  further  still  in  his 
insane  indignation.  He  caused  the  venerable  relics  of  the 
martyr  to  be  exhumed  and  destroyed !  The  boldness  with 
which  the  martyr  had  withstood  royal  encroachment  on  the 
rights  of  the  Church,  commemorated  and  kept  alive  by  the 
splendid  monument  over  his  remains,  conveyed  a  standing 
reproach  to  his  own  sacrilegious  rapacity,  which  he  could 
not  endure.  The  memory  which  it  awakened  of  the  royal 
penitent  who  had  prostrated  himself  weeping  thereat,  with 
all  Christendom  reverently  looking  on  the  edifying  and 
affecting  scene,  was  too  much  for  the  eighth  Henry,  in  com- 
parison with  whose  crimes,  actual  or  meditated,  those  of  the 
(Second  Henry  were  as  nothing.     The  times  were,  moreover, 


40  ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

eadly  cliariged  for  the  worse.  The  spirit  of  royai  eucioacL 
ment  had  fearfully  grown  in  strength  and  extension,  and  after 
having  first  attempted-r-alas !  but  too  successfully — gradually 
to  undermine  the  freedom  of  church  government  by  thwart- 
ing the  Papacy  for  centuries,  it  was  now  prepared  to  sap  the 
very  foundations  of  the  faith  itself,  and  sacrilegiously  to  set 
up  altar  against  altar ! 

14.  The  case  of  St.  Edmund  Rich  was  almost  a  counterpart 
of  that  of  St.  Anselm  and  of  St.  Thomas,  with  this  exception, 
that  he  did  not  die  at  home  like  the  former,  nor  a  martyr  like 
the  latter.  After  having  been  long  heart-sick  at  the  sight  of 
evils  which  he  could  not  remedy,  he  voluntarily  withdrew  from 
his  see  of  Canterbury,  the  responsibilities  of  which  his  con- 
science could  no  longer  bear ;  and  he  retired  to  the  continent, 
where  he  devoted  himself  to  prayer  for  his  afflicted  flock, 
and  where  he  died  holily  at  Borins  in  Champagne,  in  1242. 
King  Henry  HI.,  true  to  the  encroaching  spirit  of  his  prede- 
cessors, had  still  persisted  in  keeping  the  sees  vacant,  or  in 
filling  them  with  his  own  creatures.  To  check  the  crying 
abuse,  St.  Edmund  had  obtained  a  bull  from  the  reigning 
Pope  Gregory  IX.,  by  the  tenor  of  which  he  was  liimself 
authorized  to  fill  such  sees,  whenever  they  would  be  left 
vacant  for  more  than  six  months.  This  measure  irritated  the 
king  to  such  a  degree,  that  the  prudent  or  timid  Pontiff, 
probably  fearing  greater  evils,  withdrew  the  bull  some  time 
afterward.  The  state  of  things  which  followed  was  such,  as  to 
render  the  holy  archbishop's  position  no  longer  tolerable ;  and 
finding  himself  like  a  lamb  in  the  midst  of  wolves,  he  quietly 
withdrew  from  the  scene  of  useless  contention,  to  await  in 
solitude  and  prayer  the  coming  of  .better  times.  But  those 
did  not  come  during  his  life-time;  and  he  died  in  exile,  a 
noble  confessor  of  the  faith,  and  another  victim  of  royal 
encroachment  on  the  liberties  of  the  English  church. 

15.  The  spirit  of  royal  aggression  on  the  freedom  of  the 
Church,  especially  in  the  matter  of  elections  to  bishoprics  and 
abbeys,  instead  of  diminishing,  went  on  steadily  increasing 


GROWING    ENCROACHMENTS.  4l 

after   the   death   of    St.   Edmund.      The    rightful    authority 
claimed  by  the  Popes,  as  the  universally  acknowledged  heads 
of  the  Church,  to  have  a  voice  in  the  nomination  of  bishops 
and  abbots,  was  clogged  and  hampered  at  almost  every  step 
by  royal  interference  and  opposition ;  and  the  natural  result 
was  any  thing  but  favorable  to  the  character  of  many  among 
the  higher  English  clergy.     The  Popes  never  resigned,  and 
never  could   resign   their   claim;   however   they  may  have 
occasionally  and  for  a  time  let  it  lie  in  abeyance,  for  the  sake 
of  peace,  or  because  they  were  hopeless  of  a  favorable  issue. 
Worried  with  the  protracted  and  often  useless  contest,  they 
sometimes  entered   into   terms  of  accommodation  with  the 
English  monarchs,  who,  however,  generally  abused  the  con- 
ciliatory temper  of  the  Holy  See,  by  making  it  an  occasion 
of  still  further  encroachment.     Things  went  on  in  this  way, 
until  near  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  when  a  series 
of  enactments  were  passed  by  the  English  parliament,  which 
were  highly  detrimental  to  the  freedom  and  true  interests  of 
the  Church,  because  they  clearly  trenched  on  the  rightful 
prerogatives  of  the  Papacy.    We  refer  to  the  different  statutes 
of  Provisors  and  Praemunire,  passed  successively  between 
the  years  1343  and  1393,  under  Edward  III.  and  Richard  II. 
16.  Our  present  purpose   does  not  require,  nor  will  our 
limits  permit  a  full  and  detailed  account  of  these  odious 
enactments.     The  following  brief  summary  of  the  principal 
facts  connected  with  them  will  suffice.     They  were  leveled 
against  the  authority  claimed  by  the  Popes  to  issue  what  were 
called  Letters  of  Provision  for  the  filling  of  vacant  benefices. 
Those  persons  who  were  named  to  execute  such  letters,  and 
sometimes  those  also  in  whose  favor  they  were  issued,  were 
QSkViQ^.  provisors  *     The  exercise  of  this  right  by  the  Pontiffs, 
though  often  quietly  submitted  to  by  the  English  kings,  had 


*  The  term  preemumre,  as  applied  to  a  subsequent  statute,  was  derived 
from  the  first  word  in  the  royal  writ  for  inducting  the  candidate  into  ofBce : 
Pramunire  facias — Forewarn,  etc.     However  Fuller,  quoted  by  D'Aubigne 
VOL.    II. i 


42  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

generally  been  viewed  by  them  with  more  or  less  of  disfavor, 
as  being  an  encroachment  on  what  they  conceived  to  be  the 
rights  of  the  crown  ;  and  the  higher  clergy,  who  were  oi 
expected  to  be  benefited  by  the  royal  })atronage,  but  too  fre- 
quently sympathized  with  their  monarch  in  the  protracted 
struggle  which  ensued,  and  which  came  to  a  crisis  in  the 
fourteenth  century. 

The  acts  of  1343  and  the  following  years,  under  Edward 
III.,  forbade,  under  penalty  of  forfeiture,  and  subsequently 
of  outlawry,  the  bringing  into  the  kingdom  of  such  letters 
of  provision  for  vacant  benefices,  or  of  documents  of  any 
other  description  which  should  be  deemed  contrary  to  the 
rights  of  the  monarch  and  of  the  realm  ;*  and  provided  that 
the  elections  to  vacant  sees  and  abbeys  should  be  nominally 
free,  but  that  the  king  should  have  the  bestowal  of  the  va- 
cant benefice  whenever  the  Pope  interfered,  and  the  lay 
patron  neglected  to  select  the  incumbent.f  With  this  last 
enactment  the  clergy  were  greatly  dissatisfied ;  because  while 
it  professed  to  protect  the  freedom  of  election  against  the 
Pope,  it  really  "  abolished  such  freedom  in  favor  of  the  king." 
The  clergy  began  then  to  open  their  eyes,  and  to  perceive 
whither  the  encroaching  spirit  of  their  kings  was  really  tend- 
ing ;  a  lesson  which  it  is  a  great  pity  they  did  not  learn 
sooner,  or  better  profit  by  at  a  later  period.  Every  blow 
struck  at  the  prerogatives  of  the  Popes  was  one  really  leveled 
at  their  own  dignity,  and  at  their  independence  of  royal  ag- 
gression in  the  exercise  of  their  spiritual  functions.  The 
Pontift'  was  the  only  person  on  earth  who  had  the  power  or 
the  will  to  shield  them  from  the  tyranny  of  their  sovereigns, 
which  afterwards,  when  this  restraint  was  entirely  removed, 


(p.  702,  note),  thinks  the  more  obvious  meaning  of  the  term  is  to  fence  and 
foHifij  the  royal  authority.  We  prefer  the  former  i  leaning,  which  is  that 
ridopted  by  Lingard. 

*  Rotul.  Parliam.  ii,  p.  lM-5.   Apud  Lingard,  Hist  England,  vol.  iv,  p.  153 

\  Statutes  of  Realm,  I,  31G.     Ibid. 


STATUTE   OF    PROVISORS AND    OF    PRiEMUNIRE.  43 

actually  crushed  out  all  the  remaining  liberties  of  the 
English  church,  and  rendered  it  the  most  abject  slave  of  the 
crown. 

In  the  year  1375,  a  compromise  was  effected  between  Ed- 
ward III.  and  Pope  Gregory  XI.,  in  the  Concordat  entered 
into  at  Bruges  ;  by  which  all  previous  penalties  were  remitted 
by  the  English  king,  and  Gregory,  without  renouncing  his 
claims,  revoked  all  reservations  and  provisions  made  by  him- 
self and  his  predecessors  which  had  not  yet  taken  effect.* 
This  Concordat  was  but  a  temporary  remedy  for  a  permanent 
evil,  which  it  palliated  without  removing.  The  noxious  plant 
was  indeed  removed  from  sight,  but  its  roots  remained  deep 
in  the  soil.  In  1379,  the  controversy  was  revived,  on  occa- 
sion of  the  appointment  by  the  Pope  of  Edward  Bromfield  to 
the  vacant  abbey  of  St.  Edmund's.f  After  continuing  for 
some  months,  the  contest  was  finally  settled  by  the  translation 
of  Bromfield  to  another  benefice,  in  1380. 

Pope  Urban  VI.  confirmed  the  Concordat  of  Bruges,  but 
he  was  unwilling  to  give  up  the  right,  so  often  claimed  and 
exercised  by  his  predecessors,  to  fill  up  such  English  benefices 
as  had  been  previously  held  by  cardinals  and  other  prelates 
attached  to  the  immediate  service  of  the  Holy  See.  The 
English  parliament  re-enacted  the  Statute  of  Provisors  in 
1383 ;  but  as  its  execution  was  made  dependent  on  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  crown,  the  king  generally  granted  his  royal 
license  to  such  cardinals  and  Roman  prelates  as  the  Pontiff 
designated  to  fill  vacant  benefices ;  and  thus  the  re-enactment 
of  the  statute  proved  nugatory  in  practice. 

After  the  death  of  Urban  VI.,  his  successor  Boniface  IX. 
declared  all  the  previous  acts  of  the  English  parliament  on 
this  subject  utterly  void  and  of  no  eflect,  as  infringing  the 
clearly  established  rights  of  the  Holy  See;  and  in  1391  he 
appointed  Cardinal  Brancaccio  to  a  prebend  in  the  church  of 
Wells.     Hereupon  great  popular  eomriotion  ensued  in  En- 


*  See  Lingard,  vol.  iv.  p.  155.  f  Ibid.,  p.  224-5. 


44  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

gland,  tliough  the  appointment  certainly  presented  nothing 
:hat  was  unusual.  The  parliament  re-assembled  in  1393 ; 
and  amidst  much  excitement,  and  after  an  angry  debate,  the 
famous  Statute  of  Praemunire  was  drawn  up,  though  it  was 
probably  never  regularly  passed,  but  left  to  be  carried  out  at 
the  discretion  of  the  king  with  the  advice  of  his  council.* 
By  this  statute,  "  it  was  provided  that  if  any  man  pursue  or 
obtain  in  the  Court  of  Rome,  or  elsewhere,  such  translations, 
excommunications,  bulls,  instruments,  or  other  things  against 
the  king's  crown  and  regality  or  kingdom  as  aforesaid,  or 
bring  them  into  the  realm,  or  execute  them  either  within  the 
realm  or  without,  such  person  or  persons,  their  notaries,  pro- 
curators, fautors,  and  counsellors  shall  be  out  of  the  king's 
protection,  their  goods  and  chattels,  lands  and  tenements 
shall  be  forfeited  to  the  king,  and  their  perons  attached 
wherever  they  may  be  found." — "  The  prelates,  however,  de- 
clared, that  it  was  not  their  intention  to  deny  that  the  Pope 
could  issue  sentences  of  excommunication  and  translate 
bishops,  according  to  the  law  of  the  holy  Church ;  but  to  do 
so  in  the  cases  proposed  would  be  to  invade  the  rights  of  the 
crown,  which  they  were  determined  to  support  with  all  their 
power."  f 

Another  accommodation  was  soon  after  entered  into  with 
the  Pontiff,  by  which  provisions  in  favor  of  aliens  (not  Eng- 
lishmen), except  cardinals,  were  entirely  abandoned  by  the 
Holy  See,  and  those  in  favor  of  natives  were  to  be  generally 
granted  to  such  persons  as  had  previously  obtained  the  royal 
license.j     Thus  ended  the  controversy,  evidently  greatly  to 

*  It  is  not  found  in  the  Rolls  of  Parliament,  but  only  in  the  Statutes  of  the 
I^alm  (Lingard,  Ibid.,  vol.  iv,  p.  228,  and  note).  It  met  with  great  resistance 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  it  was  sent  back  to  the  Commons,  who  seem  to 
have  withdrawn  it,  leaving  the  king  and  his  council  free  to  modif)''  its  enact- 
ments at  will,  or  to  let  them  remain  a  dead  letter;  as  they,  in  foct,  did  gen- 
erally remain  for  more  than  a  luindred  years — up  to  the  time  of  Henry 
VIII. 

f  R.  of  Pari,  iii,  p.  304,  Apud  Lingard,  Ibid.,  vol.  iv,  p.  227.       t  I^id  ,  p.  229. 


DR.    LINGARD   REVIEWED.  45 

the  advantage  of  the  English  monarch,  who  gained  the  prin- 
cipal point,  that  of  being  able  to  thrust  his  own  nominees,  or 
creatures,  into  the  vacant  benefices,  whether  these  were  elect- 
ed by  the  clergy  or  nominated  by  the  Pontiff;  the  election 
being  often  merely  nominal,  and  the  Pope  generally  approv- 
ing of  the  royal  choice,  which  he  seldom  felt  able  to 
oj)pose.* 

17.  This  result  was  certainly  most  disastrous  to  the  English 
church;  but  the  Popes  had  done  all  they  could,  and  they 
were  therefore  not  to  blame  for  the  evils  which  subsequently 
ensued ;  among  which  the  principal  one  was,  that  quite  too 
many  of  the  English  bishops  became  courtiers,  and  were 
infected  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  with  worldly-minded- 
ness.  The  English  kings  would  have  it  so,  in  spite  of  the 
Popes  ;  and  the  blame  therefore  should  justly  attach  to  the 
former,  not  to  the  latter.  "We  totally  dissent  from  the  opinion 
expressed  by  the  great  English  historian  in  the  following  sin- 
gular passage — his  facts  are  nearly  always  reliable,  his  infer- 
ences may  occasionally  be  questioned  : 

"  In  the  obstinacy  with  which  the  Court  of  Eome  urged  the  exercise  of 
these  obnoxious  claims,  it  is  difficult  to  discover  any  trace  of  that  poHtical 
wisdom  for  which  it  has  been  celebrated.  Its  conduct  tended  to  loosen  the 
ties  which  bound  the  people  to  the  head  of  their  Church,  to  nourish  a  spirit 
of  opposition  to  his  authority,  and  to  create  a  willingness  to  listen  to  the 
declamations,  and  adopt  the  opinions  of  religious  innovators."  J 

So  far  from  being  fairly  charged  with  "  obstinacy,"  the 
counter  charge  of  too  nmch  conciliation  might  be  preferred 
with  much  greater  plausibility.  The  Popes  pushed  this  spirit 
of  compromise  to  the  extremity  of  almost  yielding  the  exercise 
of  their  clear  and  inalienable  rights,  as  Dr.  Lingard  himself 
admits  in  the  case  of  Paschal  II.  above  referred  to,  and  also 
in  his  concluding  remarks  on  the  negotiations  which  followed 
the  passage  of  the  Statute  of  Praemunire.  Beset  with  diffi- 
culties, and  fearing  that  greater  evils  might  arise  from  oppos- 


♦  Hist.  England,  Ibid.         f  Ibid.,  p.  157,        J  Ibid.,  vol.  iv,  p.  157. 


46  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

ing  too  strenuously  the  headlong  passions  of  the  English 
monarchs,  the  policy  of  the  Popes  was  generally  mild 
and  conciliating,  sometimes  it  was  even  timid  and  un- 
decided.* 

18.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  English  monarchs 
and  of  their  subservient  parliaments  for  centuries,  the  Popes, 
however  conciliatory  in  the  adjustment  of  details,  never  would 
or  could  resign  the  right^  inherent  in  the  I*rimacy,  to  have  a 
controlling  voice  in  the  nomination  to  the  vacant  bishoprics. 
This  was  indispensable,  in  order  that  they  might  be  able  to 
keep  unworthy  men  from  being  numbered  with  the  chief 


*  It  may  be  interesting  to  see  how  the  Anglican  bishop,  Short,  writes  on 
this  subject.  He  is  probably  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  just  to  the  Popes  as 
Dr.  Lingard.  Speaking  of  William  Eufus  and  St.  Anselm,  he  says  :  "  Wil- 
liam Rufus  might  have  kept  himself  as  independent  as  his  father,  had  not 
his  invasion  of  church  property  compelled  Anselm  to  fly  to  Home  for  protec- 
tion. The  quarrel  about  investiture  was  really  one  as  to  the  power  which 
it  gave  the  king  of  selling  his  preferments."  (Sup.  cit.,  p.  24.)  Again, 
treating  of  the  general  question  between  the  Popes  and  the  English  mon- 
archs, he  writes  : 

"Most  of  the  contests  which  took  place  concerned  the  property  of  the 
church,  and  might  more  justly  be  viewed  as  questions  of  civil  right  than  as 
belonging  to  ecclesiastical  matters.  The  church  is  a  body  corporate  with 
spiritual  functions,  but  possessed  of  temporal  rights;  the  injustice  generally 
arose  with  regard  to  the  temporahties,  ordinarily  with  respe6t  to  the  appoint- 
ments ;  and  as  the  ecclesiastical  body  had  no  other  means  of  defending  its 
own  rights  than  by  spiritual  thunders,  the  invasion  of  a  right  puiely  tempo- 
ral (!)  in  its  nature  became  a  question  of  spiritual  power,  from  the  way  in 
which  the  contest  was  carried  on.  The  king  kept  a  bishopric  or  abbey  va- 
cant, and  let  the  temporalities  out  to  flirm.  The  church  was  injured  by  the 
want  of  a  head,  but  the  injustice  was  such  as  might  have  been  remedied 
without  any  appeal  to  a  foreign  power,  if  the  barons  had  maintained  the 
rights  of  the  church ;  but  when  the  church  found  no  other  remedy,  her 
members  ivere  forced  to  seek  for  aid  from  any  source  which  could  afford  it 
to  them,  and  so  put  themselves  under  the  protection  of  Rome."     Ibid. 

The  church  was  certainly  not  "  in  want  of  a  head ;"  the  great  evil  was, 
that  the  king  usurped  the  rights  properly  belonging  to  him  who  was  the 
recognized  head ;  and  the  barons  were  often  as  bad  as  the  king. 


SUPERIORITY    OF   THE    ROMAN    NOMINEES.  47 

shepherds  of  the  flock.  Tliough  sometimes  compelled  reluct 
antly  to  acquiesce  in  a  state  of  things  which  thoj  could  not 
approve,  yet  they  never  relaxed  their  vigilance  over  the  inter- 
ests of  the  English  church ;  and  if  its  purity  was  generally 
preserved  in  spite  of  appalling  difficulties,  the  result  is  due 
mainly  to  the  Popes,  not  certainly  to  the  rude  and  half-bar- 
barous English  monarchs  of  the  middle  ages. 

19.  During  the  continuance  of  these  protracted  conflicts 
between  the  English  sovei'eigns  and  the  Roman  Pontiffs,  it  is 
a  remarkable  fact  that  the  Primacy  of  the  latter  was  not  im- 
pugned by  king,  parliament,  or  people.  On  the  contrary,  it 
was  repeatedly  acknowledged  and  openly  proclaimed.  Dis- 
tinctions were  sometimes  drawn  between  the  spiritual  juris- 
diction inseparable  from  the  Primacy,  and  the  particular 
claims  set  up  by  the  Popes  to  influence  or  control  the 
episcopal  and  abbatial  nominations :  and  while  the  former 
was  unanimously  acknowledged,  the  latter  were  often  op- 
posed, as  involving  matters  of  temporal  interest.  The  dis- 
tinction was  more  selfish  than  logical;  still  it  was  made. 
Says  Lingard : 

"Of  the  Primac)''  of  the  Pontiff,  or  of  his  spiritual  jurisdiction,  there  was 
no  question":  both  these  were  repeatedly  acknowledged  by  the  Commons  in 
their  petitions,  and  by  the  king  in  his  letters.  But  it  was  contended  that 
the  Pope  was  surrounded  by  subtle  and  rapacious  counselors,  who  abused 
for  their  own  emolument  the  confidence  of  their  master;  that  by  their  ad- 
vice he  had  'accroached'  to  himself  a  temporal  authority,  to  which,  as  it 
invaded  the  rights  of  others,  he  could  have  no  claim ;  and  that  when  repeat- 
ed remonstrances  had  failed,  it  was  lawful  to  employ  the  resources  of  the 
civil  power  in  the  just  defense  of  civil  rights."  * 

20.  Certain  it  is,  that  the  English  prelates  who  were  ap- 
pointed either  directly  by  the  Holy  See,  or  with  its  full  con- 
sent, were  those  precisely  to  whom  England  is  most  indebted. 
In  general,  they  were  immeasurably  superior  to  those  who 
were  nominated  by  the  king,  after  a  sham  election  by  the 
chapter,  and  an  extorted  approval  from  the  Pope.     What  a 


*  Hist.  England,  vol.  iv,  p.  156. 


48  ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

candid  Protestant  writer  says  of  the  clergy  in  Germany  may 
apply,  with  still  greater  force,  to  those  of  England  during  the 
period  of  which  we  are  speaking : 

"  It  can  not  be  denied  that,  whatever  the  national  writers  may  say  to  the 
contrar}^,  the  ecclesiastics  appointed  by  the  Pope  were  generally  far  superior, 
as  regards  both  merit  and  conduct,  to  those  nominated  by  the  chapter  or 
the  bishops."  * 

We  think  we  have  already  sufficiently  proved  this,  in  what 
we  have  heretofore  said  of  Lanfranc,  St.  Anselm,  St.  Thomas, 
and  St.  Edmund.  We  will  merely  add,  that  it  was  to  the 
Pope,  and  in  direct  opposition  to  the  twice  declared  wishes 
of  the  chapter  of  Canterbury  supported  by  the  English  king, 
that  the  English  church  was  indebted  for  the  nomination  to 
the  English  primacy  of  the  great  Stephen  Langton,  the  cham- 
pion of  Magna  Charta.  Mathew  of  Westminster,  a  monkish 
chronicler  of  the  times,  furnishes  all  the  particulars  of  this 
interesting  case,  which  of  itself  would  show  how  much  Eng- 
land is  indebted  to  the  Popes. f 

Again,  the  successor  of  Langton,  St.  Edmund  Rich,  was 
nominated  by  the  Pope,  who  rejected  Blunt,  or  Blundy,  the 
candidate  presented  by  the  chapter  of  Canterbury  with  the 
sanction  of  the  king.  The  chief  ground  for  the  rejection  of 
Blunt  was,  that,  contrary  to  the  sacred  canons,  he  already 
held  a  plurality  of  benefices.  At  the  suggestion  of  Langton, 
the  Pope  had  previously  ordered  a  rigid  visitation  of  the 
whole  province  of  Canterbury,  with  a  view  to  correct  abuses, 
and  especially  to  inquire  into  the  conduct  of  the  clergy,  both 
secular  and  regular.  In  spite  of  monastic  and  royal  opposi- 
tion, the  visitation  was  rigidly  carried  out ;  and  it  resulted  in 
the  removal  of  scandals,  and  in  the  correction  of  many 
abuses,  which  had  crept  in  through  human  weakness  and 
royal  encroachment.     Roger  of  Wendover,  another  monkish 


*  Hist.  Germanic  Empire,  vol.  ii,  ch.  3,  in  Cabinet  Cyclopedia,  apud 
Dublin  Review,  for  October,  1858. 

i  An  interesting  summary  of  the  facts  is  given  in  the  article  of  the  Dub- 
lin Review,  for  October,  1858,  already  quoted. 


LANFRANC    AND  WYKEHAM.  49 

chr  jnicier,  furnishes  us  all  the  particulars  of  this  most  wiso 
and  salutary  measure  of  discipline,* 

Speaking  of  Lanfranc,  the  first  archbishop  of  Canterbury 
after  the  Norman  conquest,  the  recent  Protestant  biographei 
of  the  English  Judges,  Mr.  Foss,  bears  the  following  honor- 
able testimony : 

"  He  was  not  only  willingly  accepted  by  the  monks  and  approved  by  the 
barons  and  people,  but  gladly  confirmed  by  the  Pope.  He  was  accordingly 
consecrated  in  1070,  and  on  visiting  Rome  in  the  following  year  to  receive 
the  pall,  he  was  welcomed  with  particular  respect  by  his  former  pupil,  Alex- 
ander II.,  who  rose  to  give  him  audience,  kissed  him  instead  of  presenting 
his  slipper  for  that  obeisance,  and  not  satisfied  with  giving  him  the  usual 
pall,  invested  him  with  that  which  he  had  himself  used  in  celebrating  Mass. 
On  his  return  from  Rome,  he  devoted  himself  strenuously  to  the  duties  of 
his  ofiice,  and  labored  successfully  in  reforming  the  irregularities  and  rude- 
ness of  his  clergy.  His  severity  in  depriving  many  occasioned  considerable 
complaints,  but  the  introduction  of  foreign  scholars  in  their  places  contri 
buted  eifectually  to  the  enlightenment  of  the  nation."  f 

Of  another  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Simon  of  Sudbury, 
who  was  a  favorite  of  the  Pope,  but  was  murdered  by  an 
English  mob  under  Richard  IL,  Mr.  Foss  says : 

"  The  character  of  the  archbishop,  as  represented  by  the  historians,  was  such 
as  to  make  him  least  liable  to  popular  hatred.  He  was  of  a  liberal,  free,  and 
generous  spirit ;  admired  for  his  wonderftil  parts,  for  his  wisdom,  his  learn- 
ing, and  his  eloquence,  and  revered  for  the  piety  of  his  life,  the  charity  he 
dispensed,  and  the  merciful  consideration  he  always  exhibited."  I 

The  same  candid  Protestant  writer  speaks  equally  well 
of  another  of  the  Pope's  bishops,  the  illustrious  William  of 
Wykeham,  whom  the  king  compelled  to  become  chancellor. 
He  held  the  seals  for  two  years  and  a  half;  but  "  during  that 
period,  he  had  the  happiness  to  restore  the  public  tranquillity 
80  efiectually,  that  parliament  thanked  the  king  for  his  good 
government ;  and  could  he  have  been  induced  to  remain  in 
ofiice,  it  is  probable  that  his  wise  councils  might  have  checked 

*  Dublin  Review,  ibid. 

f  The  Judges  of  England,  etc.  6  vols.  By  Edward  Foss,  F.  S.  A.,  apud 
Dublin  Review,  for  July,  1858.  t  Ibid. 

VOL.    II. 5 


50  ENGLAND   BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

the  king's  intemperance,  and  prevented  the  ftital  consequences 
that  followed."  * 

21.  In  reading  the  English  monastic  chronicles  of  the  thir- 
teenth and  fourteenth  centuries,  some  of  which  have  been 
recently  published  by  the  British  government,!  we  are  often 
shocked  at  the  sneering  or  irreverent  tone,  in  which  they  not 
unfrequently  speak  of  the  Holy  See.  They  are  usually  found 
sympathizing  with  the  royal  pretensions,  and  in  opposition  to 
the  claims  of  the  Pope.  They  occasionally  dismiss,  with  cold 
words  or  a  passing  sneer,  the  most  atrocious  acts  of  violence 
perpetrated  against  the  ecclesiastical  nominees  of  the  Pontiff. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  following  extract  from  Mathew  of 
Westminster,  for  the  year  1260  : 

"A  prebendary  of  St.  Paul's,  dying  beyond  the  Alps,  the  Pope  imme- 
diately bestowed  the  prebend  on  another.  The  king,  not  being  aware  of 
this,  bestowed  the  prebend  on  Lord  John  de  Crakehall,  his  treasurer.  When 
this  was  heard,  a  procurator,  one  of  the  secular  clergy,  was  sent  into  Eng- 
land with  writings  from  the  Pope,  to  support  the  papal  collation.  And  the 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  deciding  on  the  case,  as  he  was  ordered  to  do, 
ascertaining  at  length  that  the  papal  donation  preceded  the  Icing's  appoint- 
ment in  order  of  time,  by  his  formal  sentence  adjudged  the  prebend  to  the 
Eoman  before  mentioned ;  who  after  he  was  installed,  endeavored  to  take 
possession  of  the  principal  mansions  attached  to  the  prebend  in  the  city ;  but 
he  was  denied  entrance,  on  which  account,  yielding  to  violence  and  arms, 
he  withdrew.  And  they  who  occupied  the  house,  seeing  this,  presently 
followed  him  behind,  and  some  one  in  the  crowd  of  passers-by  clove  his  head 
in  two  between  the  eyes,  and  escaped  without  being  arrested  by  any  one  ;  and 
a  companion  was  treated  in  the  same  manner,  while  the  slayer  escaped ;" 
and  although  "aji  investigation  took  place,  tlie  criminal  could  not  be  dis- 
covered." I 

The  whole  account  looks  very  much  like  a  criminal  con  id  v- 
ance  of  the  civil  powers  in  two  atrocious  assassinations,  un- 

*  The  Judges  of  England,  etc.,  apud  Dublin  Review.     Quoted  already. 

f  Chronicles  and  Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  Published  by  the  authority  of  her  Majesty's  Treasury,  under  the 
direction  of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls.     London  ;  Longman,  1858 

I  Quoted  by  Dublin  Review,  for  October,  1858,  sup.  cit. 


SINGULAR    DEVELOPMENTS.  51 

hlusliingly  perpetrated  at  noonday  in  the  streets  of  London, 
on  a  man  too  who  was  peaceably  withdrawing,  yielding  qui- 
etly his  acknowledged  rights  to  "  violence  and  arms  !"  These 
horrid  crimes  seem  to  have  created  but  slight  sensation  at 
the  time,  else  the  investigation  which  is  said  to  have  taken 
place  would  have  had  some  result.  Here  we  may,  more- 
over, see  what  was  the  character  of  some  at  least  of 
the  men  whom  the  king  thought  proper  to  promote  to 
the  principal  church-livings.  This  "Lord  John  de  Crake- 
hall,  the  king's  treasurer,"  was  but  one  out  of  a  vast  num- 
ber of  such  creatures  of  the  king,  who  were  thus  promoted 
to  high  dignities  in  spite  of  the  Pope.  He  was  a  man 
of  little  virtue  or  integrity  —  a  mere  courtier.  Here  is 
another  specimen  exhibiting  a  similar  spirit,  from  Capgrave, 
a  chronicler  of  the  fourteenth  century  —  the  occurrence 
belongs  to  the  year  1315 : 

"At  that  time  came  into  England  two  legates.  As  the  manner  of  the 
Romans  is,  they  ride  with  great  solemnity  into  the  North-  country,  for  to 
make  Lodewick  Beaumont  bishop  of  Durham,  against  the  election  of  the 
monks  who  had  chosen  another  :  And  though  they  were  warned  that  they 
should  not  come  there,  j^et  they  rode  till  they  came  to  Darlington.  And 
sodeynly  out  of  a  vale  rose  a  grete  people — Capteyns  Gilbert  de  Mydleton 
and  Walter  Selby.  They  laid  hands  upon  them,  and  robbed  them  of  all 
their  treasure ;  and  Lodewick,  whom  they  intended  to  make  bishop,  they 
led  to  a  town  called  Morpeth,  and  compelled  him  to  make  a  grete  ransom. 
Then  came  the  cardinals  to  London,  and  asked  of  the  clergy  eight  pence  in 
the  mark" — by  way  of  compensation  for  their  loss.  They  were  answered 
with  a  sneer,  "  that  they  gave  them  no  counsel  for  to  go  so  far 
North ! "  * 

And  yet  these  same  men,  who  could  treat  with  so  much 
cold  contempt  and  heartlessness  the  envoys  of  the  Holy  See 
thus  grievously  outraged  in  the  discharge  of  their  official 
duty,  and  who  were  so  niggardly  of  their  contributions  even 
to  the  holy  father  himself  when  he  called  on  them  in  his  sore 
distress,  were  themselves  the  veriest  slaves  of  the  king,  and 


*  Dublin  Review,  ibid. 


52  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

dared  not  resist  his  demands  for  money,  no  matter  how  fre- 
quent and  how  exorbitant  these  were.  They  were  wholly 
at  the  mercy  of  their  royal  master ;  and  though  they 
begrudged  the  miserable  pittance  of  Peter  pence  to  sup 
port  the  common  father  of  the  faithful  in  the  discharge 
of  his  duties  for  the  common  good  of  Christendom,  they 
would,  with  courtly  cheerfulness,  vote  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  pounds  to  a  profligate  monarch,  who  generally 
squandered  the  amount  among  his  unprincipled  favorites, 
or  in  low  debauchery!  Verily,  the  mischievous  claim  of 
the  crown  to  interfere  with  the  nomination  of  bishops  and 
abbots  was  producing  its  legitimate,  but  most  poisonous 
fruits. 

Thus,  for  example,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  L,  we  are  told  by 
Mathew  of  "Westminster,  that  the  king  demanded,  and  the 
clergy  with  apparent  cheerfulness  and  unanimity  granted  one 
half  of  their  annual  revenues.  A  knight  rose  up  in  the  midst 
of  the  convocation,  and  said :  "  My  venerable  men,  this  is 
the  demand  of  the  king,  the  moiety  of  the  annual  revenue  of 
your  churches.  And  if  any  one  objects  to  this,  let  him  rise  up 
in  the  middle  of  the  assembly,  that  his  person  may  be  recog- 
nized and  taken  note  of,  as  he  is  guilty  of  treason  against 
the  king's  peace.  When  they  heard  this,  all  the  prelates 
were  disturbed,  and  immediately  agreed  to  the  king's  de- 
mands."* 

These  courtly  ecclesiastics  were  in  mortal  dread  of  the  king, 
who  seems  to  have  ruled  them  with  a  rod  of  iron  ;  as  the  in- 
stance just  furnished  abundantly  proves.  Mathew  furthei 
states,  that  before  the  extravagant  tax  of  the  king  was  voted 
by  the  terror-stricken  clergy  in  the  manner  described  above, 
the  dean  of  St.  Paul's  ventured  to  the  court  with  a  view  to 
expostulate  with  the  monarch,  and  to  induce  him,  if  possible, 
to  lower  his  demands,  but  that  upon  "  coming  before  the  king 
to  deliver  the  speeches  which  he  had  conceived  in  his  mind, 

*  Quoted  ibid. 


GROWING    SERVILITY.  53 

he  became  suddenly  mute,  and  losing  all  the  strength  of  his 
body,  fell  down  before  the  king  and  expired."* 

22.  Such  was  the  sad  condition  to  which  the  successive  royal 
encroachments  on  the  proper  domain  of  the  Church,  and  on 
the  just  prerogatives  of  the  Holy  See,  had  reduced  the  bishops 
and  higher  clergy  of  England,  as  early  even  as  the  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  It  is  manifest,  from  all  these  facts, 
and  from  many  others  of  a  similar  nature  which  might  be  al 
leged,  that  though  the  Pope's  supremacy  was  openly  and  gen- 
erally recognized  in  theory,  he  was  in  efl'ect  already  shorn  of 
many  of  the  rights  to  its  practical  exercise  which  were  indis- 
pensable for  the  proper  government  of  the  church  in  England. 
The  royal  pretensions  had  already  absorbed  almost  every  thing 
in  the  way  of  patronage,  and  had  left  but  little  real  practical 
power  to  the  Pontiffs,  either  to  select  good  men  for  the  bishop- 
rics, or  to  punish  the  worldly-minded  and  scandalous  among 
the  higher  clergy  and  monks.  As  the  late  writer  already 
quoted,  energetically  remarks  : 

"The  obstinate  absurdity  of  ascribing  to  the  Holy  See  all  the  evils  in  which 
they  were  compelled  reluctantly  to  acquiesce,  or  at  least  to  watch  in  silent 
anguish,  is  the  fallacy  which  distorts  most  modern  views  of  history  ;  and  as 
it  misled  the  Catholic  chroniclers  of  that  age,  we  can  hardly  wonder  at  its 
leading  astray  their  modern  Anglican  editors.  The  truth  is  that  the  Pope, 
in  the  middle  ages,  was  nearly  powerless  in  the  hands  of  princes.  If  thyy 
were  '  ages  of  faith,'  they  were  far  more  ages  of  force.  And  it  is  impossible 
to  quote  too  often  the  remarliable  phrase  of  Mr.  Froude,  which  is  the  key  to 
mediaeval  history,  that  the  authority  of  the  Pope  was  but  a  name  and  a 
sham."\ 

This  last  expression,  borrowed  from  the  Protestant  Froude, 
is  doubtless  much  too  strong.  Throughout  those  ages,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  the  authority  of  the  Popes  was  generally 
recognized ;  and  it  was  not  only  patiently  submitted  to,  but 
reverently  spoken  of  by  all  the  good  and  virtuous  of  every 
country  in  Europe.     But  it  is  also  lamentable  to  observe,  that 


*  Quoted  ibid.  ]  In  Dublin  Pieview,  for  October,  1858. 

35 


54  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION. 

the  practice  was  not  always  in  conformity  with  the  theory, 
especially  among  those  whose  passions  were  curbed  by  the 
papal  power.  The  haughty  and  but  half  civilized  king  or 
baron,  who  panted  to  lay  sacrilegious  hands  on  the  treasures 
of  the  Churcli,  and  who,  to  carry  out  his  design,  wished  to 
thrust  into  the  richest  livings  such  men  as  would  be  most 
ready  to  pander  to  his  ungoverned  appetites,  was  not 
likely  to  view  with  pleasure  the  exercise  of  a  power, 
which  alone  could  effectually  thwart  his  wicked  purpose, 
and  protect  the  Church  from  his  mischievous  encroach- 
ments. And,  unfortunately,  it  too  often  happened,  that 
the  wicked  prince  was  powerfully  aided  by  courtier  pre- 
lates and  monks,  who  expected  to  reap  worldly  advantage 
by  pandering  to  his  passions. 

23.  This  fact  furnishes  the  true  key  to  the  scandalous  quar- 
rels of  medioeval  English  kings  with  the  Popes,  which  so  often 
meet  our  eyes  and  shock  our  religious  sensibilities  in  reading 
the  chronicles  of  the  middle  ages.  These  were  written  mostly 
by  monks,  who  had  caught  the  rude  spirit  of  the  times,  and 
had  learned  to  argue  in  favor  of  their  temporal  lords.  The 
latter  could  reward  them  with  rich  benefices,  whereas  the 
Popes  could  only  restrain  their  vices  and  hurl  anathemas  at 
their  heads  from  a  distance. 

This  contemptible  courtier-spirit  among  the  higher  clergy 
went  on  steadily  increasing,  especially  in  England,  from  the 
twelfth  to  the  sixteenth  century ;  when  under  Henry  YIIl. 
it  finally 'culminated  in  the  most  abject  servility  to  the  crown. 
The  writer  already  quoted  more  than  once  very  justly  re- 
marks as  follows  on  this  growing  degeneracy: 

"  As  we  advance  towards  the  Reformation,  we  see  the  spirit  of  slavery 
stealing  over  men's  minds,   taking  its   origin   from  a  servile  worship  of  the 

visible,  einbodied   in  an  earthly   sovereignty The  old  English  vigor  ol 

intellect  and  character  was  becoming  palsied  beneath  the  heavy,  chilling  pres- 
sure of  regal  tyrann}^,  and  losing  all  its  elastic  energy  and  racy  heartiness 

[n  truth,  these  chronicles,  taken  altogether,  throw  a  clear,  strong  light  upon 
our  English  history  :  and  the  more  that  light  is  diffused,  the  more  apparent 
will  it  be,  tliat  al!  the  abuses  of  the  Church  in   that  age  arose  from  servility 


EV^    OF   THE    REFORMATION.  55 

to  royalty  ;  and  from  the  virtual  subjection  of  the  episcopate  to  that  spirit  ol 
the  world,  which  was  afterwards  formally  embodied  and  enthroned,  and  still 
is  so  in  the  royal  supremacy  :  in  other  words,  all  these  mediaeval  chronicles 
are  witnesses  for  the  Papacy." 

24.  From  this  rapid  summary  of  foots  showing  the  religious 
condition  of  England  before  the  Reformation,  especially  in 
her  relations  with  the  Holy  See,  we  draw  the  following  con- 
clusions, the  soundness  of  which  few  impartial  men  will  be 
inclined  to  dispute : 

1.  That  England  was  indebted  to  Rome  for  the  boon  of 
Christianity,  and  this  in  both  epochs  of  her  early  religious 
history — the  British  and  the  Anglo-Saxon.  Pope  St.  Eleu- 
therius  in  the  second,  and  Pope  St.  Gregory  the  Great  in  the 
sixth  century,  sent  out  the  apostolic  men  that  labored  success- 
fully for  the  conversion  of  her  people ;  who  but  for  the  effect- 
ive zeal  of  those  holy  Pontiffs  might  have  continued  for 
centuries  longer  to  sit  "  in  the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death." 
There  is  no  clear  or  satisfactory  evidence  of  any  attempt  to 
convert  England  before  the  days  of  Eleutherius ;  and  if  there 
were  Christians  on  the  island  at  an  earlier  period,  they  must 
have  been  few  in  number,  and  history  has  left  no  record  of 
their  existence  as  an  organized  body. 

2.  That  the  present  Anglican  hierarchy,  professing  to  derive 
its  succession,  as  it  certainly  does,  from  Canterbury,  and  not 
from  the  British  Christians  of  Wales,  must  necessarily  refer 
back  its  origin  to  Pope  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  who  established 
the  see  of  Canterbury,  and  who  appointed  its  first  incumbent. 
St.  Augustine  is  thus  clearly  the  first  link  in  the  chain  of  the 
Anglican  succession,  without  which  it  could  lay  claim  to  no 
possible  connection  with  the  early  Church.  The  present  An- 
glican hierarchy  must  then  derive  its  authority — if  at  all  -  - 
from  the  Pope  through  St.  Augustine  of  Canterbury,  else  it  ha^ 
no  beginning  nor  succession  whatsoever,  even  in  appearance. 

3.  That  throughout  the  entire  period  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
and  of  the  Anglo-Norman  dynasties — for  nearly  a  thousand 
years  before  the  Reformation — the  Primacy  of  the  Holy  Set 


56  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

was  fully  and  generally  recognized  by  all  classes  in  England; 
that  its  authority  was  appealed  to  by  the  greatest  and-  tbe 
best  in  all  great  emergencies ;  and  that,  in  a  word,  the 
Church  in  England  regarded  herself  during  all  those  centu- 
ries as  being  under  the  special  protection  and  fostering  caro 
of  the  lioman  Pontiffs.  This  is  manifest  from  the  public  acts 
of  Saints  "Wilfrid  and  Dunstan  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  period ; 
and  of  Lanfranc,  St.  Anselm,  St.  Thomas  A  Becket,  St.  Ed- 
mund, and  many  other  great  men  during  the  Anglo-Norman. 
The  Popes  continued  to  send  their  legates  to  England  down 
to  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  inclusively ;  and  amidst  the  tur- 
moil of  those  troubled  times,  and  the  storm  of  angry  passions. 
the  voice  of  Home  continued  to  be  heard  and  to  be  generally 
respected  throughout  the  Island.  The  Pontiffs  often  made  the 
English  tyrants  quail,  in  the  midst  of  their  actual  or  medi- 
tated oppressions  and  rapacity:  and  their  authority  proved  a 
bulwark  of  strength  to  the  good  and  virtuous,  and  a  powerful 
shield  to  the  oppressed.  Though  often  thwarted  by  royal  or 
princely  chicanery  and  avarice,  the  Pontiffs  were  generally 
triumphant  in  the  end,  and  they  were  always  right  in  the 
principles  which  they  upheld,  for  the  vindication  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  Church.  This  is  the  general  verdict  of  English 
religious  history,  when  viewed  impartially,  and  in  all  its 
bearings. 

4.  That  the  numerous  and  protracted  conflicts  of  the  En- 
glish monarchs  with  the  Popes,  to  which  we  have  referred 
somewhat  at  length,  do  not  prove  the  contrary  of  this  conclu- 
sion, but  rather  serve  to  confirm  its  truth.  The  English  kings 
and  parliaments  often  sought  to  hamper  in  various  ways  the 
exercise  of  the  Primacy,  not  to  destroy  the  Primacy  itself; 
which  they  clearly  and  repeatedly  recognized,  even  while  an- 
grily opposing  its  decisions.  The  Saxon  was  naturally  a  rude 
and  intractable  character,  narrow  and  almost  insular  in  his 
views,  suspicious  of  the  least  shadow  of  encroachment  on  what 
he  conceived  to  be  his  rights ;  and  though  often  liberal  and  even 
generous,  yet  in  the  main  strongly  wedded  to  his  material 


SUMMING   UP.  57 

comforts  and  pecimiarj  interests.  Most  of  the  contests  in 
question  grew  ont  of  the  intense  English  feeling,  that  money 
should  not  go  out  of  the  kingdom,  nor  aliens  come  in  to  share 
its  emoluments  whether  in  church  or  state,  to  the  exclusion 
of  natives.  The  mere  ftict  of  our  opposing — no  matter  on 
what  personal  grounds — the  justice  or  expediency  of  a  decision 
emanating  from  an  authoritative  tribunal,  does  not  carry  with 
it  the  denial  of  the  right  itself  of  the  tribunal  to  adjudge  the 
case.  Thus,  many  politicians  in  this  country  oppose  certain 
decisions  of  the  Supreme  court  of  the  United  States  ;  and 
yet,  few,  if  any,  deny  the  authority  of  the  court  itself. 

5.  That  the  best  and  brightest  names  in  English  ecclesias- 
tical history  were  precisely  those  of  men  who  were  friends  of 
the  Popes,  and  often,  in  consequence  of  this,  the  victims  of 
royal  persecution.  These  were  men  above  this  world,  who 
preferred  the  spiritual  to  the  material,  heaven  to  earth,  eter- 
nity to  time.  Such  men  were  incapable  of  sacrificing  con- 
science to  expediency,  or  of  becoming  the  pliant  and  subser- 
vient creatures  of  royal  rapacity.  Hence  they  were  hated 
and  persecuted  by  the  world,  represented  by  the  English 
monarchs. 

6.  That  most  of  the  abuses  and  scandals  which  existed  n 
the  English  church  during  the  period  preceding  the  Refor- 
mation, grew  out  of  the  encroachments  of  the  civil  power  on 
the  domain  of  spiritual  rights,  and  out  of  the  persistent  claim 
set  up  by  the  English  monarchs  to  thrust  worldly-minded 
or  unworthy  men  into  the  highest  dignities  of  the  Church,  in 
spite  of  the  energetic  protests  so  often  made  by  the  Popes. 
The  question  of  the  nomination  to  bishoprics  and  abbeys  was 
the  vital  issue  of  the  times;  and  though  it  accidentally  in- 
volved temporal  emoluments  and  interests,  it  was  primarily  a 
religious  question,  fraught  in  its  issues  with  life  or  death  to 
the  Church.  But  for  the  interposition  of  the  Roman  Pontifis  to 
check  this  crying  evil  of  overweening  lay  patronage,  the  En- 
glish church  would  have  been,  according  to  all  human  calcu- 
lations, utterly  and  irretrievably  ruined.  As  it  was,  it  re- 
ceived many  grievous  wounds    from  this  poisoned  weapon, 


58  ENGLAND    BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION. 

wielded  so  persistently,  and  often  so  fatally  by  the  English 
monarchs. 

7.  We  will  add,  that  during  the  Anglo-Saxon  period — and, 
a  fortiori,  during  the  Anglo-Norman — the  same  doctrines  were 
held,  and  the  same  general  usages  of  discipline  connected  with 
doctrine  were  observed,  as  we  now  see  still  held  and  observed 
by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  throughout  the  world.  In  his 
learned  work  on  the  Antiquities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church, 
Dr.  Lingard  has  established  this  great  fact  by  cumulative  evi- 
dence, wliich  no  one  can  gainsay,  much  less  refute. 


REFORMATION    IN    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER     I. 

HENRY    VIII.    AND    EDWARD    VI. 

Tlie  way  now  prepared — The  "  pear  ripe" — Henry  VIII.  the  founder  of  the 
English  Reformation — Two  theories — One  of  them  refuted — And  the 
other  defended — Bishop  Short — And  the  Book  of  Homilies — What  we 
propose  to  examine — Five  questions — Was  Henry  sincere  ? — Auspicious 
beginning  of  his  reign — Defender  of  the  Faith — The  Divorce — Henry's 
scruples! — Anne  Boleyn — Sir  James  Mcintosh  and  Miss  Strickland — 
The  Sweating  Sickness  a  test — D'Aubigne's  moral  standard — Heroism 
of  Clement  VII. —  Noble  answer  of  Campeggio  —  Cardinal  Wolsey  — 
Thomas  Cromwell — Was  Henry  licentious  and  cruel  ? — Treatment  of  his 
six  wives — Anne  Boleyn,  Anne  of  Cleves,  and  Catharine  Howard — Satanic 
conspiracy — Catharine  Parr — Was  Henry  a  tyrant  ? — Confiscation  of 
monasteries — Bishop  Short  testifies  again — Protestant  testimony — Exor- 
bitant taxation — Atrocious  tyranny  —  Trampling  on  ancient  Catholic 
liberties  of  England  —  Hallam's  testimony  —  Means  of  Reformation  — 
Cromwell's  advice — Royal  supremacy — Cromwell  Vicar  General — Degra- 
dation of  bishops — Testimony  of  Bishop  Short — Imaginary  and  real 
despotism — Horrid  butcheries — Fisher  and  Moore — Pole's  brother  and 
relatives — And  his  mother — The  Friars  Peyto  and  Elstow — Hallam's 
testimony — A  system  of  espionage  established  —  Curious  examples  — 
Fronde's  idea  of /'aw — His  defending  Henry  VIII.  and  persecution — Bishop 
Short  on  Henry's  murders — Character  of  the  Anglican  Reformation — The 
Six  Articles — Catholics  and  Protestants  butchered  together — Cranmer  aids 
and  abets — Edward  VI. — Reformation  has  now  an  open  field — Cranmer 
and  Somerset — Gradual  Reformation — Book  of  Common  Prayer — And 
Articles  of  Religion — Inquisition  established — Joan  Bocher  burned — Her 
answer  to  Crannier — Barbarous  law  against  mendicants — People  opposed 
to  the  new  religion — Popular  insurrections — Put  down  by  foreign  sol- 
diers— State  of  public  morals — Suppression  of  monasteries,  a  master- 
stroke of  policy — Analysis  of  Hallam's  testimony  and  reasoning  on  this 
subject — The  three  concupiscences — Conclusion. 

"We  are  now  better  prepared  to  understand,  how  it  was 
possible  for  Henry  VHI.  to  succeed  in  so  suddenly  separating 
England  from  the  communion  of  the  Catholic  Church.     By 

(59^ 


60  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION HENRY    VIII. 

the  gradual  operation  of  the  causes  above  referred  to  in  the 
Introduction ;  by  the  growing  abuse  of  the  royal  patronage 
in  the  nomination  of  bishops,  and  by  the  silent  but  powerful 
influence  on  the  popular  mind  of  the  principles  contained 
in  the  statutes  of  provisors  and  proemunire,  the  higher  clergy 
of  England  had  become  gradually  more  and  more  estranged 
from  the  Holy  See,  and  more  and  more  subservient  to  the 
king.  The  jealousy  of  Rome  was  slowly  leading  them  to  the 
brink  of  the  frightful  abyss  of  schism,  into  which  they  were 
now  prepared  madly  to  plunge.  The  only  one  who  could 
protect  them  from  the  usurpations  and  tyranny  of  the  king, 
in  matters  connected  with  the  interests  of  the  Church,  was 
the  Pope ;  but  the  feeling  of  loyalty  to  the  Pope  had  been 
waning  for  centuries,  however  strongly  his  Primacy  itself  had 
been  recognized.  The  increasing  worldly  spirit  among  the 
higher  clergy  —  itself  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  un- 
due influence  of  the  crown  in  their  nomination  and  appoint- 
ment— was  fast  preparing  their  minds  for  unlimited  and 
unreasoning  obedience  to  the  commands  of  a  tyrant,  in  things 
spiritual  as  well  as  in  things  temporal.  "The  pear  was 
nearly  ripe" — and  Henry  VIH.  greedily  plucked  it  at  the 
flrst  favorable  moment. 

Tlie  whole  merit  or  demerit  of  having  caused  the  separa- 
tion of  England  from  the  Catholic  Church  belongs  fairly  to 
Henry  VHI.  He  was  the  real  father  of  the  English  Refor- 
mation, which  was  peculiarly  his  own  work,  moulded  accord- 
ing to  his  royal  will,  and  made  to  his  own  image  and  like- 
ness. This  fact  is  incontestable.  But  for  him,  there  would 
been  no  schism,  and  consequently  no  Reformation  in  England — 
at  least  not  then.  At  a  subsequent  period,  an  equally  unscru- 
pulous English  nonarch  might  have,  indeed,  availed  himself 
of  the  growing  disaflection  to  Rome,  and  brought  about  a 
schism  ;  but  this  is  merely  a  speculation  as  to  what  might  have 
possibly  occurred,  whereas  we  are  dealing  with  the  facts  as 
they  really  took  place.  Had  Henry  rcuuiined  Arm,  there 
would   have   been   no  divorce   from   Catharine,  and   conse- 


THE   FIRST   THEORY    REFUTED.  61 

quently  no  Edward  VI.  and  no  Elizabeth,  to  cany  out  to  its 
full  length  of  heresy  the  fatal  schism  which  he  originated. 
The  whole  complexion  of  English  history  since  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century  would  have  been  changed ;  and  in 
all  human  probability  England  would  be  Catholic  to  this 
very  day. 

The  apologists  of  the  Anglican  Reformation  generally 
adopt  one  of  two  theories.  One  section  of  them,  and  per- 
haps the  larger  and  more  respectable,  give  up  the  character 
and  acts  of  Henry  VIII.  as  wholly  indefensible,  and  say  that 
the  Reformation  was  a  good  thing  brought  about  by  a  bad 
man ;  while  another  section,  comprising  several  ancient  and 
some  recent  Anglican  writers,  of  some  respectability  and 
weight  with  their  own  partisans,  undertake  the  defense  of 
Henry  VIIL,  and  would  have  us  believe  that  he  was  not  half 
so  bad  a  man  as  history  usually  paints  him,  and  that  his  con- 
duct was  generally  prompted  by  conscientious  motives,  and 
governed,  more  or  less,  by  sound  principles.* 

The  first  of  these  theories  is  easily  refuted.  God  does  not 
employ  the  agency  of  wicked  men  to  do  His  work,  especially 
to  introduce  great  changes  for  the  better.  Such  a  course  were 
unworthy  His  sanctity,  as  it  is  clearly  opposed  to  all  the  facts 
of  sacred  history.  The  instrument  employed  must  be  suitable 
to  the  work  to  be  accomplished.  Tliis  is  a  sound  maxim  even 
in  human  policy  and  wisdom,  and  one  who  should  contravene 
it  would  be  justly  deemed  neither  wise  nor  ordinarily  prudent. 
With  how  much  stronger  reason  is  not  the  principle  applica- 
ble to  the  operations  of  the  all-wise  and  all-holy  Godhead  ? 
"Would  it  not  be  clearly  incompatible  with  both  His  holiness 
and  His  wisdom  to  select  wholly  unworthy,  and  therefore 
wholly  unsuitable  and  inadequate  instruments  to  accomplish 

*  Two  modern  champions  of  Anglicanism,  Bishop  Hopkins  in  America 
and  Froude  in  England,  would  seem  to  incline  to  this  theory ;  from  the 
pains  they  take  to  show  that  Henry  VIII,  was  not  half  so  bad  as  he  is  usu- 
ally represented.  They  herein  adopt  the  only  really  logical  course  for  de» 
fending  the  Anglican  Reformation. 


62  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION HENRY    VIII. 

His  great  designs  for  the  sanctification  and  salvatioj  of  men  ? 
Would  not  this  be  clearly  in  opposition  to  the  maxim  laid 
down  in  the  gospel  by  the  Son  of  God  himself:  "By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them?"  How  could  this  be  verified,  if 
bad  men  could  produce  good  fruits  ? 

True,  God  may  and  does  tolerate  some  bad  ministers  of 
His  own  chosen  work  among  many  good  ones,  where  the  or- 
dinary course  of  things  is  to  be  maintained,  and  no  great  re- 
formatory change,  whether  in  doctrines  or  morals,  to  be 
introduced.  Under  such  circumstances,  the  influence  of  the 
evil  example  of  the  wicked  could  not  be  so  extensively  perni- 
cious, being  counteracted  by  the  preponderating  example  and 
teaching  of  the  good ;  and  the  former  would  be  thereby  effect- 
ually restrained  from  circulating  new  or  dangerous  principles 
for  the  perversion  of  others.  But  the  case  is  totally  diflferent, 
where  a  new  order  of  teaching  and  practice  is  to  be  intro- 
duced for  the  reformation  of  an  entire  people.  Then  we 
naturally  expect  to  find  the  agents  adapted  to  the  nature 
of  their  work. — "  Do  men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of 
thistles  ?"* 

Accordingly,  we  find  that  all  the  true  reformers  of  whom 
we  read  in  sacred  and  ecclesiastical  history  were  men  of  God, 
and  that  most,  if  not  all  of  them,  were  even  gifted  with  super- 
natural powers.  Such  was  the  case  with  Moses  who  intro- 
duced the  old  law,  such  was  the  case  with  the  Apostles  who 
proclaimed  the  new.  Miracles  were  the  seals  of  their  apos- 
tleship,  and  the  unmistakable  evidence  before  the  people  of 
their  divine  mission  and  authority  to  teach  the  revealed  truths, 
and  enforce  the  divine  commandments.  Without  such  gifts, 
we  can  scarcely  understand  how  Christianity  could  have 
been  established,  or  even  one  nation  converted  from  paganism. 
The  apostles  of  all  the  diflPerent  nations,  which  were  success- 
ively converted  from  paganism  to  Christianity,  were  men 
of  this   heavenly  stamp,   as   all   ecclesiastical  histoiy  pro 

*  St.  Mathew,  vii :  16. 


THE    SECOND    THEORY   MAINTAINED.  63 

claims.  Not  one  of  them  all  was  certainly  a  man  of  even 
doubtful  character,  much  less  openly  wicked  in  his  life  and 
conduct. 

And  the  same  may  be  said  of  those  Christian  reformers  of 
popular  morals,  without  reference  to  doctrinal  changes,  who 
have  adorned  the  Church  in  every  age  of  her  eventful  history. 
They  were  all  men  of  the  purest  morals  and  of  the  highest 
type  of  sanctity.  They  practiced  in  their  daily  life  what  they 
so  eloquently  preached  to  others  ;  and  God  abundantly  blessed 
their  holy  labors  for  His  own  honor  and  glory.  A  hundred 
examples  of  this  might  be  alleged,  while  not  a  solitary  in- 
stance of  the  contrary  can  be  produced.  It  would  lead  us 
much  too  far  to  go  into  facts  and  specifications  on  this  subject; 
but  we  may  be  allowed  simply  to  refer  to  a  few  of  such  reform- 
ers in  mediaeval  or  in  more  modern  times  as  many  Anglican 
writers,  like  Palmer  and  Pusey,  are  in  the  habit  of  looking  up 
to  with  respectful  reverence ;  to  such  men,  for  instance,  as 
St.  Bernard,  St.  Vincent  Ferrer,  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul,  and  St.  Francis  de  Sales.  Until  the  advent 
of  the  Protestant  Eeformation,  such  a  thing  as  a  true  refor- 
mation in  morals,  and  still  more  in  doctrine,  brought  about 
by  the  agency  of  wicked  men,  was  never  even  thought  of  as 
probable,  or  even  as  possible.  This  remarkable  discovery, 
like  many  others,  was  reserved  for  more  enlightened  modern 
times  ! 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  only  logical,  or  even  plausible  de- 
fense of  the  Anglican  Reformation  consists  precisely  in  the 
adoption  of  the  second  theory  referred  to  above ;  namely,  that 
those  who  brought  it  about  and  perfected  the  work  were  good, 
at  any  rate,  not  bad  men  or  women.  This  line  of  defense,  of 
course,  necessarily  carries  along  with  it  the  vindication  of 
Henry  VIII.  and  of  his  daughter  Elizabeth ;  the  former  of 
whom  began,  and  the  latter  consummated  the  Anglican 
Reformation.  But  though  the  defense  of  such  characters 
is   manifestly   a   very   diificult,   if  not   a   h  ^peless    task,   it 


64  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY    VIU. 

18  really  the  only  vindication  which  is  at  all  admis 
sible.* 

That  Henry  VIII.  was,  in  fact,  the  real  originator  and 
fc'ander  of  the  Anglican  church,  few  impartial  men  will  be 
disposed  to  deny.  English  history  proclaims  the  fact  in  lan- 
guage too  clear  to  admit  of  any  misunderstandmg  or  doubt. 
The  Anglican  bishop  Short,  speaking  of  the  gratitude  Anglicans 
owe  to  God  for  having  brought  about  the  Reformation  in 
England,  says :  "  The  chief  mover  of  the  Reformation  in  this 
country  was  a  king  brought  up  with  a  high  respect  and  ad- 
miration for  those  doctrines  which  were  combated  by  the 
reformers;  who  had  publicly  embarked  in  their  defense 
and  acquired  the  title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith,  etc."  f  A 
little  further  on,  he  candidly  admits,  that  "  the  existence  of 
the  church  of  England,  as  a  distinct  body,  and  her  final  sep- 
aration from  Rome,  may  be  dated  from  the  period  of  the 
divorce."  J 

The  same  fact  is  attested  by  an  authority  which  may  be 
deemed  almost,  if  not  quite  official  and  decisive  ;  we  refer  to 
the  Book  of  Homilies  of  the  church  of  England,  issued  origin 
ally  by  Cranmer  and  his  associates  in  the  reign  of  Edward 
VI.,  and  indorsed  as  containing  sound  doctrine  in  one  of  the 
Thirty-Nine  Articles.  In  these  Homilies  is  found  the  follow- 
ing remarkable  passage,  highly  eulogistic  of  Henry  VIII.,  as 

*In  his  Constitutional  History  of  England,  (Edit.  Harper.  New  York, 
1857,  p.  30,  note,)  Mr.  Hallam  rebukes  a  leading  champion  of  Anglicanism — 
Sharon  Turner — for  having,  "in  his  history  of  Henry  VHL,  gone  upon  the 
strange  principle  of  exalting  that  tyrant's  reputation  at  the  expense  of  every 
one  of  his  victims,  to  whatever  party  they  may  have  belonged.  Odit  dam- 
natos.  Perhaps  he  is  the  first,  and  will  be  the  last,  who  has  defended  the 
attainder  of  Sir  Thomas  More." 

Burnet  had  previously  set  the  example  of  unworthy  adulation  towards  the 
royal  tyrant ;  and  his  spirit  seems  to  have  descended  to  the  poet  Gray,  who 
sings  of  Henry,  as 

"  The  majestic  lord, 

Who  broke  tlie  bonds  of  Rome." — Quoted  Ibid. 

f  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  sup.  cit.  p.  53.         \  Ibid.,  p.  44 


WHAT    WE    PROPOSE   TO    PROVE.  65 

the  great  reformer  whom  God  had  raised  up  in  Engla  d  and 
filled  with  his  own  spirit: 

"Honor  be  to  God  who  did  put  light  in  the  heart  of  his  true  and  faztliful 
minister,  of  most  famous  memory,  King  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  give  him  the 
knowledge  of  His  word,  and  an  earnest  aifection  to  seek  His  glory,  and  to  put 
away  all  such  superstitions  and  pharisaical  sects  by  antichrist  invented  and 
set  up  against  the  true  word  of  God  and  glory  of  His  most  blessed  name,  as 
He  gave  the  like  spirit  to  the  most  noble  and  famous  princes  Josaphat,  Josias, 
and  Ezechias."*  .. 

"We  willingly  accept  the  issue  as  thus  made  by  some  of  the 
strongest  champions  of  Anglicanism,  and  we  are  fully  pre- 
pared to  abide  the  test  which  the  issue  involves.  Though  our 
purpose  does  not  require,  nor  will  our  limits  permit,  a  full, 
detailed,  and  connected  account  of  the  rise  and  progress  of 
the  Anglican  Keformation,  the  history  of  which  is  probably 
already  familiar  to  most  of  our  readers,  yet  we  hope  to  refer 
to  a  sufficient  number  of  facts  fully  to  apply  the  test,  and  to 
enable  the  impartial  to  form  a  correct  judgment  on  the  sub- 
ject. What  we  will  have  to  say  will  be  comprised  in  our 
answers  to  the  following  questions,  which,  if  we  are  not  mis- 
taken, cover  the  whole  ground  of  the  controversy : — 

I.  Was  Henry  VIII.  siticere,  in  the  motives  which  he  al- 
leged, and  in  the  means  which  he  employed  for  originating 
the  AngHcan  schism  .' 

II.  Was  he  licentious  and  cruel  ? 

III.  Was  he  a  tyrant,  and  did  he  destroy  English  liberty  ? 

IV.  By  what  means,  and  through  what  agencies,  did  he 
bring  about  the  Reformation  ? 

V.  Finally,  what  was  the  nature  and  what  the  real  char- 
acter of  the  religious  change  or  revolution  called  the  Refor- 

t  Book  of  Homilies ;  Edition  of  C.  Biddle ;  Philadelphia,  1844,  p.  52.   This 
edition  is  indorsed  by  thirteen  American  Episcopal  bishops,  and  by  many 
of  the  more  celebrated  among  the  clergy. 
VOL.  II.— 6 


G6  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION — RKIRY  VIII. 

mation,  begun  under  his  reign,  and  continued  under  that  of 
his  son  and  successor,  Edward  VI.  ? 


I.  Was  Henry  VIII.  sincere,  in  the  motives  which  he 
alleged,  and  in  the  means  which  he  employed  for  originating 
the  Anglican  schism  ? 


'&' 


God  only  scarcheth  hearts*  and  He  alone  can  judge  finally 
and  with  infallible  certainty  of  the  motives  which  prompt  and 
govern  the  actions  of  men.  Still  we  are  not  only  not  forbid- 
den, but  we  are  even  sometimes  required  to  form  a  judgment 
on  the  motives  which  control  the  public  acts  of  public  men, 
especially  when  these  acts  have,  or  may  have,  a  powerful  in- 
fluence for  good  or  for  evil  on  faith  and  morals.  Such  is 
clearly  the  case  in  regard  to  Henry  VIII.  and  the  Reforma- 
tion which  he  originated.  No  event  or  revolution  probably, 
whether  in  ancient  or  in  modern  times,  has  exercised  a  wider 
or  more  protracted  influence  on  mankind,  than  the  revolution 
called  by  its  friends  the  Reformation^  of  which  the  Anglican 
is  so  important  a  branch. 

In  forming  our  opinion  of  men,  we  have  a  reliable  standard 
— their  acts.  Judged  by  this  criterion,  Henry  VIII.  stands 
forth  a  man  of  strong  and  ungovernable  passions,  who  was 
willing  to  sacrifice  every  thing  for  their  gratification,  and  who 
boldly  trampled  down  and  crushed  by  the  most  unrighteous 
means  all  opposition  to  his  imperious  will.  As  a  general  rule, 
he  did  not  play  the  role  of  the  hypocrite ;  this  was  little  con- 
genial with  his  naturally  bold,  blunt,  impetuous  temperament. 
When,  however,  he  did  think  it  expedient  to  piit  on  the  mask, 
it  was  so  clumsily  adjusted  and  so  unskillfully  worn,  as  to 
deceive  no  one.  Pretension  was  not  his  element,  and  he 
betrayed  himself  at  almost  every  step,  whenever  circumstan- 
ces led  him  to  adopt  this  expedient  for  appearing  what  he 
was  not.     His  whole  history  abounds  with  evidences  going  to 


W/\S    HENRY    VIII.  SINCERE? THE   DIVORCE.  G7 

confirm  this  estimate  of  his  character,  which  has  been  very 
compendiously  and  suitably  designated  by  the  homely,  but 
significant  English  word — hliiff. 

The  commencement  of  his  reign  was  auspicious,  and  it 
gave  reason  for  anticipating  a  long  and  brilliant  career  for 
himself  and  a  prosperous  future  for  England.  With  a  pre- 
possessing personal  appearance,  tempered  with  a  dash  of  that 
mediaeval  chivalry  which  was  not  yet  dead,  and  with  a  mind 
adorned  by  the  graces  and  enriched  with  the  stores  of  an 
education  rather  above  than  below  the  average  standard  of 
the  time,  he  bade  fair  to  outstrip  all  the  contemporary  sove- 
reigns of  Europe,  Wedded  to  a  virtuous  woman  of  high 
lineage  and  lofty  bearing,  Catharine  of  Aragon — the  aunt  of 
the  great  Charles  Y. — his  kingdom  was  brought  into  close 
alliance  with  that  of  Spain,  which  was  then,  and  for  more 
than  a  century  afterwards  continued  to  be  the  most  wealthy 
and  powerful  government  of  Europe.  All  eyes  were  turned 
upon  the  youthful  sovereign,  whose  fervent  attachment  to  the 
faith  of  his  fathers  was  not  the  least  among  his  many  shining 
qualities.  When  Luther  reared  the  standard  of  religious 
revolt,  and  launched  forth  his  coarse  tirades  and  virulent 
diatribes  against  the  Papacy,  the  chivalrous  Henry  entered 
the  arena  of  controversy,  published  his  book  in  defense  of 
the  Seven  Sacraments  against  the  attacks  of  the  German 
monk,  and  obtained  from  the  reigning  Pontiff  Leo  X.,  at 
whose  feet  he  had  laid  his  first  literary  offering,  the  honorable 
title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith — Fidei  Defensor — which  his 
successors  still  retain,  though  scorning  the  religious  faith  for 
defending  which  it  was  bestowed.  From  Luther  the  royal 
champion  received  in  reply  a  torrent  of  abuse,  which  greatly 
annoyed  him,  and  caused  him  to  prefer  complaints  to  the 
Elector  of  Saxony.  The  latter  compelled  the  audacious  monk 
to  write  an  apology,  which,  though  marked  by  the  lowest  ser- 
vility, was  nevertheless  so  unskillfully,  drawn  as  to  be  but 
little  better  than  the  original  insult. 


68  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY   VIII. 

Things  went  on  in  this  way  for  eighteen  years,  during  all 
which  time  Henry  lived  peaceably  and  happily  with  Catha- 
rine, against  whose  purity  and  loftiness  of  character,  no  one, 
no  matter  how  much  envenomed — not  even  Henry  himself  in 
all  his  subsequent  recklessness  of  wickedness — has  ever  yet 
dared  breathe  a  reproach.  But  Catharine  was  unfortunate  in 
having  no  living  male  heir,  an  object  naturally  very  desirable 
both  to  herself  and  her  royal  husband. 

Suddenly  Henry's  Gonsclenoe  becomes  alarmed,  and  he 
now  discovers,  apparently  for  the  first  time,  that  he  had  been 
living  unlawfully  for  eighteen  years  with  the  widow  of  his 
deceased  brother  Arthur !  *     His  eyes  had  fallen  on,  and  he 

*  Henry  was  solemnly  united  in  marriage  with  Catharine  on  the  6th  of 
June,  1509,  six  weeks  after  the  death  of  his  fixther,  Henry  VII.  His  elder 
brother  Arthur  had  died  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  in  the  year  1503  ;  and  the 
dispensation  of  Pope  Julius  II.,  authorizing  Henry's  marriage  with  Catha- 
rine, the  widow  of  Arthur,  had  been  in  England  already  for  six  years ;  so 
that  Henry  had  full  time  to  examine  the  matter  of  conscience  before  he  freely 
chose,  at  mature  age,  pubUcly  to  wed  Catharine.  "  If  any  doubt  then  oc- 
curred of  the  validity  of  the  marriage,  the  last  moment  for  trying  the  question 
was  then  come ;"  says  the  author  of  the  Memoirs  of  Henry  YIII.,  quoted 
by  Waterworth  ("Historical  Lectures,"  etc.,  on  the  Reformation  in  En- 
gland, in  one  vol.  8vo.  Stereotype  edit,  of  Fithian,  Philadelpliia,  1842 ; 
p.  13.) 

An  unimpeachable  Protestant  witness — Sir  James  Mackintosh — gives 
the  following  opinion  of  Henry's  scruples  : 

"Whether  Henry  really  felt  any  scruple  respecting  the  validity  of  his 
marriage  during  the  first  eighteen  years  of  his  reign,  may  be  reasonably 
doubted.  No  trace  of  such  doubts  can  be  discovered  in  his  public  conduct 
till  the  year  1527.  Catharine  had  then  passed  the  middle  age  :  personal 
infirmities  are  mentioned,  which  might  have  widened  the  alienation.  Alx)ut 
the  same  time,  Anne  Boleyn,  a  damsel  of  the  court,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
two,  in  the  flower  of  youthful  beauty,  and  full  of  graces  and  accomplish- 
ments, touched  the  fierce,  but  not  unsusceptible  heart  of  the  king.  One  of 
her  ancestors  had  been  lord  mayor  of  London,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII. ; 
her  family  had  since  been  connected  with  the  noblest  houses  of  the  kmg- 
doni ;  her  motlier  was  the  sister  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk." 

He  adds  (ibid.)  :  '  The  light  which  shone  from  Anne  Boleyn's  eyes 
might  have  awakened  or  revised  Henry's  doubts  of  the  legitimacy  of  his 


THE    SWEATING    SICKNESS  69 

had  been  captivated  by  the  charms  of  the  youthful  and 
blooming  Anne  Boleyn,  one  of  the  queen's  maids  of  honor, 
who  had  been  educated  amidst  the  gayeties  of  the  brilliant 
French  court,  and  had  there  acquired  all  the  arts  of  an  ac 
complished  coquette.  While  she  employed  every  female 
stratagem  to  encourage  his  unhallowed  passion,  she  at  first 
coyly  repelled  every  advance  which  was  not  made  on  the 
condition  of  her  becoming  queen  of  England  by  lawful  mar- 
riage with  the  king.  This  could  be  accomplished  only  by 
the  death  or  divorce  of  Catharine ;  and  as  the  former  was  a 
doubtful  contingency,  if  left  to  the  ordinary  course  of  nature, 
and  as  Henry  was  not  yet  trained  to  the  line  of  conduct  in 
which  he  subsequently  became  such  an  adept  —  the  murder 
of  his  wives  —  the  latter  was  evidently  the  only  practicable 
course. 

Completely  taken  in  the  toils  of  a  wicked  and  ambitious 
woman,  Henry  now  bent  his  whole  energies  towards  bringing 
about  the  divorce.  This  became  his  all-absorbing  passion ; 
and  he  spared  neither  labor,  money,  nor  intrigue,  to  accom- 
plish his  darling  object.  Before  his  friends,  especially  "Wolsey 
and  the  clergy,  he  eloquently  pleaded  scruples  of  conscience ; 
to  his  parliament  he  alleged  reasons  of  state  policy,  and  the 
dangers  to  the  realm  of  a  disputed  succession.  His  real 
motive  was  no  doubt  his  own  unbridled  passion,*  This  was 
clearly  established  by  the  sequel,  which  is  well  known,  and 

long  union  with  the  faithful  and  blameless  Catharine.  His  licentious  pas- 
sions, by  a  singular  operation,  recalled  his  mind  to  his  theological  studies." — 
History  of  England,  p.  222.  American  edition,  in  one  vol.  8vo.  Carey, 
Lea,  &  Blanchard,  Philadelphia,  1834. 

*  The  excellent  Protestant  authoress,  Agnes  Strickland,  admits  this. 
She  says  : 

"Meantime  a  treatise  on  the  unlawfulness  of  his  present  marriage  was 
compounded  by  the  king  and  some  of  his  favorite  divines.  How  painfull^ 
and  laboriously  the  royal  theologian  toiled  in  this  literary  labyrinth,  is 
evinced  liy  a  letter  written  by  himself  to  the  fair  lady,  tvhose  bright  eyes 
had  afflicted  him  with  such  umvonted  qualms  of  conscience,  that  he  had  been 
3ti 


70  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY   "VIII. 

need  not  therefore  be  dwelt  on  in  detail.  We  will,  however, 
refer  to  one  fact,  bearing  directly  on  the  sincerity  of  Henry. 
During  the  pendency  of  the  divorce,  which  lie  was  wont 
to  call  his  great  "  secret  matter,"  God  spoke  to  his  heart  and 
conscience,  in  the  startling  but  salutary  language  of  the 
"  Sweating  Sickness  ;"  a  malady  which,  from  its  previous  ap- 
pearance and  disastrous  results  in  England,  was  peculiarly 
terrible  in  its  influence  on  the  simple  Catholic  faith  of  the 
inhabitants.  This  scourge  was  a  providential  test  of  faith 
and  sincerity,  which  reached  even  to  the  throne  of  royalty. 
The  king,  as  well  as  the  vassal,  deeply  felt  the  influence  of 
this  touchstone  of  their  loyalty  to  God.  The  conscience- 
smitten  monarch  now  did,  what  might  have  been  expected 
from  a  man  who  had  not  yet  lost  faith,  and  who  wished  to 
save  his  immortal  soul.  He  quickly  sent  away  Anne  Boleyn, 
and  recalled  Catharine ;  and  this  in  spite  of  all  his  previous 
pretended  sGruplfs  of  conscience  about  the  sin  of  living  with 
the  relict  of  his  deceased  brother !  Not  only  did  he  recall 
Catharine,  but  he  united  with  her  in  all  her  daily  devotions ; 
he  devoted  himself  seriously  to  the  great  work  of  preparing 
himself  for  a  better  world ;  he  went  to  confession  every  day, 
and  to  holy  communion  every  week!  Nay  more,  he  now 
became  reconciled  with  Wolsey,  and  exchanged  with  him 
friendly  greetings.* 

fein  to  add  the  pains  and  penalties  of  authorship  to  the  cares  of  government 
for  her  sake." — Lives  of  the  Queens  of  England,  vol.  iv,  p.  142.  Edition 
of  Lea  &  Blanchard,  Philadelphia,  1847.  We  quote  from  this  edition  in 
the  sequel. 

*  If  Anne  was  not  actually  his  mistress  at  the  time  of  tlic  Sweating  Sick- 
ness in  1528,  she  seems  to  have  become  such  not  long  nfterwards,  at  least 
during  the  three  j^ears  previous  to  her  marriage  vc'xih  the  king.  The  mar- 
riage was  hastened  by  the  feet  of  her  being  suddenly  found  in  a  condition  to 
give  him  an  heir,  the  legitimacy  of  whose  birth  it  was  deemed  important  to 
place  beyond  doubt  or  cavil.  The  marriage  was  celebrated  privatel\'  by  Dr. 
Rowland  Lee  in  a  chapel  situated  in  a  garret  at  Whitehall,  on  the  25th  of 
Jonuary,  1533 ;  dnring  the  pendency  of  the  applictitior.  for  the  divorce,  and 
some  time  before    Cranmer  had   pronounv/?d  the   previous  marriage  with 


HALLAM    AND    LINGARD.  71 

His  faith  was  thus  revived,  and  he  was  apparently  animated 
with  the  fervor  of  a  saint,  while  apprehending  the  approach 
of  death ; — what  did  he  becoipe,  so  soon  as  the  plague  had 
disappeared  and  the  fear  of  immediate  death  was  removed  ? 
He  became — ^just  what  he  had  been  before,  only  much  worse ! 
Immediately  after  all  peril  had  vanished,  he  again  dismissed 
his  lawful  wife  Catherine, — with  whom  he  had  daily  prayed 
and  confessed,  and  communed  weekly  while  danger  threat- 
ened— and  recalled  the  unprincipled  Anne  Boleyn !  Does 
this  look  like  the  deed  of  a  man  acting  sincerely  and  from 
conscientious  scruples  ? — Out  upon  such  a  conscience  as  this ! 

Catharine  annulled.  The  king  quieted  the  scruples  of  the  chaplain,  by 
falsel}''  assuring  him  that  Pope  Clement  VII.  had  already  granted  the 
divorce,  and  that  the  papal  decree  was  safely  deposited  in  his  closet ! — See 
the  authorities  quoted  by  Lingard,  Hist.  Eng.,  vol.  vi,  p.  188-89.  Elizabeth 
was  born  a  little  over  seven  months  after  the  date  of  the  marriage. 

Hallam  (Constit.  History,  p.  46,  note)  severely  censures  Lingard,  for  hav- 
ing asserted,  on  the  authoritj^  of  the  French  auibassadoi-,  that  Anne  had  been 
Henry's  mistress  for  three  years  before  her  marriage  with  him ;  though  he 
adds :  "  It  may  not  be  unlikely,  though  by  no  means  evident,  that  Anne's 
prudence,  though,  as  Fuller  says  of  her,  '  she  was  cunning  in  her  chastity,' 
was  surprised-  at  the  end  of  this  long  courtship."  Yet  ( p.  69,  note)  he 
again  severely  blames  Lingard  for  not  following  more  closely  the  authority 
of  the  French  ambassador  and  of  Carte  who  copied  him,  in  portraying  the 
character  of  Queen  Mary ;  though  he  clearly  admits,  that  the  French  am- 
bassador was  at  the  time  the  bitter  enemy  of  Mary,  and  was  constantly 
intriguing  with  Elizabeth  for  her  overthrow  !  Lingard  was  wholly  wrong 
in  following  the  French  ambassador  in  the  former  instance,  and  he  was 
again  wholly  wrong  \xvnot  following  him  in  the  latter!  Such  is  the  justice 
of  English  Protestant  criticism,  even  in  the  ordinarily  moderate  and  just 
Mr.  Hallam.  In  general,  however,  Hallam  quotes  Lingard  with  respect, 
and  follows  him,  even  while  occasbnally  making  a  show  of  censuring  him 
as  an  adroit  partisan.  It  is  also  remarkable,  that,  even  while  objecting  lo 
Lingard's  statements  or  opinions,  as  in  the  case  of  his  admii-able  balanci.ig 
of  evidence  for  and  against  Anne  Boleyn's  innocence  (p.  29-30,  note),  he 
takes  little  pains  to  refute  him,  by  answering  his  arguments,  or  even  at- 
tempting to  dissect  his  authorities.  Lingard  may  be  said  to  have  passed 
almost  unscathed  through  the  severe  ordeal  of  Hallam's  criticism.  He 
questions  very  few,  and  he  refutes  not  one  of  his  statements  of  fact. 


72  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION HENRY    VIII. 

It  was  all  a  sham — a  mere  pretense  to  blind  others ',  and  it 
did  not  succeed  in  accomplishing  even  this ;  for  the  mask  was 
too  thin  and  transparent.* 

*  In  what  he  calls  his  history  of  the  English  Reformation,  D'Aubigne  gives 
in  full  the  correspondence  which  passed  between  Henr}^  and  Anne  about  the 
time  of  the  Sweating  Sickness,  which  correspondence,  he  says,  has  teen 
preseiTcd  in  the  Vatican.  His  desire  to  invest  his  pretended  history  with 
the  interest  of  a  romance,  and  to  make  heroes  and  heroines  of  all  his  char- 
acters who  ever  were  privileged  to  lift  their  voices  against  Rome,  would  not 
allow  him  to  forego  the  publication  of  such  letters,  which  even  he  seems  to 
have  thought  very  questionable  in  their  bearing  on  morals — for  he  remarks  : 
"  We  are  far  from  approving  their  contents  as  a  whole,  but  we  can  not  deny 
to  the  young  lady  to  whom  they  are  addressed  the  possession  of  noble  and 
generous  sentiments."— (History  of  the  Reformation,  one  vol.  8vo,  p.  810, 
American  Edit.)  A  "  young  lady"  who  would  receive  and  answer  such  let- 
ters from  a  married  man,  must  have  been  singularly  endowed  with  "  noble 
and  generous  sentiments  !"  We  fear  that  the  moral  theory  of  D'Aubigne  is 
but  little,  if  any  thing  more  rigid,  than  was  the  actual  practice  of  his  hero — 
the  founder  of  the  Anglican  Church. 

We  can  not  refrain  from  extracting  here  what  D'Aubigne  tells  us  of  an 
interview  which  took  place  between  Henry  VHI.  and  Wolsey  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  divorce,  and  of  the  influence  which  the  Sweating  Sickness  had  on 
the  mind  of  the  monarch.  These  extracts  have  the  merit  of  being  at  least 
sufficiently  graphic  : 

"  Wolsey  now  resolved  to  broach  this  important  subject  in  a  straightfor- 
ward manner.  The  step  might  prove  his  ruin ;  but  if  he  succeeded  he  was 
saved  and  the  popedom  with  him.  Accordingly  one  day,  shortly  before  the 
Sweating  Sickness  broke  out,  says  Du  Bellay,  (probably  m  June  1528) 
Wolsey  openly  prayed  the  king  to  renounce  his  design  ;  his  own  reputation, 
he  told  him,  the  prosperity  of  England,  the  peace  of  Europe,  the  safety  of " 
the  Church, — all  required  it ;  besides  the  Pope  would  never  gi'ant  the  di- 
vorce. While  the  cardinal  was  speaking,  Henry's  face  grew  black  ;  and  be- 
fore he  had  concluded,  the  king's  anger  broke  out.  '  The  king  used  terrible 
words,'  said  Du  Bellay.  He  would  have'  given  a  thousand  Wolseys  for  one 
Anne  Boleyn.  'No  other  than  God  shall  take  her  from  me,'  was  his  most 
decided  resolution 

"  His  real  conscience  awoke  only  in  the  presence  of  death.  Four  of  his 
attendants  and  a  friar,  Anne's  confessor,  as  it  would  appear,  falling  ill,  the 
king  departed  for  Hunsdon.  He  had  been  there  two  days  only  when  Powis, 
Oarew,  and  (IJarton,  an  i  others  of  his  court,  were  carried  off  in  two  or  three 


HEROISM    OF   CLEMENT    Vn.  73 

In  spite  of  the  Sweating  Sickness,  the  project  for  the  divorce 
^as  prosecuted  with  untiring  vigor,  and  with  every  possible 
expedient  which  unscrupulous  diplomacy  could  devise.  The 
foreign  Catholic  universities  were  diligently  canvassed ;  bribes 
were  liberally  proffered  and  bestowed ;  trickery  the  most  con- 
temptible was  resorted  to  without  scruple ;  and  still  the  an- 
swers, though  some  of  them  tavorable,  were  wholly  unsatis- 
factory, because  predicated  upon  a  state  of  the  case  which 
the  virtuous  Catharine  solemnly  denied.* 

The  envoys  of  Henry  miglit  influence,  bribe,  or  deceive 
others ;  they  could  not  deceive,  or  move  in  the  slightest  degree 
the  venerable  Pontiff',  Clement  VII.,  who  then  sat  on  the 
Chair  of  Peter.  Though  inclined  to  do  every  thing  in  his 
power  to  favor  his  dear  son  Henry — Defender  of  the  Faith — 
he  could  not  consent,  even  for  his  sake,  to  trample  under  foot 


hours.  Henry  had  met  an  enemy  whom  he  could  not  vanquish.  He 
quitted  the  place  attacked  by  the  disease  ;  he  ren^oved  to  another  quarter, 
and  when  the  sickness  laid  hold  of  any  of  his  attendants  in  his  new  retreat, 
he  again  left  that  for  a  new  asylum.  Terror  froze  his  blood  ;  he  wandered 
about  pursued  by  that  terrible  scythe  whose  sweep  might  perhaps  reach 
him ;  he  cut  off  all  communication,  even  with  his  servants  ;  shut  himself  up 
in  a  room  at  the  top  of  an  isolated  tower ;  ate  all  alone,  and  would  see  no 
one  but  his  physician :  he  prayed,  fasted,  confessed,  became  reconciled  with 
the  queen ;  took  the  sacrament  every  Sunday  and  feast  day  ;  received  his 
Maker,  to  use  the  words  of  a  gentleman  of  his  chamter;  and  the  queen  and 
Wolsey  did  the  same.  ...  At  last  the  sickness  began  to  diminish,  and  imu\e- 
diately  the  desire  to  see  Anne  revived  in  Henry's  bosom.  On  the  18th  of 
August  she  re-appeared  at  court,  and  all  the  king's  thoughts  were  now  bent 
on  a  divorce." — Hist.  Reformation,  p.  812-13. 

*They  were  predicated  on  the  hj^pothesis,  that  Catharine's  marriage  with 
Arthur  had  been  consummated,  which  Catharine  solemnly  and  persistently 
denied.  According  to  Cardinal  Pole,  Henry  himself  had  acknowledged  to 
Catharine's  nephew,  the  emperor  Charles  V.,  that  her  assertion  was  coii-ect : 
"Tu  ipse  hoc  fSissus  es,  virginem  te  accepisse,  et  Coesari  fassus  es  etc." — 
(Pole,  De  Unitate  Ecclesiai,  apud  Waterworth,  sup.  cit.,  p.  14,  note.)  Th« 
opinions  of  the  universities  which  apparently  pronounced  for  the  divorce 
were,  moreover,  wholly  valueless  ;  for  the  reason  that  they  did  not  present 

FOL.  n. — 7 


74  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION— HENRY  VIII. 

the  holy  law  of  God,  which  forbids  any  Christian  man  to  have 
more  than  one  wife  at  a  time.*  He  firmly  refused  to  grant 
the  divorce,  both  because  it  would  have  been  wrong  to  do  so, 
and  because,  at  the  same  time,  it  would  have  been  a  flagrant 
outr9,ge  on  the  sacred  rights  of  the  virtuous  Catharine.  In 
thus  defending  the  right,  he  was  fully  aware  that  he  periled 
much.  England  would  probably  be  lost  to  the  Church, 
through  the  lieadlong  passions  of  the  baffled  king.  Still  his 
duty  was  clear  and  unmistakable,  and  he  must  fearlessly  do  it, 
even  if  all  the  world  should  go  to  ruin  in  consequence.  The 
attitude  of  the  JPontitf,  though  not  an  unusual  one  for  the 
Papacy,  thus  certainly  had  in  it  elements  of  the  sublime.  It 
ignored  the  doctrine  of  expediency,  and  thought  only  of  main- 
taining the  right. 

All  honor  to  Clement  VII.  for  his  noble  heroism !  And 
let  all  men  who  prefer  right  to  might,  truth  to  error,  virtue  to 
vice,  matrimonial  unity  and  purity  to  polygamy  and  impurity, 
female  innocence  and  dignity  to  overbearing  male  tyranny 
and  oppression,  applaud  the  righteous  decision  of  the  Pontiti*. 
England  was,  indeed,  lost  by  it,  or  rather  in  consequence  of  it, 

fairly  the  opinions  of  the  members.  That  of  the  Sorbonne,  for  instance,  was 
obtained  by  the  merest  trickciy,  while  those  of  the  Itahan  universities 
were  procured  by  open  fraud  and  bribery.  Henry's  agents  used  freely 
monc}',  threats,  and  the  lowest  arts  of  diplomacy  to  attain  their  end.  For 
the  authoi-ities,  see  Lingard  —  Henry  VIII.  Even  Hallam,  in  his  Con- 
stitutional History,  (p.  45,  note)  speaks  "  of  the  venal  opinions  of  foreign 
doctors  of  law,"  and  expressly  maintains,  against  Burnet,  the  bribery  of  the 
universities. 

*  Even  Luther  was  strongly  opposed  to  the  divorce,  though  he  would  not 
appear  to  have  been  so  averse  to  Henry's  having  two  wives  at  once,  accord- 
ing to  the  famous  indulgence  which  he  and  seven  of  his  brother  reformers 
had  already  granted  to  the  scruples  of  Philip,  Landgrave  of  Hesse, — that  im- 
maculate fostering  father  of  the  German  Eeformation. — (See  Hallam,  Con- 
Btit.,  Hist.,  p.  49,  note.)     Says  Miss  Strickland : 

"Anne,  however,  had  her  anxieties  at  this  ci'isis,  for  the  opinion  of  all 
Christendom  was  so  much  against  the  divorce,  that  Henry  was  disposed  to 
waver.  Luther  himself  declared,  'that  he  would  rather  allow  the  king  to 
take  two  wives  than  dissolve  the  present  marriage.'" — Queens  of  Euglan-l: 
vol.  iv,  p.  163.     She  quotes  Lutheri  Epist,  Halse,  1717,  p.  290. 


CAMPEGGIO WOLSEY    AND    CROMWELL.  75 

to  the  Church ;  but  a  signal  and  brilliant  victory  was  gained 
for  truth  and  virtue.* 

The  stern  resolution  of  Clement  was  communicated  to  his 
legate,  the  aged  Campeggio.  The  Protestant  historian  Tytler 
so  well  describes  what  occurred  at  the  last  sitting  of  the 
court  for  trying  the  divorce,  that  we  can  not  do  better  than 
report  the  scene  in  his  own  words  :t 

''On  the  23d  of  July  the  legatine  court  met  for  the  last  time,  and  as  it 
was  generally  expected  by  those  ignorant  of  the  intrigues  at  Rome  that  a 
deeision  would  be  pronounced  for  the  king,  the  hall  was  crowded.  Henry 
himself  was  present,  but  concealed  behind  the  hangings,  where  he  could 
hear  all  that  passed.  When  the  cardinals  had  taken  their  seats,  his  majes- 
ty's counsel  demanded  judgment ;  upon  which  Campeggio  replied,  that  the 
case  was  too  high  and  notable  to  be  determined  before  he  should  have  made 
the  Pope  acquainted  with  all  the  proceedings.  ' I  have  not,' said  he,  'come 
so  far  to  please  any  man  for  fear,  meed,  or  favor,  be  he  king  or  any  other 
potentate.  I  am  an  old  man,  sick,  decayed,  and  looking  daily  for  death. 
What  should  it  then  avail  me  to  put  my  soul  in  danger  of  God's  displeasure, 
to  my  utter  damnation,  for  the  fiivor  of  any  prince  or  high  estate  in  this 
world.  Forasmuch,  then,  that  I  understand  the  truth  in  this  case  is  very 
difficult  to  be  known,  and  that  the  defendant  will  make  no  answer  thereunto, 
but  hath  appealed  from  our  judgment ;  therefore,  to  avoid  all  iVijustice  and 
obscure  doubts,  I  intend  to  proceed  no  further  in  this  matter  until  I  have 
the  opinion  of  the  Pope,  and  such  others  of  his  council  as  have  more 
experience  and  learning.  Foi:  this  purpose,'  he  concluded,  rising  from  his 
chair,  '  I  adjourn  the  cause  till  the  commencement  of  the  next  term,  in  the 
beginning  of  October.' " 

During  the  pendency  of  the  question  concerning  the 
divorce,  Henry  wavered  more  than  once  in  his  resolution. 
Wolsey,  though  he  at  first  culpably  favored  the  project  in 

*  "  To  all  their  remonstrances  (of  Henry's  ambassadors)  he  (Pope  Clement 
VII.)  returned  the  same  answer ;  that  he  could  not  refuse  to  Catharine  what 
the  ordinary  forms  of  justice  required ;  that  he  was  devoted  to  the  king, 
and  eager  to  gratify  him  in  any  manner  conformable  with  law  and  equity  ; 
but  that  they  ought  not  to  require  from  him  what  was  evidently  unjust,  oi 
they  would  find  that,  when  his  conscience  was  concerned,  he  was  equallj 
insensible  to  considerations  of  interest  or  of  danger. — (Lingard,  History  0/ 
England,  vol.  vii,  p.  147.) 

T  Quoted  by  Waterworth,  Lectures  on  the  Reformation,  p.  21-22. 


76  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION llEWUY    VIII. 

order  to  please  his  royal  master,  was  in  the  end  firmly 
opposed  to  it,  and  he  availed  himself  of  every  suitable  occa- 
sion to  avert  the  calamity.  One  of  these  occasions  was  the 
terror  induced  by  the  Sweating  Sickness.  Another  was 
presented,  when  it  became  fully  known  in  England,  by  the 
reports  of  Henry's  Italian  ambassadors,  that  Clement  would 
never  grant  the  divorce.  Henry  often  declared  that  he 
would  abide  by  the  papal  decision,  and  now  he  openly  an- 
nounced his  determination  to  give  up  the  project  forever. 
Anne  Boleyn  was  alarmed,  and  she  employed,  alas !  with  too 
much  success,  all  her  arts  of  blandishment  to  turn  him  from 
his  purpose. 

She  liad  a  powerful  coadjutor  in  Thomas  Cromwell,  the 
son  of  a  fuller  in  the  vicinity  of  London,  whom  Wolsey  had 
raised  from  his  obscurity  and  employed  in  an  honorable 
position  in  his  own  household.  This  man  thought  the  present 
a  favorable  occasion  for  supplanting  his  noble  benefactor, 
taking  his  place  in  the  king's  council,  and  thereby  making 
his  own  fortunes.  He  succeeded  but  too  well.  Wolsey  was 
disgraced,  Catharine  was  divorced,  and  Anne  became  queen 
of  England ;  while  Cromwell  for  a  time  attained  a  position 
and  a  power  which  even  Wolsey  had  never  possessed  in  his 
palmiest  days.  By  what  arts  Cromwell  succeeded  in  gaining 
the  royal  ear,  in  supplanting  Wolsey,  and  in  securing  the 
divorce  of  Henry  from  Catharine  and  of  England  from  the 
Catholic  Church,*  we  shall  see  a  little  further  on.  Meantime, 
we  must  hasten  on  to  the  answer  of  the  second  question. 

*  D'Aubigne  very  appropriately  heads  his  final  chapter — so  far  published 
—on  the  English  Reformation,  "  The  Two  Divorces  ; "  thereby  very  prop- 
erly intimating,  what  is  the  fiict,  that  the  divorce  of  Henry  from  Catharine 
led  to  the  divorce  of  England  from  the  Catholic  Church.  "  There  is  a  close 
relationship,"  he  says,  "  between  these  two  divorces. '  He  displays  consid- 
erable prudence  also  in  closing  his  history  at  this  early  date ;  for  in  con- 
tinuing it  further,  he  would  find  much  difiBculty  in  making  heroes  and  saints 
of  Henry,  Cranraer,  and  other  English  reformers,  and  would  moreover  be 
greatly  embarrassed  in  settling  the  riva    ?laims  of  the  various  sections  of 


WAS    HENRY    VUI.  CRUEL    AND    LICENTIOUS?  77 

II.    Was  Henry  VIII.  licentious  and  cruel  ? 

This  need  not  detain  us  long.  Once  separated  from  the 
ChurcTi,  and  rid  of  the  curbing  influence  of  Wolsey,  Henry's 
passions  knew  no  longer  any  restraints  or  bounds.  He  had 
divorced  a  virtuous  wife,  he  soon  tired  of  Anne  Boleyn.  At 
the  instigation  of  the  latter,  he  had  pursued  Catharine  with 
every  possible  annoyance  in  her  quiet  and  dignified  retreat ; 
he  had  torn  her  only  surviving  child,  Mary,  from  her  com- 
pany, after  having  had  her  declared  illegitimate  by  his  par- 
liament; he  had  cruelly  denied  the  dying  request  of  the 
mother  to  see  for  the  last  time  her  beloved  and  only  daugh- 
ter.* Catharine  died,  invoking  a  blessing  on  the  head  of  her 
cruel  husband;  whose  stern  heart  relented  somewhat  on 
receiving  her  dying  message — but  it  was  now  too  late.  He 
had  her  buried  with  the  solemnity  befitting  a  queen  of  the 
royal  house  of  Spain,  and  he,  with  all  his  court,  went  into 
mourning.  Only  Anne  refused  this  tribute  to  the  memory  of 
her  whom  she  had  supplanted ;  she  arrayed  herself  in  gay 
attire,  as  for  a  bridal,  and  openly  declared  that  she  was  now 
indeed  queen  without  a  rival ! 

Short-lived  triumph !  But  four  months  elapsed,  and  she 
was  herself  divorced  and  brought  to  the  block  as  an  adulteress 
and  as  guilty  of  high  treason.  The  supple  Thomas  Cranmer, 
whom  Henry  had  made  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  was  now 
as  ready,  at  the  bidding  of  his  royal  master,  to  divorce  her 
as  he  had  been  before  to  divorce  Catharine.     On  this  occa- 

Anglicanism,  especially  ft'om  his  own  "  Evangelical "  point  of  view.  He  may, 
perhaps,  hereafter  conclude  to  continue  his  history,  but  we  suspect  that  both 
he  and  his  readers  will  be  content  with  what  he  has  alreadj^  written. 

*  Cardinal  Pole,  in  his  Apology  addressed  to  Charles  V.,  mentions  this 
act  of  unheard  of  cruelty — of  Henry  refusing  to  be  softened  either  by  the  en- 
treaties of  Catharine  or  the  tears  of  Mary  into  granting  one  flbnal  interview 
between  mother  and  daughter  :  "  Cum  hoc  idem  filia  cum  lacrymis  postu- 
laret,  mater  vix  extremum  spiritum  vitse  ducens  flagitaret,  quod  hostis  nisi 
crudelissimus  nunquam  negasset,  conjux  a  viro,  mater  pro  filia,  impetrare 
non  potuit." — Apud  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  236,  note. 


78  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION HENRY    VIH. 

BioQ,  he  played  the  first  of  those  solemn  farces,  for  which  hia 
euDsequent  career  was  so  distinguished.  He  solemnly  pro 
nounced  sentence  involving  two  things  which  were  wholly 
mcompatible  with  each  other:  that  Anne  had  never  been 
truly  married  to  Henry,  and  yet  that  she  was  guilty  of  adul 
tery  by  matrimonial  infidelity !  The  subservient  parliament 
accordingly  declared  her  daughter  Elizabeth  illegitimate; 
and  thus  notwithstanding  two  marriages,  the  king  was  still 
without  a  legitimate  heir.  Whether  Anne  was  really  guilty 
or  not,  it  is  hard  to  determine,  in  the  midst  of  conflicting 
testimony  on  the  subject ;  nor  does  it  much  matter  now,  as  it 
certainly  mattered  little  then.  Guilty  or  innocent,  her  death 
was  decreed  by  her  royal  husband  or  paramour;  and  he 
always  found  willing  instruments  to  execute  his  decrees. 
He  had  cast  his  eyes  on  Jane  Seymour,  one  of  Anne's  maids, 
and  Anne,  in  a  fit  of  jealousy,  had  been  prematurely  delivered 
of  a  dead  male  child.  This  was  ofiense  enough  for  Henry. 
"  He  had  wept  at  the  death  of  Catharine ;  but,  as  if  to  dis- 
play his  contempt  for  the  memory  of  Anne,  he  dressed  him- 
self in  white  on  the  day  of  her  execution,  and  was  married 
to  Jane  Seymour  next  morning."* 

Agnes   Strickland   graphically  relates   this   occurence   as 
follows : 

"  While  the  last  act  of  that  diabolical  drama  was  played  out.  which  con- 
summated the  destruction  of  poor  Anne,  it  appears  that  her  rival  had  the 
discretion  to  retreat  to  her  paternal  mansion,  Wolf  Hall,  in  Wiltshire. 
There  the  preparations  for  her  marriage  with  Henry  VIII.  were  proceeding 
with  sufficient  activity  to  allow  her  roj'al  wedlock  to  take  place  the  day  after 
the  axe  had  rendered  the  king  a  widower.  Henry  himself  remained  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  metropolis,  awaiting  the  accomplishment  of  that  event.  The 
traditions  of  Richmond  Park  and  Epping  Forest  quote  each  j  lace  as  the 
locale  of  the  following  scene.  On  the  morning  of  the  19th  of  May,  Henry 
VIII.,  attired  for  the  chase,  with  his  huntsmen  and  hounds  around  him,  was 
standing  under  a  spreading  oak,  breathlessly  awaiting  the  signal  gun  from 
•^he  Tower,  which  was  to  announce  that  the  axe  had  fallen  on  the  neck  of 
his  once  '  entirely  beloved  Anne  Boleyn  ! '     At  last,  when  the  bright  sum- 

*  Lmgard,  Ibid.,  vol.  vi,  p.  250-51. 


henry's  wives.  79 

mer  sun  rode  high  towards  its  meridian,  the  sullen  sound  of  tte  death-gun 
boomed  along  the  windings  of  the  Thames.  Henry  started  with  ferocious 
joy.  'Ha,  ha!'  he  cried  with  satisfaction,  'the  deed  is  done!  Uncouple 
the  hounds  and  away.'  The  chase  that  day  bent  towards  the  west,  whethei 
the  stag  led  it  in  that  direction  or  not.  At  nightfall  the  king  was  at  Wolf 
Hall,  in  Wilts,  telling  the  news  to  his  elected  bi'ide. 

"  The  next  morning  the  king  married  the  beautiful  Seymour.  It  is  com- 
monly asserted  that  he  wore  white  for  mourning  the  day  after  Anne 
Boleyn's  execution  ;  he  certainly  wore  white,  not  as  mourning,  but  because 
he  on  that  day  wedded  her  rival."  * 

His  subsequent  career  of  licentiousness  and  cruelty  is  but 
„oo  well  known.  On  the  death  of  Jane  Seymour  after  hav- 
ing given  birth  to  Edward  VI. ,t  he  negotiated  a  marriage 
with  a  German  princess,  Anne  of  Cleves.  On  her  arrival  in 
England,  he  was  disgusted  with  her  appearance,  and  he 
angrily  inveighed  against  his  ambassadors  for  having  deceived 
him.  At  the  persuasion  of  the  wily  Cromwell,  he  neverthe- 
less married  her ;  but  he  divorced  her  soon  afterwards ;  the 
pliant  Cranmer,  as  usual,  officiating  in  both  cases.  Crom- 
well's fate  was  sealed  from  that  day.  He  had  dared  advise 
what  proved  to  be  disagreeable  to  the  king,  and  his  head  soon 
rolled  from  the  block.  He  was  the  first  victim  of  his  own  law 
of  attainder,  by  which  much  better  men  than  himself  in  great 
numbers  afterwards  lost  their  lives,  without  a  trial  or  even  a 
hearing!  Yain  were  all  his  entreaties  for  mercy,  based  on 
oyal  devotedness  and  services  rendered;  his  offense  was 
leemed  unpardonable  by  the  relentless  Henry. 

The  next  victim  of  the  royal  cruelty  was  his  fifth  wife, 

*  Queens  of  England,  vol.  iv.  p.  219. 

f  Of  Henry's  feelings  on  the  birth  of  Edward,  while  the  life  of  the  mother 
was  in  imminent  danger,  Miss  Strickland  writes  as  follows  :  "  When  the 
hour  came  in  which  the  heir  of  England  was  expected  to  see  the  light,  it 
was  by  no  means  'the  good  hour'  so  emphatically  prayed  for  in  the  ceremo- 
nial of  her  retirement.  After  a  martyrdom  of  suffering,  the  queen's  attend- 
ants put  to  Henry  the  really  cruel  question  of  '  whether  he  would  wish  his 
wife  or  infant  to  be  saved.'  It  is  affirmed,  and  it  must  be  owned  the  speech 
is  too  characteristic  of  Henry  to  be  doubted,  that  he  replied,  '  The  child  by 
aU  means,  for  other  wives  could  be  easily  found.'  " — Vol.  iv,  p.  228. 


80  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION HENRY    VIII. 

Catharine  Howard,  of  the  noble  house  of  Norfolk.  He  firbt 
married,  then  divorced  her  for  the  alleged  crime  of  aduiiery, 
said  to  have  been  committed  hefore  the  marriage ;  and  ho 
finally  had  her  beheaded  for  the  crime  of  treason,  of  which  she 
certainly  never  had  been  guilty,  even  if  the  other  charge  had 
been  made  out — which  it  was  not.  But  Henry  and  his  sub- 
servient instruments  stopped  at  nothing ;  and  on  this  occasion^ 
a  new  crime  of  constructive  treason,  which  would  operate 
backwards  so  as  to  reach  the  case  of  Catharine,  was  created 
by  special  act  of  parliament !  There  is  the  strongest  reason 
to  believe,  that  Cranmer  and  the  other  leaders  of  the  Protest- 
ant party  cunningly  contrived,  and  by  false  allegations 
basely  accomplished  the  ruin  of  Catharine  Howard,  out  of 
revenge  for  the  fall  of  Cromwell,  and  through  fear  lest  her 
influence  and  that  of  her  family  in  favor  of  the  Catholic 
Church  might  lead  Henry  back  to  the  olden  paths,  and 
thus  mar  all  their  prospects  for  future  advancement  and 
fortune.* 

That  the  death  of  Catharine  Howard  was  the  result  of  a 
conspiracy  of  the  reformers,  with  Cranmer  at  their  head, 
would  seem  to  be  the  opinion  of  the  candid  Miss  Strickland, 
whose  testimony  will  scarcely  be  impeached.  We  furnish 
the  following  extrgjcts  on  the  subject  from  her  interesting 
work : 

"  Five  years  had  passed  away  since  these  rival  queens  had  vanished  fi'om 
the  arena,  and  yet  the  names  of  Anne  and  Katharine  were  still  the  watch- 
words of  the  warring  parties,  for  Henry  was  again  the  husband  of  two  living 

*  See,  on  this  subject,  a  strongly  written  paper  reviewing  Froude's  History 
of  England,  in  the  Dublin  Review  for  July,  1858,  p.  476  seqq.  The  writer 
ably  reviews  the  whole  case,  and  furnishes  abundant  evidence  to  establish 
the  fact,  that  "Cranmer  was  the  prime  mover  in  this  satanic  conspiracy 
against  the  poor  queen ;"  who,  as  the  leader  of  the  Catholic  party,  "  was  re- 
garded by  the  Protestant  faction  with  inveterate  aversion."  The  evidence 
is  chiefly  circumstantial,  but  it  is  very  plausible  ;  and  the  whole  plot  tallies 
well  with  what  is  otherwise  known  of  "  the  dialxilical  craft  and  cruelty  of 
Cranmer,"  who  opportunely  availed  himself  of  tlie  king's  absence  at  the 
north  to  begin  his  machinations  against  his  youthful  and  defenceless  queen. 


henry's   wives A    DARK    PLOT.  81 

ft'ives  of  those  names,  and  the  legahty  of  his  divorce  fi'om  the  Protestant 
jueen,  Anne,  and  his  marriage  with  the  Cathohc  Katharine,  was  almost  as 
nuch  questioned  by  his  Protestant  subjects  as  his  divorce  from  Katharine 
jf  Arragon,  and  his  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn,  had  been  by  the  Cathohcs. 
Thus  we  see  that  Katharine  Howard  was  regarded  by  the  reformed  party 
in  much  the  same  hght  as  Anne  Boleyn  had  formerly  been  by  the  Catholics. 
It  was  fondly  imagined  by  such  of  the  former,  who  regarded  Anne  of  Clevea 
as  Henry's  lawful  queen,  that  he  might  be  won  to  a  reconciUation  with  her, 
if  he  could  be  convinced  of  the  unworthiness  of  her  fair  successor  to  fill  her 
place. 

"  That  the  Duke  of  Cleves  was  so  persuaded,  we  have  shown  in  the  pre- 
ceding memoir,  and  it  is  a  fact  that  throws  some  light  on  the  diplomatic  tact 
with  which  the  political  leaders  of  that  party  had  organized  their  plans  for 
the  downfall  of  Katharine  Howard. 

"  The  early  follies  of  Katharine  were  known  to  too  many,  not  to  have 
reached  the  persons  most  interested  in  destroying  her  influence  with  the 
king,  and  if  they  delayed  striking  the  blow  that  was  to  lay  her  honors  in 
the  dust,  it  was  only  to  render  it  more  effectual.  The  '  snake  was  to  be 
killed,  not  scotched.'  "* 

Cranmer's  agency  in  the  dark  plot  is  thus  attested : 
"  But  on  that  fatal  morrow,  while  Henry  was  at  Mass,  the  paper  that  con- 
tained the  particulars  of  the  misconduct  of  her,  whom  he  esteemed  such  a 
jewel  of  womanhood  and  perfect  love  to  himself,  was  put  into  his  hands  by 
Cranmer,  with  an  humble  request  that  he  would  read  it  when  he  was  in 
entire  privacy.f  The  object  of  Cranmer  in  presenting  the  information 
against  the  queen  to  Plenry  in  the  chapel  was  evidently  to  prevent  the  an- 
nouncement to  the  people  of  the  public  form  of  thanksgiving,  which  had 
been  prepared  by  the  bisnop.  The  absence  of  Katharine  from  her  accus- 
tomed place  in  the  royal  closet  afforded  the  archbishop  the  better  opportu- 
nity of  stiking  this  decisive  blow." 

And  again : 

"  When  this  was  reported  to  the  king,  he  sent  Cranmer  to  her  in  the 
morning  with  a  deceitful  assurance,  that  if  she  would  acknowledge  her 
transgressions,  the  king,  although  her  life  had  been  forfeited  by  the  law,  had 
determined  to  extend  unto  her  his  most  gracious  mercy."  t 

*  Queens  of  England,  vol.  iv,  p.  299-300.  She  preserves  the  old  spelling 
of  Katharine. 

j-  She  quotes  Herbert,  Burnet,  Rapin. 
t  Ibid.,  p  304-5 


82  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION HENRY    VHI. 

Henry's  sixth  and  last  wife  was  Catharine  Parr,  who  also 
narrowly  escaped  death  at  his  hands  for  high  treason,  which 
consisted  merely  in  her  having  ventured  to  differ  from  him 
in  theological  opinions !  Henry  had  even  given  the  order  for 
her  arrest ;  but  Catharine  was  watchful  and  adroit,  and  hav- 
ing soon  discovered  her  fatal  mistake,  had  made  so  ample  an 
apology  for  her  heresy,  mingled  with  so  flattering  an  opinion 
of  her  royal  husband's  superior  learning  and  almost  divine 
discrimination  in  religious  questions,  that  when  the  officers 
arrived  to  convey  her  to  the  tower,  Henry  drove  them  out 
rudely,  after  having  loaded  them  with  royal  invective  and 
abuse !  Catharine  never  more  ventured  to  dissent  from  her 
lord,  and  she  thus  fortunately  contrived  to  survive  him. 

Out  of  six  wives,  Henry  had  divorced  four,  and  led  two  to 
the  block.  The  very  announcement  of  this  plain  and  unques- 
tioned fact  is  well  calculated  to  create  a  shudder  in  the  bosom 
of  every  honest  and  impartial  man ;  but  what  must  be  the 
spontaneous  expression  of  indignant  feeling  among  all  honest 
men,  if,  entering  into  further  details,  we  shall  be  able  tc  prove 
by  the  undoubted  facts  of  history,  that  the  divorce  and  murdev 
of  his  wives  were  not  probably  the  greatest  of  the  offenses  com- 
mitted by  Henry  VHI.  and  his  parasites,  Cranmer,  Cromwell, 
and  others,  against  society,  against  liberty,  and  against  even 
common  justice  and  common  decency ! 

III.  Was  Henry  VHI.  a  tyrant,  and  did  he  destroy 
English  liberty  ? 

Most  undoubtedly.  All  his  acts  prove  it  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  successful  contradiction.  The  following  undisputed 
facts  and  specifications  establish  the  proposition  so  clearly,  as 
to  leave  no  doubt  whatever  on  the  subject. 

1.  Henry  coveted  the  wealth  of  the  monasteries,  those 
venerable  establishments  which  had  been  for  centuries  the 
nurseries  of  religion  and  learning,  as  well  as  the  solace  and 
support  of  the  poor.  In  1536,  a  bill  was  introduced  into 
parliameat  to  give  unto  the  king  the  property  of  all  those 


DISSOLUTION    OF   MONASTERIES.  83 

monastic  establishments,  whose  annual  revenue  did  not  ex 
ceed  two  hundred  pounds  sterling.*  The  bill  soon  passed  the 
house  of  lords,  who  were  probably  anticipating  a  rich  harvest 
to  themselves  in  the  division  of  the  spoils,  but  it  encountered 
much  opposition  in  the  commons,  who  knew  well  with  what 
veneration  the  people  looked  up  to  those  establishments.  In 
this  emergency,  as  the  candid  Protestant  historian  Sir 
Henry  Spelman  informs  us,  Henry  sent  for  the  commons,  and 
with  a  scowl  told  them  that  "  he  would  have  the  bill  pass  or 
take  off  some  of  their  heads."  f  Of  course,  the  terror-stricken 
commons  passed  the  bill  without  further  demur;  and  from 
that  time  forward,  their  spirit  seems  to  have  been  completely 
broken,  and  they  became  the  pliant  tools  of  Henry's  will. 

To  confiscate,  at  one  blow,  so  vast  an  amount  of  property, 
required  some  decent  or  plausible  pretext  which  would  have 
weight  with  the  people.  For  this  reason  Henry  appointed  a 
commission  to  inquire  into  the  morals  of  the  monks,  under 
the  direction  of  Cromwell ;  and  the  commissioners,  of  course, 
reported  in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  their  master.  He  thus 
"suborned  the  voice  of  calumny  to  sanctify  the  deeds  of  op- 
pression ; "  for  neither  this  inquiry,  nor  that  which  was 
instituted  subsequently  to  accomplish  the  destruction  of  the 
larger  monasteries,  really  elicited  any  thing  material  in  the 
way  of  evidence,  to  prove  that  the  morals  of  the  monks  were 
such  as  to  require  the  suppression  of  their  houses.  The 
monks  were  sent  adrift  on   the  world,  to  live  as  best  they 

*  A  very  large  amount  at  that  time,  equal  to  nearly  if  not  quite  twelve 
thousand  dollars  of  our  present  money,  it  being  estimated  that  money  then 
was  al30ut  twelve  times  as  valuable  as  now.  From  this  fact,  and  from  the 
confiscation  of  the  larger  monasteries  which  took  place  later  in  the  same 
reign,  we  may  easily  gather  what  enormous  wealth  fell  to  the  crown  from 
these  wholesale  robberies.  The  king,  however,  soon  squandered  the  whole 
of  it,  or  distributed  it  among  his  courtiers,  thereby  strongly  binding  them  to 
himself  in  a  community  of  interests.  Theii  fortunes  were  thus  made  de- 
penilent  on  their  maintenance  of  the  religious  changes,  and  hence  their  zeal- 
ous support  of  Henry's  supremacy. 

f  History  and  Fate  of  Sacrilege,  p.  183,  apud  Lingard,  vol.  iv,  p.  232,  note 


84  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION — HENRY    VIII. 

might;  and  the  poor  helpless  nuns,  with  but  a  single  gown  a 
piece — the  munificent  gift  of  the  crown  which  robbed  them 
of  all  else — were  driven  out  to  live  on  the  precarious  charity 
of  the  faithful,  or  to  starve.  Meantime  Henry  and  his 
rapacious  courtiers  parceled  out  among  themselves  the 
revenues  and  property  thus  sacrilegiously  seized  on,  and  the 
whole  was  soon  absorbed,  or  dissipated  in  riotous  living.* 

In  his  late  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  the  Angli- 
can Bishop  Short  devotes  considerable  space  to  the  question 
regarding  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries,  which  he  views 
as  an  act  of  wanton  avarice  on  the  part  of  the  king  and 
nobility,  and  as  disastrous  in  its  immediate  influence  on 
religion  and  learning.  Following  Fuller,  he  estimates  the 
number  of  the  smaller  monasteries  which  were  dissolved  at 


*  Much  testimony,  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic,  might  be  here  alleged 
in  proof  of  what  is  asserted  in  the  text.  We  content  ourselves  for  the 
present  with  the  following  : 

"  This  would  not  have  satisfied  the  ends  of  himself  (Henry)  and  his 
covetous  and  ambitious  agents.  They  all  aimed  at  the  revenues  and  riches 
of  the  religious  houses,  for  which  reason  no  arts  or  contrivances  were  to  be 
passed  by  that  might  be  of  use  in  obtaining  those  ends.  The  most  abomi- 
nable crimes  were  to  be  charged  upon  the  religious,  and  the  charge  was  to 
be  managed  with  the  utmost  industry,  boldness,  and  dexterity.  And  yet, 
after  all,  the  proofs  were  so  insufficient,  that,  from  what  I  have  been  able  to 
gather,  I  have  not  found  any  direct  one  against  any  single  monastery." — 
Hearne,  Preliminary  Observations  to  the  View  of  Mitred  Abbeys  by  Brown 
Willis,  p.  84.     Apud  Lingard,  Antiquities  Anglo-Saxon  Church,  p.  245,  note 

Speaking  of  the  spoliation  of  the  monasteries,  D'Israeli  says  : 

"  As  the  scheme  was  managed,  therefore,  it  was  a  compromise  or  co-part 
nership  of  the  king  and  his  courtiers.  The  lands  now  lay  the  open  prey  of 
the  hardy  claimant  or  the  sly  intriguer  ;  crowds  of  suppliants  wearied  the 
crown  to  participate  in  that  national  spoliation.  Every  one  hastened  to  urge 
some  former  sei-vice  or  some  present  necessity  as  a  colorable  plea  for  obtain- 
ing a  grant  of  some  of  the  suppressed  lands.  A  strange  custom  was  then 
introduced,  that  of  '  begging  for  an  estate.'  .... 

"  The  king  was  prodigal  in  his  grants  ;  for  the  more  he  multiplied  the 
receivers  of  his  bounties,  the  more  numerous  would  be  the  staunch  defend- 
ers of  the  new  possessions." — (Amenities  of  Literature,  2  vols.  12mo.  New 
York,  1845.     Vol.  i,  p.  349.) 


BISHOP    SHORTS    TESTBIONY.  85 

three  hundred  and  seventy-five,  yielding  an  annual  income  at 
that  time  of  thirty  thousand  pounds,  "  besides  a  large  sum  aris- 
ing from  plate  and  jewels ;"  but  he  adds  that  "  the  mass  of  this 
wealth  was  quickly  dissipated."  Of  the  act  for  dissolving  the 
smaller  monasteries,  he  say^:  "But  it  was  easy  to  perceive 
that  this  alienation  was  but  a  step  to  the  total  dissolution  of 
the  monastic  orders,  and  that  the  same  avarice  which  had 
swallowed  up  the  weaker  bodies  was  only  restrained  from 
destroying  the  stronger  by  want  of  power."* 

The  total  number  of  monasteries  dissolved,  including  the 
greater  ones,  was,  according  to  the  same  writer,  eleven 
hundred,  which  yielded  an  annual  revenue  of  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds  —  fully  equal  to  the 
income  derived  from  all  the  other  church  property  in  Eng- 
land.f  Of  the  evil  efiects  which  followed  this  wholesale 
confiscation  of  what  had  been  accumulated  during  centuries 
by  the  pious  liberality  of  the  Catholic  English,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Church  and  the  poor,  he  candidly  writes  as  follows : 

"  The  estates  of  which  the  Church  was  deprived,  were  thrown  into  the 
hands  of  those  who  could  not  be  entitled  to  them  upon  any  plea  ;  and  while 
at  the  moment  the  nation  was  the  loser,  the  court  fiivorite  alone  derived 
advantage  from  the  spoil.  The  poor  were  robbed  of  the  rude  hospitality 
with  which  the  monasteries  abounded ;  they  were  no  longer  provided  with' 
the  same  number  of  spiritual  guides,  who,  with  all  their  imperfections,  must 
at  least  have  equaled  in  point  of  information  their  lay  contemporaries,  and 
who,  by  being  scattered  through  the  country,  must  have  furnished  employ- 
ment to  a  large  portion  of  the  lower  orders.  The  farmer  lost  a  kind  and 
indulgent  landlord,  whose  place  was  frequently  supplied  by  a  griping  spend- 
thrift ;  at  the  hospitable  board  which  his  own  farm  supplied,  he  was  always 
a  welcome  guest  whenever  he  chose  to  partake  of  the  liberalit}^  of  the  con- 
vent :  the  new  proprietor,  under  whom  he  held,  was  occupied  with  the 
aifairs  of  the  nation  and  the  court ;  and  was  scarcely  known  to  him,  but  as 
the  receiver  of  his  hard-earned  rents."f 

Finally  the  candid  bishop  adds : 

*  P.  56,  5  202. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  77,  5  258.     Reduced  to   the   standard  value  of  our  present 
money,  this  income  would  be  about  nine  millions  of  dollars  ! 
t  Ibid.,  p.  75,  5  253 
37 


86  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY    VHI. 

"But  the  irr'npdia*<?  effect  was  not  at  all  that  of  promoting  the  welfare  of 
this  land.  It  was  not  the  quiet  transfer  of  wealth,  accompanied  by  activity 
and  prudence ;  but  the  forced  dissolution  of  the  right  of  property,  and 
attended  with  waste  and  destruction.  The  tenants  of  the  monastery  were, 
in  many  cases,  deprived  of  their  leases,  and  the  rents  foi'ced  up  to  an  unpre- 
cedented hight Attempts  were  indeed  made  to  obviate  these  evils ; 

but  who  shall  be  bold  enough  to  presume  to  set  limits  to  violence,  when  the 
first  principles  of  justice  are  destroyed  ?  Or  who  shall  check  the  rapacity 
of  plunder,  when  the  rights  of  property  are  systematically  disregarded  ?  "* 

2.  The  English  parliament,  which  in  the  good  old  Catholic 
times  had  hurled  defiance  in  the  face  of  kings,  and  which 
had  stood  bravely  to  the  rights  secured  by  Magna  Charta 
even  as  lately  as  the  earlier  years  of  Henry's  reign,  was  now 
suddenly  palsied,  and  trembled  at  the  slightest  breath  of  the 
king's  anger.  Its  independent  spirit  had  vanished,  its  very 
manhood  had  disappeared.  It  became  a  mere  automaton,  for 
recording  and  legalizing  the  commands  of  the  tyrant,  whose 
royal  prerogative  swallowed  up  every  other  element  ot 
government.  At  his  bidding,  the  parliament  passed  bills  for 
divorcing  and  beheading  his  wives,  bills  of  attainder  against 
those  whom  he  wished  to  destroy,  bills  to  declare  illegitimate 
and  incapable  of  inheritance  his  daughters  Mary  and  Eliza- 
beth; and  finally  a  bill  authorizing  him,  foiling  issue  by 
Jane  Seymour,  to  grant  the  succession  to  the  crown  by 
letters  patent  to  whomsoever  he  willed  If  Nay  more;  by 
an  act  passed  in  1539,J  the  king's  proclamation  was  clothed 
with  all  the  force  of  law,  under  the  same  penalties  as 
if  its  provisions  had  received  the  sanction  of  parliament; 
and  by  a  singular  and  unheard  of  refinement  of  tyranny, 
it  was  declared  high  treason  to  escape  from  the  kingdom 
with  a  view  to  avoid  these  penalties  !§  Thus  the  liberties 
of    the    English    people    were    laid    prostrate    at   the    feet 


*  Ibid.,  p.  76,  5  255.  f  This  bill  was  passed  in  June  1536. 

t  31  Henry  VIII.  8. 

3  The  quiiliiying  clauses  which  were  introduced  to  satisfy  the  scruples 
of  some  of  the  members  seem  to  have  been  mere  forms,  and  wholly  nuga- 
tory in  their  effects.     See  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  296,  and  note. 


LIBERTY   DESTROYED.  87 

of  tlie  royal  tyrant,  whose  powei-,  both  in  chm-ch  and  state, 
became  almost  as  unlimited  as  that  of  the  Russian  Czar  or 
the  Turkish  Sultan.* 

3.  To  understand  still  more  clearly  how  Henry  destroyed 
the  ancient  Catholic  liberties  of  England,  it  will  be  useful 
to  compare  the  political  state  of  the  kingdom  in  the  fifteenth 
with  what  it  became  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Hallam  tells 
us,  that  "England,  more  fortunate  than  the  rest  of  Europe, 
had  acquu*ed  in  the  fifteenth  century  a  just  reputation  for  the 
goodness  of  her  laws  and  the  security  of  her  citizens  from 
oppression."  He  furnishes  under  five  heads  a  view  of  the 
liberties  then  enjoyed  by  the  English  people.  At  that  period, 
the  king  could  levy  no  new  tax,  nor  impose  any  new  law 
upon  his  people  without  the  previous  consent  of  parliament; 
and  the  personal  liberty  of  the  subject  was  still  further 
guarantied  by  the  privilege  of  habeas  corpus,  in  virtue  of 
which  he  could  not  be  arrested  without  a  regular  warrant, 
nor  detained  in  prison  for  an  undue  length  of  time,  but  was 
entitled  to  a  speedy  trial  by  a  jury  of  his  peers,  with  the 
additional  privilege  of  arraigning  the  oflScers  of  the  crown 
before  the  regular  courts  with  a  view  to  their  condign  punish- 
ment, in  case  they  violated  any  of  the  franchises  secured  to 
him  by  the  old  Catholic  Magna  Charta.f 

This  is  still  further  confirmed  by  the  great  English  his- 
torian : 

"  When  Henry  ascended  the  throne,  there  still  existed  a  spirit  of  freedom, 
which  on  more  than  one  occasion  defeated  the  arbitrary  measures  of  the 
court,  though  directed  by  an  able  minister,  and  supported  by  the  authority 
of  the  sovereign  :  but  in  the  lapse  of  a  few  years  that  spirit  had  fled,  and 
before  the  death  of  Henrj^,  the  king  of  England  had  gi'own  into  a  despot, 
and  the  people  had  shrunk  into  a  nation  of  slaves."]: 

4.  Under  such  a  monarch,  invested  with  powers  so  wholly 

*  The  instigator  to  this  royal  absolutism  seems  to  have  been  Cromwell,  the 
sing's  vicar  general,  who  tried  to  bring  Gardiner  over  to  his  views.  See 
Gardiner's  testimony.  Ibid. 

f  Condensed  from  his  Constitutional  History,  p.  14,  Am.  Ed. 

t  Liugard,  vol.  vi,  p.  3C6. 


88  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION — HENRY    Vin. 

unlimited,  it  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  state  trials  became 
a  mere  delusion,  and  a  not  even  solemn  mockery  of  justice. 
All  whom  Henry  willed  to  perish  were  as  sure  of  their  fate 
in  advance,  as  if  it  had  already  overtaken  them,  Never  has 
there,  perhaps,  been  a  more  wicked  and  unjust  act  passed  in 
Christian  times,  than  Cromwell's  bill  of  attainder,  of  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  was  himself  the  first  victim.  It  gave 
the  doomed  man  or  woman  no  possible  chance  of  suitable, 
defense,  no  hope  of  escape  but  in  the  king's  mercy.  Hence, 
we  find  those  who  were  prosecuted  sometimes  humbly  plead- 
ing guilty,  even  when  innocent,  and  throwing  themselves  on 
the  king's  mercy.  And  when  their  fate  was  assured  notwith- 
standing, they  dared  not,  even  at  the  last  dread  hour,  openly 
avow  their  innocence,  for  fear  of  additional  vengeance  to 
their  family  or  friends  after  their  death  !  Some  noble  excep- 
tions there  were,  indeed,  but  they  were  chiefly  among  the 
Catholic  martyrs.  Was  there  ever  tyranny  to  equal  this, 
whether  in  Christian  or  in  pagan  times  ?* 

"When  was  it  ever  heard  of"  exclaims  the  indignant  Regi- 
nald Pole,  the  relative  and  contemporary  of  Henry — "  I  say 
not  merely  in  England,  where  the  people  have  always  been 
more  free  under  the  government  of  kings,  but  in  any  one  of 
all  Christian  kingdoms,  that  one  man  should  so  lord  it  over 
all,  and.  so  subject  all  things  to  his  power  and  lust,  that  the 
laws  afford  no  longer  protection  to  any  against  his  will,  and 
that  all  things  are  governed  by  the  sole  beck  of  the  king."  f 
The  ancient  liberties  of  England,  secured  by  the  sturdy  resist- 
ance in  the  "dark  ages"  of  Catholics  to  royal  aggression,  were 
thus  wantonly  trampled  in  the  dust  by  the  royal  founder  of 
Anglicanism  ;  and  all  submitted  tamely  to  the  glaring  usurpa- 
tion, induced  to  this  blind  subserviency  to  the  king  by  the 

*  For  the  truth  of  this,  we  appeal  with  confidence  to  the  timid  and 
wavering  declarations  of  many  among  Henry's  victims,  when  about  to  be 
brought  to  the  block  for  their  honesty. 

*  Pole,  fol.  ci.  See  Lingurd,  vi,  366,  note,  for  the  original  Latin  text 


SLAVERY    OF   PARLIAMENT  89 

hope  of  plunder,  and  by  the  recently  evoked  and  self-interested 
hatred  of  Rome. 

4.  Tlie  revenues  and  property  of  the  confiscated  monasteries 
did  not,  as  we  have  already  said,  long  enrich  the  king,  or  add 
any  thing  to  the  real  resources  of  the  government.  The  idea 
that  it  would  have  this  efiect  was  all  a  mere  sham  !  Taxation 
grew  more  and  more  burdensome  on  the  people  at  each  suc- 
ceeding year  of  the  king's  reign ;  until  at  last  it  became  so 
enormous,  as  to  arouse  a  feeling  of  general  discontent  and 
murmuring  throughout  the  kingdom.*  This  discontent  was 
still  more  increased  by  the  iniquitous  adulteration  of  the 
coin  current  in  the  kingdom,  and  by  its  consequent  deprecia- 
tion in  value,  to  the  injury  of  all  and  the  ruin  of  thousands. f 
The  king  went  a  step  further,  and  adopted  the  despotic  expe- 
dient of  exacting  a  forced  loan ;  and  the  obsequious  parlia- 
ment not  only  sanctioned  the  oppressive  measure,  but  even 
passed  an  act  to  release  the  king  from  all  obligation  of  repay- 
ment! The  great  modern  English  Protestant  lawyer  Man- 
ning confirms  this  statement  in  the  following  remarkable 
passage,  which  contains  also  a  just  appreciation  of  Henry's 
reign,  in  its  bearing  on  popular  rights  and  the  security  of 
property :  J 

"Henry  VIII.  obtained  an  indirect,  though  in  his  hands,  a  very  available 
interest  in  the  possessions  of  the  secular  clergy,  by  assuming  the  then  unde- 
fined character  of  head  of  the  church.  Having  afterwards  acquired  the  absolute 
disposal  of  the  property  of  the  monastic  establishments  of  the  country,  by 
extorted  surrenders  or  by  direct  spoliation,  the  prince  next  turned  his  eyes 
for  further  supplies  towards  the  lay  possessions  of  his  subjects.  From  the 
same  parliament  which  inflicted  the  penalty  of  death  upon  those  who  should 
preach,  teach,  or  maintain  any  thing  contrary  to  the  king's  instructions  or 
declarations  made,  or  to  be  made,  two  acts  of  a  very  peculiar  complexion  were 
obtained.  By  one  of  these  the  king  was  absolutely  discharged  from  the 
payment  of  all  debts  which  he-had  incurred  during  the  two  preceding  years. 

*  For  the  acts  of  parliament  enforcing  this  progressive  taxation,  see  Lin- 
gard,  vol.  vi,  p.  302.  t  Ibid.,  p.  347. 

I  Manning's  Exchequer  Practice,  4.  See  Eapin,  vol.  v,  p.  438,  and  Dublin 
Beview,  for  March,  1856. 
VOL,   II. — 8 


90  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION HENRY    VIQ. 

The  other  contained  several  provisions  for  the  more  rigorous  exaction  of 
debts  due  to  the  crown.  The  former  of  these  acts  contained  this  mo^, 
singular  clause,  that  if  the  king  had  paid  to  any  person  any  suna  of  money 
which  he  had  borrowed,  such  person  should  repay  the  same  to  the  king !  '* 

5.  We  conclude  this  branch  of  the  subject  with  the  testimony 
of  another  learned  Protestant  Englishman,  Henry  Hallam, 
who  fully  confirms  what  we  have  said  of  the  utter  obsequious 
ness  of  the  English  Parliament :  * 

"  They  (the  houses  of  parliament)  yielded  to  every  mandate  of  Henry's 
imperial  will ;  they  bent  with  every  breath  of  his  capricious  humor ;  they 
were  responsible  for  the  illegal  trial,  for  the  iniquitous  attainder,  for  the  san- 
guinary statute,  for  the  tyranny  which  they  sanctioned  by  law,  and  for  that 
which  they  permitted  without  law.  Nor  was  this  selfish  and  pusillanimous 
subserviency  more  characteristic  of  the  minions  of  Henry's  favor,  the  Crom- 
wells,  the  Riders,  the  Pagets,  the  Eussells,  and  the  Pauletts,  than  of  the 
representatives  of  ancient  and  honorable  names,  the  Norfolks,  the  Arundels, 
the  Shrewsburys.  We  trace  these  noble  statesmen  concurring  in  all  the 
inconsistencies  of  the  reign,  and  supporting  all  the  changes  of  religion  ;  con- 
stant only  in  the  rapacious  acquisition  of  estates  and  honors  from  what- 
ever source,  and  in  adherence  to  the  present  power." 

IV.  By  what  means,  and  through  what  agencies,  did 
Henry  VIII.  bring  about  the  Reformation  ? 

The  answer  is  plain.  He  did  it  by  his  own  imperious  will, 
'aided  by  a  subservient  clergy  and  a  still  more  subservient 
parliament;  by  confiscation,  spoliation,  and  bribery;  by  a 
code  of  pains  and  penalties  so  terrible  as  to  silence  all  oppo- 
sition ;  by  imbruing  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  the  best  men 
in  England : — in  one  word,  by  making  himself  supreme  lord 
and  master  of  England  in  church  and  state,  by  crushing  out 
all  English  liberty,  both  civil  and  religious,  and  lording  it, 
with  a  rod  of  iron,  over  both  the  bodies  and  souls  of  his  sub- 
jects !  This  is,  indeed,  strong  language,  but  the  facts  fully 
justify  it,  and  prove  beyond  the  pi^ssibility  of  doubt  or  cavil, 
that  Catholicity  and  liberty  fell  together  in  England.  Our 
Bcope  and  limits  will  allow  us  to  refer  briefly  to  only  some 


*  Constitutional  History  of  England,  p.  51,  quoted  Ibid. 


THE   king's   SUP.1EMACY.  91 

of  the  more  prominent  facts,  in  addition  to  those  already  pre- 
sented, out  of  the  mass  of  evidence  which  might  be  alleged 
in  proof. 

1.  When  Henry  VIII.  professed  to  have  given  up  the  pro- 
ject of  the  divorce,  Cromwell  came  to  him,  and  in  a  private 
audience  whispered  in  his  ear  the  fatal  plan  by  which  he 
might  be  effectually  rid  of  Catharine,  and  might  secure  Anne, 
in  spite  of  the  Pope's  refusal  to  grant  the  divorce.  This  plan 
was,  to  oust  the  Pontiff  from  the  spiritual  supremacy,  of  which 
he  had  been  in  undisputed  possession  for  nearly  a  thousand 
years,  and  to  make  himself  supreme  head  of  the  church  of 
England.  Tlie  bishops  and  clergy,  he  suggested,  by  their  ac- 
quiescence in  Wolsey's  exercise  of  the  office  of  papal  legate, 
had  incurred  the  penalties  enacted  in  the  unrepealed  statute 
of  praemunire ;  and  they,  with  their  possessions,  were  there- 
fore entirely  at  his  mercy.  Wolsey  had,  indeed,  received  the 
royal  license  for  exercising  the  office  of  legate ;  but  this  need 
not  interfere  with  the  project,  as  Wolsey  and  the  prelates 
would  scarcely  dare  plead  the  royal  permission.* 

The  suggestion  of  the  wily  courtier  pandered  to  the  pas- 
sions and  flattered  the  pride  of  Henry,  who  immediately 
promoted  Cromwell  to  his  privy  council,  and  determined  to 
act  upon  his  advice.f     The  convocation  of  the  clergy  hastily 

*  As,  in  fact,  Wolsey  did  not,  from  motives  of  prudence  or  of  excessive 
timidity.  Judgment  having  in  consequence  gone  against  him  by  default,  all 
the  bishops  were  involved  in  its  penalties  as'"fautors  and  abettors." 

f  It  is  not  likely  that  Henry  at  first  contemplated  a  final  rupture  with 
Eome,  much  less  an  entire  separation  of  England  from  the  Catholic  Church. 
But  the  refusal  of  the  Pope  to  yield  the  sacred  principle  involved  in  the 
divorce  aroused  his  own  headlong  passions,  and  drove  him  he  scarcely  knew 
whither.  Says  Heylin  (Preface  to  History  of  the  Reformation)  :  "  This 
king  being  violently  hurried  with  the  transport  of  some  private  aflFections, 
and  finding  that  the  Pope  offered  the  greatest  obstacle  to  his  desires,  he  first 
divested  him  by  degrees  of  that  supremacy  which  had  been  challenged  and 
enjoyed  by  his  predecessors  for  some  ages  past,  and  finally  extinguished  his 
authority  in  the  realm  of  England."  (Apud  Waterworth,  p.  11.)  Burnet 
Bays  •   "  When  Henry  began  his  Reformation,  his  de.sign  seemed  to  have 


92  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION IIENRY    VIU. 

assembled,  and  in  great  alarm  offered  the  king  a  present  of 
one  hundred  thousand  pounds  to  be  released  from  the  dreaded 
penalties  of  the  statute.  Though  this  had  been  the  usual 
panacea  for  curing  royal  displeasure  in  former  years,  to  their 
surprise  and  mortification  it  proved  unsuccessful  in  the  pres- 
ent instance.  Henry  would  not  accept  the  offer,  unless  in  the 
act  granting  it  a  clause  should  be  inserted  acknowledging  him 
supreme  head  of  the  church  in  England !  Unfortunately, 
the  clergy  compromised  between  their  consciences  and  their 
places,  by  passing  the  act  with  the  clause  annexed,  "so  far  as 
tlie  law  of  Christ  will  allow ;"  which  restriction  Henry,  after 
some  hesitation,  finally  agreed  to,  knowing  full  well  that  he 
could  afterwards  sweep  it  away  at  will — as  he  really  did.* 

Thus  it  was,  that  the  mischievous  legislation  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  referred  to  in  our  Inti'oduction,  by  which  the 
bonds  of  union  with  the  Holy  See  had  been  so  much  weak- 
ened, was  now  made  the  instrument  for  breaking  those  bonds 
entirely,  and  permanently  severing  England  from  Catholic 
unity.  Innovations  are  always  dangerous,  and  the  aggres- 
sions of  the  civil  power  are  always  progressive.  Henry  VHI. 
carried  to  its  fullest  extent  the  but  imperfectly  developed  pro- 
gramme of  his  predecessors — the  Edwards  and  the  Richards — 

been,  in  the  whole  progress  of  these  changes,  to  terrify  the  court  of  Rome, 
and  force  the  Pope  into  a  compliance  with  what  he  desired."    (Quoted  ibid.) 

D' Israeli,  in  his  Amenities  of  Literature,  (vol.  i,  p.  351)  gives  the  follow- 
ing opinion  concerning  Henry's  Reformation  : 

"  We  are  accustomed  to  trace  the  Reformation  to  Henry  the  Eighth,  but 
in  verity,  small  are  the  claims  of  this  sovereign  on  posterity ;  for  through  al) 
the  multiplied  ramifications  of  superstition  (!)  nothing  under  him  was  re 
formed.  The  other  great  event  of  the  Reformation,  the  assumption  of  the 
spiritual  supremacy,  accorded  with  the  national  independence  fi-om  a  foreign 
jurisdiction.  The  policy  was  English  (!),  but  it  originated  in  the  private 
passions  of  the  monarch.  (And  was  therefore  peculiai'ly  English  ?)  As- 
suredly, had  the  tiara  deigned  to  nod  to  the  royal  solicitor,  then  had  the 
'Defender  of  the  Faith'  only  given  to  the  world  another  edition  of  his  book 
iigainst  Luther." 

*  See  Wilkins,  Concil.  ii,  p.  725 ;  and  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  178,  seqq. 


DEGRADATION   OF  BISHOPS.  93 

another  evidence  that  there  is  a  logic  in  history  as  well  as  in 
philosophy. 

2.  But  the  humiliation  of  the  time-serving  bishops  was  not 
yet  complete.  The  layman  Cromwell — the  low-born  son  of 
the  fuller — was  made  spiritual  vicar  general  of  the  realm; 
and  as  the  representati>  e  of  Henry — the  supreme  head  of  the 
church — he  was  placed  over  their  heads,  to  rule  them  in  the 
name  of  their  sovereign  !  On  the  ground  that  the  king  was 
the  only  fountain  of  all  power,  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal, 
and  at  the  suggestion  of  the  new  vicar  general,  the  powers 
of  all  the  bishops  were  suspended  by  a  circular  from  the  sub- 
servient primate  Cranmer,  on  pretext  of  an  approaching 
visitation  of  their  dioceses  by  Cromwell.  The  bishops  reluct- 
antly submitted,  and  within  a  month  they  humbly  sued  for 
new  faculties  from  the  king,  to  enable  them  to  govern  their 
flocks !  In  consequence  "  a  commission  was  issued  to  each 
bishop  separately,  authorizing  him,  during  the  king's  pleas- 
ure^ and  as  the  king's  deputy^  to  ordain  persons  born  witliin 
his  diocese  and  admit  them  to  livings ;  to  receive  proof  of 
wills ;  to  determine  causes  lawfully  brought  before  ecclesias- 
tical tribunals ;  to  visit  the  clergy  and  laity  of  the  diocese ; 
to  inquire  into  crimes  and  punish  them  according  to  the 
canon  law ;  and  to  do  whatever  belonged  to  the  office  of  a 
bishop,  besides  those  things  which,  according  to  the  sacred 
writings,  were  committed  to  his  charge.-  But  for  this  indul- 
gence a  most  singular  reason  is  assigned  :  not  that  the  govern- 
ment of  bishops  is  necessary  for  the  Church,  but  that  the 
king's  vicar  general,  on  account  of  the  multiplicity  of  business 
with  which  he  was  loaded,  could  not  be  everywhere  present, 
and  that  many  inconveniences  might  arise,  if  delays  and  in- 
terruptions were  admitted  in  the  exercise  of  his  authority."  * 

The  degradation  of  the  episcopal  body  was  now  complete, 
thanks  to  the  wily  Cromwell  and  the  unprincipled  and  time- 


*  lor  the  sentence  of  suspension,  see  Collier,  ii,  Rec,  p.  22 ;  for  the  form 
of  restoration,  see  Burnet,  1.  Rec.  iii,  No.  xiv. — Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  230. 


94  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY    Vlll. 

serving  Cranmer.  The  bishops  had,  hy  their  own  act,  dwin 
died  down  into  mere  temporary  civil  functionaries,  holding 
their  precarious  powers  at  the  will  or  caprice  of  their  royal 
head,  and  of  his  lay  vicar  general.  They  had  cast  off  the 
supremacy  of  the  Pope;  they  had  gained  in  its  place  the 
supremacy  of  a  head  much  nearer  home,  the  weight  of  whose 
little  finger  would  press  more  heavily  on  them  than  that  of 
the  whole  body,  not  merely  of  one  Pope,  but  of  all  the  Popes 
that  ever  reigned.  They  had  rid  themselves  of  the  shadow 
of  a  distant  and  imaginary  despotism ;  they  obtained,  in  its 
stead,  the  stern  substance  of  an  ever  present  and  ever  active 
tyranny,  now  wholly  unrestrained,  because  the  only  effectual 
check  on  its  encroachments  was  removed.* 

3.  Supreme  now,  both  in  church  and  state,  Henry  began  to 
rage  fearfully  against  all  who  had  the  manliness  to  dissent 
from  the  new  order  of  things,  and  especially  against  those 
who,  however  quietly  and  timidly,  dared  reject  his  spiritual 
supremacy.  The  penalty  awarded  to  the  latter  was  the  ter- 
rible death  of  a  traitor,  as  had  been  solemnly  declared  by  the 
parliament.     Nor  was  the  iniquitous  act  suffered  to  remain  a 

*  Bishop  Short  fully  confirms  all  this.     He  writes : 

"  Henry  now  suspended  all  the  bishops  from  the  use  of  their  episcopal 
authority,  during  the  visitation  which  he  purposed  to  institute ;  and  after  a 
time  the  power  of  exercising  it  was  restored,  by  a  commission  to  the  follow- 
ing effect,  which  was  granted  to  each  of  them  on  their  petitioning  for  it : 
'  Since  all  authority,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  flows  from  the  crown,  and  since 
Cromwell,  to  whom  the  ecclesiastical  part  has  been  committed,  is  so  occu- 
pied that  he  can  not  fully  exercise  it,  we  commit  to  you  the  license  of  or- 
daining, proving  wills,  and  using  other  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  besides 
those  things  which  are  committed  to  you  by  God  in  holy  Scripture ;  and 
we  allow  you  to  hold  this  authority  during  our  pleasure,  as  you  must  an- 
swer to  God  and  to  us.'  It  must  be  confessed  that  this  commission  seems 
rather  to  outstep  the  limits  of  that  authority  which  God  has  committed  to 
the  civil  magistrate ;  but  in  this  case  there  was  no  opposition  raised  on  the 
part  of  the  bishops,  excepting  by  Gardiner,  and  when  the  suspension  was 
taken  ofBf,  they  continued  to  perform  the  usual  duties  of  their  office ;  for  the 
visitation  was  really  directed  against  the  monasteries." — History  of  the 
Church  of  England,  p.  55,  \  201.     This  extract  speaks  whole  volumes. 


FISHER   AND   MORE.  95 

dead  letter.  Tlie  tragedies  enacted  under  this  nev^  and  un- 
heard of  hiw  of  high  treason,  by  which  some  of  the  best  men 
of  England  were  brought  to  the  block,  merely  for  adhering 
quietly  and  without  disturbing  any  one,  to  the  time-honored 
faith  of  their  fathers,  are  such  as  to  make  our  blood  run  cold, 
even  after  the  lapse  of  three  centuries.  The  venerable  bishop 
Fisher,  of  Rochester,  Henry's  former  tutor,  and  the  favored 
counselor  of  his  father,  now  in  the  seventieth  year  of  his 
age,  was  cruelly  butchered  by  order  of  his  ungrateful  pupil, 
merely  because  he  would  not  subscribe  to  the  new  doctrine 
of  the  king's  supremacy.*  The  learned  and  irreproachable 
chancellor  More  suflered  the  same  death  penalty  for  the  same 
cause.  Of  the  execution  of  these  two  truly  great  and  vener- 
able men,  the  excellent  and  candid  Agnes  Strickland  writes 
as  follows, — we  furnish  also  her  authorities  : — f 

"  Fisher,  bishop  of  Rochester,  and  Sir  Thomas  More,  refused  to  take  this 
two-fold  oath  on  scruples  of  conscience ;  both  had  previously  enjoyed  a 
great  degree  of  Henry's  favor ;  both  had  much  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain 
by  their  rejection  of  a  test  which  they  regarded  as  a  snare.  They  were  the 
fast  fi'iends  of  the  persecuted  and  repudiated  queen  Katharine,  and  had 
incurred  the  animosity  of  her  fair  triumphant  rival  by  counseling  the  king 
against  forsaking  the  wife  of  his  youth. 

"  The  resentment  of  Anne  Boleyn  is  supposed  to  have  influenced  the  king 
to  bring  these  faithful  servants  to  the  scaffold  under  very  fi'ivolous  pretexts. 
The  integrity  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  as  lord-chancellor,  had  been  some  time 
before  impugned  by  Anne's  father,  the  earl  of  Wiltshire,  but,  like  pure  gold 
from  the  crucible,  it  shone  more  brightly  from  the  trial.  | 

"When  More's  beloved  daughter,  Margaret  Roper-,  visited  him  in  the 
Tower,  he  asked  her,  'How  queen  Anne  did?'  'In  faith,  father,'  she 
replied,  '  never  better.  There  is  nothing  else  in  the  court  but  dancing  and 
sporting.'    'Never  better  !'  said  he  ;  'alas  !  Meg,  alas  !  it  pitieth  me  to  think 

*  He  was  treated  with  every  possible  indignity.  He  was  suffered  to  re- 
main in  prison  without  necessary  clothing  and  food,  and  afler  his  death,  "his 
head  was  placed  on  London  bridge,  but  the  trunk,  despoiled  of  the  garments, 
the  perquisite  of  the  executioner,  lay  naked  on  the  spot  till  evening." — Poll. 
Apolog.  96. — Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  221. 

f  Lives  of  Queens  of  England,  vol.  iv,  p.  181-2. 

{  Roper's  Life  of  More  ;  Hoddesden ;  More's  Life  of  More. 


96  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY    Vdl. 

into  what  misery,  poor  soul,  she  will  shortly  come.  Those  dances  of  hera 
will  prove  such  dances,  that  she  will  spurn  our  heads  off  like  foot-balls,  but 
it  will  not  be  long  ere  her  head  will  dance  the  like  dance.' — '  And  how  pro- 
phetically he  spoke  these  words,'  adds  the  kindred  biographer  ot  More,  '  the 
end  of  her  tragedy  proved.'* 

"  When  the  account  of  the  execution  of  this  great  and  good  man  was 
brought  to  Henry  while  he  was  playing  at  tables  with  Anne,  he  cast  his 
eyes  upon  her,  we  are  told,  and  said,  '  Thou  art  the  cause  of  this  man's 
death ; ' — then  rising  up,  he  left  his  unfinished  game,  and  shut  himself  up  in 
his  chamber,  in  great  perturbation  of  spirit.f 

" '  Had  we  been  master  of  such  a  servant,'  exclaimed  the  emperor  Charles 
to  the  English  ambassador,  with  a  burst  of  generous  feeling, ''  we  would 
rather  have  lost  the  fairest  city  in  our  dominions  than  such  a  counselor.' " 

Out  of  revenge  for  the  refusal  of  his  relative  cardinal 
Pole  either  to  sanction  the  divorce  or  accept  the  royal  su- 
premacy, Henry  had  his  brothers  and  nearest  relatives  arrested, 
and  several  of  them  executed  as  traitors ;  J  and  to  wound  the 
absent  cardinal  in  a  still  more  tender  part,  he  had  the 
brutality  to  arrest,  and  afterwards  to  execute  for  treason  his 
venerable  mother,  the  countess  of  Salisbury,  the  last  in  a 
direct  line  of  the  noble  race  of  the  Plantagenets,  and  the 
nearest  living  relative  of  Henry  himself!  But  neither  the 
ties  of  blood,  nor  her  advanced  age — she  was  over  seventy — 
could  stay  the  bloody  hand  of  the  tyrant.  She  was  beheaded; 
but  with  the  spirit  of  the  Plantagenets,  she  nobly  refused  to 
lay  her  head  on  the  block,  exclaiming:   "My  head  never 

*  More's  Life  of  More  ;  and  Roper's  More.  f  More's  Life  of  More. 

I  Says  Miss  Strickland : 

"  While  Anne  of  Cleves  was  thus  tormented  and  perplexed  by  the  per- 
secutions of  her  unreasonable  husband,  terror  was  stricken  into  every  heart 
by  the  execution  of  two  of  his  nearest  kinsmen,  whom  he  relentlessly  sent 
to  the  block  on  the  3d  of  March.  One  was  the  favorite  companion  of  his 
youth,  Courtenay,  marquis  of  Exeter,  the  son  of  his  aunt,  Catharine  Plan- 
tagenet ;  the  other  was  Henry  Pole,  lord  Montague,  the  son  of  INIargaret 
Plantagenet,  countess  of  Salisbury.  The  offense  for  which  they  suflTered  was 
correspondence  with  Reginald  Pole,  (afterwards  the  celebrated  cardinal,) 
whom  Henry  called  his  enemy." — Ibid.,  vol.  iv,  p.  256-7.  She  quotes  Hall 
and  Burnet.  For  a  fuller  account,  see  Lingard,  Hist.  England,  vol.  vi,  p 
285-6. 


COUNTESS    C?   SALISBURY.  97 

committed  treason ;  if  you  will  have  it  you  must  take  it  as 
you  can."  The  scene  which  followed  was  too  horrible  to 
contemplate!  Her  last  words  were :" Blessed  are  they  who 
suffer  persecution  for  righteousness'  sake ! "  Her  death  was 
a  murder — a  downright  butchery  !* 

We  must  again  quote  Agnes  Strickland,  who  enters  into 
interesting  details  in  regard  to  the  trial  and  death  of  this 
venerable  lady; — it  will  be  seen  that  Cromwell,  who  was 
mainly  instrumental  in  bringing  about  her  condemnation., 
suffered  himself  before  her,  in  virtue  of  his  own  iniquitous 
law  of  attainder: — 

"  Cromwell  produced  in  the  house  of  lords,  May  10,  by  way  of  evidence 
against  the  countess,  a  vestment  of  white  sUk,  that  had  been  found  in  her 
wardrobe,  embroidered  in  fi-ont  with  the  arms  of  England,  surrounded  with 
a  wreath  of  pansies  and  marigolds,  and  on  the  back  the  representation  of  the 
host,  with  the  five  wounds  of  our  Lord,  and  the  name  of  Jesus  written  in 
the  midst.  Cromwell  persuaded  the  lords  that  this  was  a  treasonable  en- 
sign ;  and  as  the  countess  had  corresponded  with  her  absent  son,  she  was 
for  no  other  crime  attainted  of  high  treason,  and  condemned  to  death  with- 
out the  privilege  of  being  heard  in  her  own  defense.f  The  marchioness  of 
Exeter  was  also  attainted  and  condemned  to  death  by  the  same  illegal  pro- 
cess, in  direct  opposition  to  the  laws  of  England.  Both  ladies  were,  mean- 
time, confined  in  the  Tower. 

"  The  lords,  indeed,  hesitated,  for  the  case  was  without  precedent ;  but 
Cromwell  sent  for  the  judges  to  his  own  house,  and  asked  them  '  whether  the 
parliament  had  a  power  to  condemn  persons  accused  without  a  hearing.' 
The  judges  replied,| '  That  it  was  a  nice  and  dangerous  question,  for  law  and 
equity  required  that  no  one  should  be  condemned  unheard  ;  but  the  parlia- 
ment being  the  highest  court  of  the  realm,  its  decisions  could  not  be  disputed.' 
When  Cromwell,  by  reporting  this  answer  in  the  house,  satisfied  the  peers 
that  they  had  the  power  of  committing  a  great  iniquity  if  they  chose  to  do 
so,  they  obliged  the  king  by  passing  the  bill,  which  established  a  precedent 
for  all  the  other  murders  that  were  perpetrated  in  this  reign  of  terror.  As 
an  awfal  instance  of  retributive  justice,  it  is  to  be  recorded,  that  Cromwell 
was  himself  the  first  person  who  was  slain  by  the  tremendous  weapon  of 

*  See  Pole's  letter  to  the  cardinal  of  Burgos,  quoted  by  Lingard,  vol.  vi, 
p.  290,  note. 

f  Lingard ;  Tytler ;  Herbert ;  Burnet ;  Journals  of  Parliament. 
\  Parliamentary  History,  vol.  iii,  p.  143-4 ;  Eapin ;  Lingard ;  Herbert. 
VOL.    U. d 


98  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION Hli^^TRY    Vm. 

despotism,  with  which,  hke  a  iraitor  to  his  country,  he  had  furnished  tli8 
most  merciless  tyrant  that  ever  wore  the  English  crown. 

"  Exactly  one  month  after  this  villany,  CromAvell  was  arrested  by  the 
duke  of  Norfolk  at  the  council-board,  and  sent  to  the  Tower,  by  the  com- 
mand of  the  king,  who,  like  a  master-fiend,  had  waited  till  his  slave  had 
filled  up  the  full  measure  of  his  guilt,  before  he  executed  his  vengeance  upon 
him.* 

"  She  was  the  last  of  the  Plantagenets,  and,  with  a  spirit  not  unworthy 
of  her  mighty  ancestors,  refused  to  submit  to  an  unjust  sentence  by  laying 
her  head  upon  the  block.  '  So  should  traitors  do,'  she  said,  '  but  I  am  none, 
and  if  you  will  have  my  head,  you  must  win  it  as  you  can.'  A  scene  of 
horror  followed,  which  was  concluded  by  the  ruffian  minister  of  Hem-y's 
vengeance  dragging  the  aged  princess  by  her  hoary  hair  to  the  block,  where 
he  '  slovenly  butchered  her,  and  stained  the  scaffold  from  veins  enriched  with 
aU  the  royal  blood  of  England.'  "  f 

4.  Tliough  among  the  monks  of  some  of  the  greater  monas- 
teries, which  were  not  yet  suppressed,  there  was  obtained  by 
dint  of  threats  and  promises  an  appearance  of  acquiescence 
in  the  new  state  of  things,  there  still  remained  many  mem- 
bers of  the  more  rigid  and  secluded  orders  of  the  Carthu- 
sians, Brigittins,  and  Franciscan  Observants,  who  had  spirit 
and  conscience  enough  not  to  bow  to  the  unlawful  commands 
of  the  king.  Upon  such  men  as  these,  separated  from  and 
entirely  above  this  world,  the  wily  arts  and  the  terrible 
menaces  of  Cromwell  and  his  associates  were  thrown  away. 
The  answer  of  the  noble  Friar  Peyto  to  Cromwell — who  had 
threatened  to  inclose  him  and  his  associate  Elstow  in  sacks  and 
to  cast  them  into  the  Thames  —  is  well  known:  "Threaten 
such  things  to  the  rich  and  dainty  folk  which  are  clothed  in 
purple  and  fare  deliciously.  We  esteem  them  not.  We  are 
joyful  that  for  the  discharge  of  our  duty  we  are  driven  hence. 
With  thanks  to  God,  we  know  that  the  way  to  heaven  is  as 
short  by  water  as  by  land,  and  therefore  care  not  which  way 
we  go."J 

The  three  religious  orders  above  named  were  then  filled, 


*  Queens  of  England,  vol.  iv,  pp.  259,  260. 

f  I\M.,  p.  30i)  ;  she  quotes  Acts  of  Privy  Council,  Hall,  and  Quthne. 

I  Stowe,  543,  apud  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  218. 


INCREASING   TYRANNY.  99 

according  to  Pole,*  with  the  most  strict  and  pious  ecclesiastics 
in  England ;  and  as  it  was  found  that  most  of  them  shared 
in  the  noble  sentiments  of  Peyto  and  Elstow,  they  were  driven 
by  violence  from  their  monasteries ;  and  the  priors  of  the 
three  great  charter  houses  of  London,  also  refusing  from  con- 
scientious motives  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  were  "  sus- 
pended, cut  down  alive,  embowelled,  and  dismembered"  as 
traitors,  after  having  earnestly  plead  in  vain  for  the  consola- 
tions of  religion  before  their  barbarous  execution.-]-  The  jury 
had  hesitated  to  convict  men  of  so  much  acknowledged  piety, 
and  it  required  repeated  threatening  messages  from  the  king, 
and  even  a  personal  visit  from  his  vicar  general,  to  shake 
their  righteous  resolution,  and  to  induce  them  to  bring  in  a 
verdict  of  guilty.J  Thank  God,  that  amidst  the  general 
defection,  there  was  some  independence,  some  faith,  and  some 
manliness  left  in  England,  though  those  who  dared  possess 
these  exalted  qualities  were  almost  sure  to  fall  victims  to  the 
royal  despotism.  Besides  those  who  perished  on  the  scaffold, 
hundreds  of  the  monks  were  thrust  into  the  prisons,  where 
many  of  them  died  of  hardship  and  of  cruel  treatment. 

5.  The  new  doctrine  of  the  royal  supremacy,  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  Pope,  proved  so  repugnant  to  the  general  sense 
and  feeling  of  the  people,  that  it  was  everywhere  viewed  with 
distrust  and  astonishment.  "  To  dispel  these  prejudices, 
Henry  issued  injunctions  that  the  very  name  Pope  should  be 
carefully  erased  out  of  all  books  employed  in  the  public  wor- 
ship ;  that  every  school-master  should  diligently  inculcate  the 
new  doctrine  to  the  children  intrusted  to  his  care ;  that  all 
clergymen,  from  the  bishop  to  the  curate,  slionM  on  every 
Sunday  and  holiday  teach,  that  the  king  was  the  true  head  of 
the  church,  and  that  the  authority  hitherto  exercised  by  the 
Popes  was  an  usurpation,  tamely  submitted  to  by  the  care- 
lessness or  timidity  of  his  predecessors ;  and  that  the  sheriffs 
in  each  county  should  keep  a  vigilant  eye  over  the  conduct 


♦  Pole;  fol.  ciii,  apud  Lingard,  vol.  vi.  f  Ibid.  \  Ibid.,  p.  220 


100  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION HENRY    VHI. 

of  the  clergy,  and  should  report  to  the  council  the  names  nc>t 
only  of  those  who  might  neglect  these  duties,  but  also  of  those 
who  might  perform  them  indeed,  but  with  coldness  and  indif- 
ference." * 

6.  In  his  Constitutional  History  of  England,  Mr.  Hallam 
furnishes  the  following  estimate  of  Henry's  increasing  despo- 
tism and  blood-thirstiness,  after  he  had  severed  England 
from  the  communion  of  the  Catholic  Church :f 

"  But  after  the  fall  of  Wolsey,  and  Hemy's  breach  with  the  Eoman  See 
his  fierce  temper,  strengthened  by  habit  and  exasperated  by  resistance,  de- 
manded more  constant  supplies  of  blood  ;  and  many  perished  by  sentences 
which  we  can  hardly  prevent  ourselves  from  considering  as  illegal,  because 
the  statutes  to  which  they  might  be  conformable,  seem,  from  their  temporary 
duration,  their  violence,  and  the  passiveness  of  the  parliaments  that  enacted 
them,  rather  like  arbitrary  invasions  of  the  law  than  alterations  of  it.  By  an 
act  of  1534,  not  only  an  oath  was  imposed  to  maintain  the  succession  in  the 
heirs  of  the  king's  second  marriage,  in  exclusion  of  the  princess  Mary,  but  it 
was  made  high  treason  to  deny  that  ecclesiastical  supremacy  of  the  crown, 
which,  till  about  two  years  before,  no  one  had  ever  ventured  to  assert. 
Bishop  Fisher,  the  most  inflexibly  honest  churchman  who  filled  a  high  sta 
tion  in  that  age,  was  beheaded  for  this  denial.  Sir  Thomas  More,  whose 
name  can  ask  no  epithet,  underwent  a  similar  fate.  He  had  offered  to  take 
the  oath  to  maintain  the  succession,  which,  as  he  justly  said,  the  legislature 
was  competent  to  alter ;  but  prudentlj'^  avoided  to  give  an  opinion  as  to  the 
supremacy,  till  Rich,  solicitor-general,  and  afterwards  chancellor,  elicited  in 
a  private  conversation  some  expressions  which  were  thought  sufficient  to 
bring  him  within  the  fangs  of  the  recent  statute.  A  considerable  number  of 
less  distinguished  persons,  chiefly  ecclesiastical,  were  afterwards  e.xecuted  in 
»'irtue  of  this  statute.  The  sudden  and  harsh  innovations  made  by  Henry  in 
religion,  .  .  .  his  destruction  of  venerable  establishments,  his  tyranny  over 
the  recesses  of  the  conscience,  excited  so  dangerous  a  rebellion  in  the  north 
of  England,  that  his  own  general,  the  duke  of  Norfolk,  thought  it  absolutely 
necessary  to  employ  measures  of  conciliation."! 

*  Lingard,  vi,  p.  216. — He  quotes  the  act  of  parhament  and  Wilkins,  Cone. 

f  P.  27  ;  American  Edition,  sup.  cit. 

J  The  Anglican  bishop  Short  furnishes  the  following  compendious  state- 
ment of  the  executions  which  occurred  during  Henry's  reign,  by  his  order: 

"  Some  urge  two  queens,  one  cardinal,  (in  procinctu  at  least — in  intention) 
for  Pole  was  condemned  though  absent ;  one  or  two  dukes ;  marquises,  earls,  and 


ESPP3NAGE CURIOUS    EXAMPLES.  101 

7.  Towards  the  end  of  his  reign  the  king  jecame  more  and 
more  morose  and  tyrannical,  and  more  and  more  sensitive  in 
this  delicate  matter  of  his  spiritual  supremacy;  and  whosoever 
dared  even  whisper  a  doubt  on  the  subject  incurred  imminent 
danger  of  meeting  the  doom  of  a  traitor.  The  better  to  probe  the 
minds  of  his  subjects  in  reference  to  this  new  tenet  of  faith, 
a  most  minute,  searching,  and  harassing  system  of  espionage 
was  organized  throughout  the  kingdom,  with  Cromwell  at  its 
head,  to  inquire  into  the  opinions  and  report  to  the  king's 
council  the  careless  words  of  the  people  of  England,  made  use 
of  in  their  most  unguarded  moments  and  when  they  were  in 
the  most  confiding  mood.  From  the  most  obscure  laboring  man 
up  to  the  highest  nobleman  in  the  land,  no  man  was  safe  ; — 
his  next  neighbor  might  be  a  spy  in  the  pay  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  mutterings  of  old  women,  and  the  careless  speeches 
of  hostlers  and  grooms  were  alike  reported.  Mr.  Froude  gives 
us  many  curious  examples  of  this  in  his  recent  History  of 
England.  We  select  two  of  these  reports,  as  specimens  of  this 
vexatious  system  of  tyranny. 

"  A  groom  was  dressing  his  master's  horse  when  the  hostler  came  in,  and 
said  there  was  no  Pope,  but  a  Bishop  of  Eome.  And  the  groom  said,  he 
knew  there  was  a  Pope,  and  the  hostler  and  they  who  held  his  part  were 
strong  heretics,  and  the  hostler  answered  that  the  king's  grace  held  of 
this  opinion  ;  and  the  groom  said  that  he  was  one  heretic,  and  the  king  was 
another,  and  said  moreover,  that  this  business  had  never  been,  if  the  king 
had  not  married  Anne  Boleyn."  * 

All  honor  to  the  noble  independence  of  the  honest  groom, 
who  no  doubt  spoke  the  general  popular  sentiment,  how  much 
soever  he  may  have  suffered  for  telling  the  truth !  The  other 
example  regards  the  abbot  of  Woburn  Abbey : 

"  In  the  spring  of  1537,  Woburn  Abbey  was  in  high  confusion.  The 
brethren  were  trimming  to  the  times,  anxious  merely  for  secular  habits, 
wines,  and  freedom.     In  the  midst  of  them  Robert  Hobbes,  the  abbot,  who 

earls'  sons,  twelve  ;  barons  and  knights,  eighteen  ;  abbotts,  priors,  monkss 
and  priests,  seventy-nine  ;  of  the  more  common  sort,  between  one  religion 
and  another,  huge  multitudes.'" — (Hist.  Ch.  England,  \  227,  note,  p.  67.) 
*  Quoted  in  Dublin  Review,  for  July,  1858,  p.  451. 
38 


102  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY  VUI. 

in  the  past  year  had  accepted  the  oath  of  supremacy  in  a  momer  of  weak 
ness,  was  lying  worn  down  with  sorrow,  unable  to  endure  the  burden  of 
his  conscience.  On  Passion  Sunday,  dying,  as  it  seemed  of  a  broken  heart,  he 
called  the  fraternity  to  his  side,  and  exhorted  them  to  charity^  and  prayed 
them  to  be  obedient  to  their  vows.  Hard  eyes  and  mocking  lips  were  all 
the  answers  of  the  monks  of  Woburn.  Then,  being  in  great  agony,  the  ab- 
bot arose  from  his  bed,  and  cried  out,  and  said :  '  I  would  to  God,  that  it 
would  please  Him  to  take  me  out  of  this  wretched  world,  and  I  would  I 
had  died  with  the  good  men  that  have  suffered  death  for  holding  with  the 
Pope.'  Abbot  Hobbes  had  his  wish.  Spiteful  tongues  carried  his  words  to 
the  council,  and  the  law,  remorseless  as  destiny,  flung  its  meshes  over  him 
on  the  instant.  He  was  swept  up  to  London,  and  interrogated  in  the  usual 
form,  '  Was  he  the  king's  subject,  or  the  Pope's?'  He  stood  to  his  faith 
like  a  man,  and  the  scaffold  swallowed  him  up."  * 

The  "  law  "  indeed  !  And  who  made  the  law  ?  A  remorse- 
less king  and  a  terror-stricken  and  subservient  parliament. 
Mr.  Froude  can  not  defend  the  atrocious  tyranny  and  unut- 
terable cruelty  of  Henry  in  thus  ferreting  out  and  punishing 
with  death  men's  secret  thoughts  and  opinions,  on  the  shallow 
plea  that  he  had  the  law  on  his  side,  with  such  minions  as 
Cranmer  and  Cromwell  to  execute  its  bloody  enactments; 
while  such  a  man  as  Russell  was  looking  eagerly  on,  waiting 
for  the  death  of  the  abbot  and  the  dissolution  of  the  Abbey 
of  Woburn,  to  pounce  upon  it  and  make  it  all  his  own.f 

Out  upon  a  law  which  made  men  traitors  to  their  country 
because  they  would  not  prove  traitors  to  their  God.  Out 
upon  a  law,  which  thus  threw  a  close  network  of  espionage 
over  all  England,  and  made  a  once  free  people  a  nation  of 
trembling  slaves,  and  which,  not  content  with  enslaving  the 
body,  sought  also  to  degrade  and  enslave  the  soul !  "  The 
slightest  whisper  of  sedition  was  considered  as  sedition ;  and 
sedition  was  construed  as  treason.  Nay,  a  statute  passed 
making  it  a  capital  offense  for  the  hearer  of  aught  seditious 
not  to  denounce  the  speaker!  The  tyrant,  conscious  that  the 
nation  was  disgusted  with  his  impious  assumption  of  suprem 

*  Quoted  in  Dublin  Pieview;  ibid. 

f  Lord  John  llussell  still  holds  Woburn  Abbey  and  its  ample  lands. 


THE   SIX   ARTICLES.  103 

acy,  and  yearned  for  the  lost  allegiance  to  Rome,  set  on  foot 
by  means  of  his  minions,  a  detestable  system  of  espionage, 
which  made  it  almost  as  perilous  to  hear  as  to  utter  a  word 
against  his  measures,  which  paralysed  the  voices  of  all  but 
the  few  brave  enough  to  die,  making  every  man  certain  to 
feel  that  a  whisper  might  betray  him  to  death,  and  hushing 
the  tongues  of  all  into  a  terror-stricken  silence,  or  moving 
them  to  a  servile  tone  of  adulation."* 

V.  What  was  the  character  of  the  Reformation  under 
Henry  VlII,  and  under  his  successor  Edward  VI.? 

The  answer  to  this  is  obvious.  Those  who,  in  the  face  of 
the  facts  so  far  stated,  still  maintain  that  the  Anglican  church 
reformed  itself  must  be  strangely  forgetful  of  history,  or  con- 
tent with  a  very  slight  foundation  for  their  theory.  During  the 
first  period  of  its  existence  as  a  separate  organization,  the 
Anglican  church  was  just  what  Henry  VHI.  and  his  subser- 
vient parliament  chose  to  make  it,  neither  more  nor  less. 
And  the  same  may  be  said  of  its  character  during  the  subse- 
quent period.  Its  standard  of  belief  and  practice  varied  with 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  royal  or  parliamentary  orthodoxy  in  each 
succeeding  reign.  Under  Henry  particularly,  the  bishops 
and  the  convocation  of  the  clergy  had  only  as  much  to  do 
with  deciding  as  to  the  shape  which  the  new  church  was  to 
assume,  as  the  king  chose  to  give  them.  Tliis  was  about  as 
much  as  the  imperious  master  chooses  to  give  to  his  trembling 
slaves,  who  are  expected  to  hear  and  obey,  nor  to  dare  proffer 
advice  as  to  what  is  best  to  be  done  without  being  first  asked 
by  their  master ! 

Notwithstanding  his  defection  from  the  Church,  Henry  was 
still  attached  to  the  ancient  faith,  and  he  decided  to  retain  its 
principal  articles,  as  well  as  the  ancient 'worship.  In  1536, 
he  compiled,  with  the  assistance  of  his  theologians,  a  book  of 
"  Articles,"  which  Cromwell  presented  for  signature  to  the 


*  Dublin  Review — ibid. 


104  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY  Vm. 

convocation,  and  which  the  members,  of  course,  subscribed 
without  a  word.  These  articles  declare  that  a  belief  iu  the 
three  ancient  creeds,  the  Apostles',  the  Nicene,  and  the 
Athanasian,  is  necessary  to  salvation ;  that  the  sacraments 
of  baptism,  penance,  and  the  holy  Eucharist  are  the  ordinary 
means  of  salvation  ;  and  that  the  use  of  Masses,  the  honoring 
and  invoking  of  saints,  and  the  usual  ceremonies  of  the  pub 
lie  service  "  are  highly  profitable,  and  ought  to  be  retained."* 
The  lay  vicar  general  accordingly  issued  his  injunction  to  the 
bishops  and  clergy,  requiring  that  these  articles  should  be 
explained  to  the  people,  should  be  accepted  by  all  and  be 
reduced  to  practice.  This  was  followed  by  a  fuller  exposition 
of  doctrine,  entitled,  "  The  Godly  and  Pious  Institution  of 
the  Christian  Man,"  issued  by  the  convocation  on  the  com- 
mand of  the  king.  This  document  strongly  denies  the  possi- 
bility of  salvation  out  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  and  it  incul- 
cates slavish  passive  obedience  to  the  king,  in  the  same  breath 
with  which  it  denounces  the  papal  supremacy.f 

A  few  years  later,  the  famous  Six  Articles — the  Bloody 
Six,  as  Mr.  Froude  calls  them — were  sanctioned  by  parlia- 
ment, after  having  been  first  duly  approved  by  the  royal  head 
of  the  church,  who  had  selected  themj  in  place  of  jtiie, s 
presented  by  one  section  of  the  committee  of  convocation 
headed  by  Cranmer.  They  inculcated  the  real  presence  of 
Christ  in  the  holy  Eucharist,  the  sufficiency  of  communion 
under  one  kind,  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  as  obligatory  by 
the  divine  law,  the  binding  force  of  vows  of  chastity,  the 
lawfulness  of  low  Masses,  and  the  obligation  of  auricular 
confession.  •  The  penalties  annexed  to  the  rejection  or  viola- 
tion of  these  articles  were  terrible.  Those  who  rejected  the 
real  presence  were  punished  with  death,  without  the  privilege 
of  abjuring;  while  the  rejection  of  any  of  the  other  five 
articles  was  made  a  felony,  with  death  for  the  second  oftense. 

*  Wilkins  Concil.  iii,  804,  apud  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  272-3.  f  Ibid, 

t  It  is  even  probable  that  Henry  composed  them  himself,  at  least  in  sub- 
Btance.     See  Lingard,  vol.  vi,  p.  292,  note. 


CATHOLICS   AND    PROTESTANTS    BUTCHERED.  105 

The  last  clause  in  the  act  is  singular:  that  persons  contempt- 
uously refusing  to  confess  at  the  usual  times,  or  to  receive  the 
sacrament,  shall  for  the  first  offense  be  fined  and  imprisoned, 
and  for  the  second  be  adjudged  felons,  and  suffer  the  punish- 
ment of  felony.* 

Cranmer  did  not  believe  in  all,  if  in  any,  of  these  six 
articles ;  in  direct  opposition  to  two  of  them,  and  in  contra- 
vention of  his  ow^n  solemn  priestly  vows,  he  had  secretly  mar- 
ried a  wife  whom  he  still  retained  at  his  palace;  yet  he 
subscribed  them  all,  and  aided  in  their  bloody  execution. 
With  his  assistance,  if  not  at  his  instigation.  Catholics  and 
Protestants  were  executed  together ;  the  former  perishing  as 
traitors  for  denying  the  king's  supremacy,  and  the  latter 
being  burned  at  the  stake  as  heretics  for  rejecting  either  the 
real  presence  or  some  other  article  which  the  king  and  his 
parliament  had  chosen  to  adopt,  as  the  faith  of  the  new 
Anglican  church  for  the  time  being.  In  one  instance,  three 
Catholics — Powel,  Abel,  and  Featherstone — and  three  Prot- 
estants— Barnes,  Garret,  and  Jerome — were  coupled  two  and 
two.  Catholic  and  Protestant,  on  the  same  hurdles,  and  were 
thus  led  out  to  execution  If  And  if  the  bloody  executions  did 
not  become  more  general,  it  was  only  because  universal  terror 
had  stricken  men  with  dumbness,  and  few  dared  even  whis- 
per dissent.  Such  was  the  emancipation  of  the  mind,  and 
the  freedom  of  thought  which  the  Reformation  first  gave  to 
England  ! 

In  such  a  state  of  things,  can  we  wonder  that  the  general 
popular  discontent,  so  long  kept  down  by  a  system  of  terror- 
ism, should  at  length,  like  a  smothered  volcano,  break  out  into 
open  insurrection?  Atone  time — in  1536,  shortly  after  the 
suppression  of  the  lesser  monasteries — the  whole  north  of 
England  rose  in  rebellion,  while  the  south  was  kept  down  by 

*  Statutes  of  Realm,  iii,  739-741,  apud  Lingard.  Ibid, 
t  See  Ibid,  p.  309,  and  note.     The  Catholics  were  hanged  .ind  quartered 
as  traitors,  the  Protes  tants  burned  as  heretics. 


106  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION HENRY  VIII. 

main  ibrce.  "  From  the  borders  of  Scotland  to  the  Lune  and 
Humber,  the  inhabitants  had  generally  bonnd  themselves  by 
oath  to  stand  by  each  other  for  the  love  which  they  bore  to 
Almighty  God,  His  faith,  the  holy  Church,  and  the  mainten- 
ance thereof."  This  formidable  insurrection,  called  the  "  Pil- 
g]'image  of  Grace,"  was  finally  suppressed,  partly  by  threats 
and  violence,  and  partly  by  a  general  pardon,  with  the 
solemn  promise  of  the  king  to  the  insurgents  that  their 
grievances  should  be  speedily  heard  and  discussed  in  a  parlia- 
ment to  be  assembled  at  York ;  a  promise  which  the  king 
afterwards,  however,  violated  without  scruple.* 

The  suppression  of  the  northern  insurrection  was  followed 
by  that  of  the  greater  monasteries,  which  had  hitherto  been 
spared.  A  commission  was  appointed,  under  the  presidency 
of  the  earl  of  Sussex,  to  examine  into  the  conduct  of  the 
monks ;  and  as  the  commissioners  made  the  inquiry  with  the 
express  intention  of  suppressing  these  great  houses,  and  of 
appropriating  their  lands  and  revenues  to  the  king  and  to 
themselves,  there  could  be  from  the  very  beginning  but  little 
doubt  of  its  result.  Guilty  or  innocent,  the  monks  were  to  be 
expelled,  because  the  king  and  his  hungry  lords  wanted  their 
property !  Thus,  a  most  searching  investigation  was  twice 
made  into  the  conduct  of  the  abbot  and  monks  of  Furness,  but 
nothing  was  elicited  to  criminate  them ;  still  the  abbot  was 
compelled  by  blandishments  and  menaces  to  relinquish  the 
property  to  Henry  by  a  regular  deed,  which  his  brethren  also 
very  reluctantly  signed.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  AVhal- 
ley  and  other  great  monasteries  in  the  north  of  England. 
When  threats  failed,  bribery  was  tried,  and  finally  open  vio- 
lence was  used  whenever  it  was  found  necessary.f  So  it 
happened  that,  by  one  unhallowed  means  or  another,  the 
whole  vast  property  which  the  piety  of  ages  had  devoted  to 
religion,  to  learning,  and  to  charity,  was  swept  away  forever 
by  sacrilegious  avarice  stimulating  royal  tyranny. 

*  Lingard,  p.  254,  seqq.         f  See,  for  full  de  fails,  ibid.,  vol.  vi,  p.  261,  seqq 


THE   BOY-KING   AND   CRANMER.  10*7 


EDWARD    VI. 

Henry  died  in  1547,*  and  he  was  succeeded  by  Edward 
VL,  his  son  by  Jane  Seymour,  who  was  only  in  his  ninth 
year.  During  his  reign,  which  lasted  for  only  six  years,  the 
leaders  of  the  new  religion  had  full  scope.  The  terrors 
inspired  by  the  iron  will  of  Henry  had  ceased,  and  Cranmer, 
who  occupied  the  principal  place  and  wielded  the  most  influ- 
ence in  the  royal  council,  could  now  hope  to  mould  to  his 
own  purposes  the  pliant  disposition  of  the  weak  and  sickly 
youth  who  nominally  swayed  the  sceptre.  He  succeeded  in 
this  according  to  his  utmost  wishes.  He  controlled  the  spir- 
itual, while  the  king's  uncle,  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  as  lord 
protector,  ruled  the  temporal  administration.  The  Reforma- 
tion had  now  a  free  and  open  field,  and  its  leaders  eagerly 
availed  themselves  of  the  golden  opportunity. 

First,  the  older  nobility,  whose  fortunes  had  been  waning 
during  the  preceding  reign,  were  now  cast  still  more  into  the 
shade ;  for  a  new  set  of  hungry  aspirants  had  their  fortunes 
still  to  make.  These  new  men  looked  with  a  greedy  eye  on 
the  vast  remaining  property  of  the  Church ;  and  to  appease 
theii-  avarice,  many  of  the  rich  chantries,  colleges,  and  free 
chapels  which  had  escaped  the  rapacity  of  Henry,  were  now 
confiscated  nominally  for  the  king's,  but  really  for  their,  bene- 
fit. Then  the  wily  Cranmer  proceeded  to  develop  his  real 
sentiments,  before  cautiously  concealed,  as  to  the  nature  and 

*  Says  Miss  Strickland : 

"The  will  of  Henry  VIII.  was  as  replete  with  seeds  of  strife  for  hia 
subjects,  as  the  capricious  acts  of  his  life  had  been.  This  monarch,  who 
had,  on  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries,  desecrated  so  many  altars,  and 
scattered  the  funds  of  so  many  mortuary  chapels,  and  endowed  chantries,  in 
utter  disregard  of  the  intentions  of  the  founders,  whose  very  tombs  were 
often  violated,  left,  by  his  will,  six  hundred  pounds  per  annum  for  Masses  to 
be  said  for  his  soul !  He  had  likewise  enjoined  his  executors  to  ormg  up  his 
son  in  the  Catholic  faith ;  by  this  he  probably  meant  the  cruel  church  of  ih« 
six  articles,  which  he  had  founded." — Queens  of  England,  v  165. 


108  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION — EDWARD    VI. 

measure  of  the  Reformation  to  be  established.   The  successive 
steps  of  his  progress  in  reform  are  sufficiently  curious. 

1.  He  humbly  petitioned  the  crown  to  be  restored  to  the 
episcopal  jurisdiction,  which,  according  to  his  favorite  theory, 
had  wholly  ceased  with  the  death  of  the  late  king ;  and  most 
of  the  other  bishops  followed  his  obsequious  example, 

2.  Through  his  influence,  a  visitation  of  all  the  dioceses  of 
the  realm  was  ordered,  the  visitors  to  be  composed  of  laymen 
and  clergymen,  and  during  its  continuance  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  ordinaries  was  to  be  suspended. 

3.  He  composed  the  book  of  Homilies,  and  ordered  every 
clerical  incumbent  of  a  church  living  to  possess  and  use 
Erasmus'  paraphrase  of  the  New  Testament. 

4.  The  Mass  was  retained,  for  the  present,  until  some  hetter 
order  of  service  could  be  devised. 

5.  The  celibacy  of  the  clergy  was  first  attacked  and  then 
abolished  by  act  of  parlrament ,  and  by  the  same  authority 
communion  under  both  kinds  was  enjoined,  with  some  excep- 
tions. 

6.  In  conformity  with  his  well  known  opinion  and  practice, 
the  parliament  solemnly  declared  that  all  jurisdiction,  both 
spiritual  and  temporal,  is  derived  entirely  from  the  king,  and 
hence  the  election  of  bishops  was  withdrawn  from  the  dean 
and  chapters  and  vested  wholly  in  the  crown  ;  and  the  bishops, 
of  course,  became  mere  state  officials.* 

7.  A  year  later,  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  was  com- 
pleted, and  it  was  adopted  by  parliament  in  1549,  as  having 
been  dictated  "  by  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  with  one  uniform 
agreement,"  and  as  obligatory,  instead  of  the  Mass,  through- 
out the  kingdom,  under  the  usual  pains  and  penalties  for  non- 
con  formity.f 

8.  Finally,  the  articles  of  religion,  originally  forty-two  in 
number,  were  prepared  by  Cranmer  and  his  colleagues,  and 

*  Stat,  of  Realm  iv,  2.   Apud  Lingard,  vol.  vii,  p.  24,  seqq. 
■f-  For  an  account  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  of  its  varioas  chan 
ges,  see  note  A.  at  the  end  of  the  present  volume. 


CRANMER    REFORMING JOAN   BOCHER    BURNED.  109 

adopted  by  the  youthful  king,  who  a  short  time  before  his 
death,  ordered  them  to  be  subscribed  by  all  clergymen  pos- 
sessed of  benefices. 

This  headlong  career  of  innovation,  so  speedily  entered 
upon  and  so  eagerly  pursued  by  Cranmer,  in  total  opposition 
to  the  sentiments  which  he  had  so  recently  avowed,  and  for 
which  he  had  so  lately  aided  in  sending  much  better  men  than 
himself  to  the  scafibld  or  to  the  stake,  did  not  meet  with  gen- 
eral approbation.  Gardiner,  bishop  of  Winchester,  would  not 
consent  to  the  change,  and  he  even  boldly  accused  Cranmer 
of  insincerity  and  duplicity,  in  so  soon  abandoning  the  belief 
which  he  had  avowed  during  the  reign  of  Henry.  He  wrote 
to  the  vacillating  prelate  as  follows : 

"Which  if  had  been  so"  (if  the  doctrine  in  Henry  the  eighth's  book  had 
been  erroneous)  "I  ought  to  think  your  grace  would  not,  for  all  princes 
christened,  being  so  high  a  bishop  as  ye  be,  have  yielded  unto.  For-— obedire 
oportet  Deo  magis  quam  hominibus.  (It  is  better  to  obey  God  than  men.) 
And  therefore,  after  your  grace  hath  four  years  continually  lived  in  agree- 
ment of  that  doctrine,  under  our  late  sovereign  lord,  now  so  suddenly  after 
death  to  write  to  me  that  his  highness  was  seduced,  it  is,  I  assure  you,  a 
very  strange  speech."* 

It  was  difficult  to  answer  such  an  argument,  and  danger- 
ous to  deal  with  so  able  an  adversary.  Accordingly,  Gardiner 
was  silenced  by  being  sent  to  the  Tower,  where  he  remaine4 
closely  confined  till  the  death  of  Edward,  and  the  succession 
of  Mary.  Others  who  had  the  boldness  to  judge  for  them- 
selves, and  to  dissent  from  Cranmer,  encountered  an  even 
sterner  fate.  Commissions  were  repeatedly  issued  by  the 
royal  council,  appointing  Cranmer  and  "  several  other  prelates, 
and  certain  distinguished  divines  and  civilians,  inquisitors  of 
heretical  pravity."f  The  inquisitors  apprehended  and  brought 
to  trial  many  persons,  both  Protestant  and  Catholic. 

Among  the  former,  was  a  poor,  weak-minded  fanatic  Joan 
Bocher ;  a  woman  who  had  deserved  well  of  the  Reformation 

*  Strype's  Cranmer.  App.,  p.  74.     See  Lingard,  vol.  vii,  p.  20,  note, 
t  Ibid.,  p.  72. 


110  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION EDWARD   VI. 

by  her  previous  zeal  in  the  cause  of  the  new  doctrines.  Ye* 
she  was  condemned  to  be  burned  as  a  1.  ere  tic,  and  was  ac- 
cordingly so  executed  a  year  later — in  May,  1550.  The  reason 
of  the  delay  was  the  reluctance  of  Edward  to  sign  the  death- 
warrant.  The  boy-king  felt  a  sci'uple  about  sending  the  poor 
woman  unprepared  to  the  judgment  seat  of  God,  and  thereby 
endangering  her  eternal  salvation.  It  required  all  Cran- 
mer's  eloquence  to  overcome  the  reluctance  of  the  youthful 
monarch,  and  to  harden  his  tender  heart  against  the  cry  of 
pity ;  but  he  succeeded  at  length  in  securing  this  result.* 

The  archbishop  seems  to  have  had  some  personal  feelings 
in  the  matter ;  for  at  her  trial  and  after  her  condemnation, 
Joan  had  twitted  him  and  his  colleagues  with  their  inconsist- 
ency and  duplicity,  in  the  following  energetic  strain  :  "It  is  a 
goodly  matter  to  consider  your  ignorance.  It  was  not  long 
ago  that  you  burned  Anne  Askew  for  a  piece  of  bread,  (deny- 
ing the  real  presence)  and  yet  came  yourselves  soon  after- 
wards to  believe  and  profess  the  same  doctrine  for  which  you 
burned  her ;  and  now,  forsooth,  you  will  needs  burn  me  for 
a  piece  of  flesh, f  and  in  the  end  will  come  to  believe  this  also, 
when  you  have  read  the  Scriptures,  and  understand  them.  'J 

Such  an  argument  as  this  could  not  well  be  answered  but 
Jay  the  stake,  the  sight  of  which,  however,  did  not  change  in 
the  least, much  less  convert  poor  Joan.     She  cried  out  to  the 

*  Spe<aking  of  Edward  VI.  and  Cranmer,  in  this  connection,  Hallam  says  : 
"  Yet  in  one  memorable  instance  he  had  shown  a  milder  spirit,  struggling 
against  Cranmer  to  save  a  fanatical  woman  from  the  punishment  of  heresy. 
This  is  a  stain  upon  Cranmer's  memory,  which  nothing  but  his  own  death 
could  have  lightened !  (obliterated  f  ") — Constit.  Hist.  p.  64,  sup.  cit. 

f  This  determined  Protestant  female  theologian  persisted  to  the  last  in 
maintaining,  that  "  Christ  did  not  take  flesh  of  the  outward  man  of  the 
Virgin,  because  the  outward  man  was  conceived  in  sin,  but  by  the  consent 
of  the  inward  man  which  was  undefiled."  What  she  really  meant  by  this 
jargon,  it  were  hard  to  saj"- ;  but  at  any  rate  she  was  but  following  her  own 
clearly  guarantied  right  of  private  judgment,  and  was  certainly  far  better  than 
tnose  who  burned  her. 

I  Ibid.  p.  73.  Wilkins  Concil.,  vol.  iv,  p.  39-42. 


BARBAROUS    LAW POPULAR    INSURRECTIONS.  Ill 

preacher  Dr.  Scorey,  who  accompanied  her  to  execution  and 
sought  to  convert  her  from  her  heresy,  that  "  he  lied  like  a 
rogue,  and  had  better  go  home  and  study  the  scripture."* 
And  so  she  perished ;  one  out  of  a  thousand  evidences  which 
history  presents,  to  show  how  far  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment was  guarantied  even  to  Protestants  by  the  Eeformation ! 

How  very  hard-hearted  and  cruel  the  English  nation  was 
fast  becoming,  or  had  already  to  a  great  extent  become,  under 
the  influence  of  the  Reformation,  may  be  inferred  from  a  most 
barbarous  and  unchristian  act  passed  by  the  first  parliament 
which  was  assembled  under  Edward  VI.  "We  refer  to  the 
cruel  law  against  mendicants ;  a  class  that  had  been  formerly 
charitably  fed  at  the  gates  of  the  monasteries,  but  now,  since 
the  suppression  of  these  benevolent  establishments,  wandered 
in  hungry  crowds  over  the  country. 

To  abate  this  nuisance,  as  it  was  considered,  the  parliament 
enacted,  that  "  whosoever  '  lived  idly  and  loiteringly  for  the 
space  of  three  days,'  came  under  the  description  of  a  vagabond, 
and  was  liable  to  the  following  punishment.  Two  justices  of 
the  peace  might  order  the  letter  V.  to  be  burnt  on  his  breast, 
and  adjudge  him  to  serve  the  informer  two  years,  as  Ms  slave. 
His  master  was  bound  to  provide  him  with  bread,  water,  and 
refuse  meat ;  might  fix  an  iron  ring  round  his  neck,  arm,  or 
leg,  and  was  authorized  to  compel  him  '  to  labor  at  any  work, 
however  vile  it  might  be,  by  beating,  chaining,  or  otherwise.' 
If  the  slave  absented  himself  a  fortnight,  the  letter  S.  was 
burnt  on  his  cheek  or  forehead,  and  he  became  a  slave  for 
life ;  and  if  he  oflTended  a  second  time  in  like  manner,  his 
flight  subjected  him  to  the  penalties  of  felony."f 

This  barbarous  statute  remained  in  force  for  two  years,  du- 
ring the  first  fervor  of  Cranmer's  Eeformation ! 

No  wonder  the  English  people  sighed  for  the  good  old 
Catholic  times,  when  charity  was  cultivated  as  a  virtue,  and 
poverty  was  deemed  no  crime,  but  a  misfortune  to  awaken 

*  Wilkins,  Con,  iv,  39-42.      f  Stat,  of  Realm,  iv,  5— -Apud  Ling.,  vii,  24-5 


112  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION EDWARD    VI. 

compassion  and  elicit  free  and  bountiful  relief.  No  wonder  the 
people  all  cried  out  for  the  restoration  of  the  monasteries, 
which  had  for  long  centuries  afibrded  so  great  and  so  general 
a  relief  to  popular  indigence  and  afflictions,  both  spiritual  and 
corporal.  No  wonder  they  cried  out,  in  their  honest  indigna 
tion,  against  the  rapacity  and  hard-heartedness  of  the  sacrile- 
gious harpies,  who,  under  pretense  of  reforming  God's  Church, 
had  seized  by  violence  upon  these  time-honored  and  sacred 
nurseries  of  religion  and  learning  and  ever-flowing  fountains 
of  charity.  No  wonder  that  the  popular  patience  was  com- 
pletely exhausted,  when  the  last  indignity  was  attempted  to 
be  put  upon  them  by  force — the  total  abolition  of  the  holy 
Mass,  and  the  substitution  therefor  of  the  cold  and  chilling 
service  of  the  Common  Prayer  Book. 

The  people  rose  in  vast  masses  throughout  the  kingdom ; 
the  insurrections  under  Henry  were  as  nothing  compared  to 
those  which  now  broke  out  under  Edward.  But  unfortunately, 
tliough  they  had  sufficient  numbers,  they  had  no  sufficient  or- 
ganization and  no  able  leaders.  They  were  put  down  in  detail, 
and  butchered  in  immense  numbers  by  the  aid  of  foreign 
German  and  Italian  troops !  Butchery  by  foreign  swords  and 
bayonets,  was  followed  by  wholesale  executions  under  native 
judges ;  and  it  is  estimated  that  the  battle-field  and  the  scaffold 
together  swallowed  up  no  less  than  four  thousand  victims! 
Martial  law  was  proclaimed,  and  its  sudden  and  awful  awards 
were  executed  without  remorse  or  scruple  by  the  new  lords 
Russell  and  Grey,  who  were  greatly  interested  in  establishing 
the  new  order  of  things,  as  their  titles  were  new,  and  based 
solely  on  the  sacrilegious  spoliation  of  the  Church. 

Against  the  foreign  soldiery  led  by  such  men,  vain  were 
the  efforts  of  the  popular  leader  Ket — the  tanner  of  the 
county  of  Norfolk — who,  in  the  name  of  the  "  common 
people,"  issued  his  proclamation  to  this  effect :  that  he  waged 
war,  for  the  ancient  liberties  of  England,  against  the  new 
lords  who  sought  to  change  the  established  order,  "wbo  con- 
founded things  sacred  and  profane,  and  regarded  nothing  but 


FOREIGN   SOLDIERY   EMPLOYED STATE   OF   MORALS.       113 

the  enriching  of  themselves  with  the  public  treasure,  that 
they  might  riot  in  it  during  the  public  calamity." 

The  friends  of  the  ancient  order  of  things  were  put  down 
by  the  strong  arm  of  the  government,  which,  in  this  instance, 
employed  for  the  purpose  foreign  bayonets  and  lances ;  and 
the  voice  of  the  poor  was  smothered  by  the  violence  of  the 
rich — rich  precisely  because  they  had  robbed  the  Church,  and 
thereby  left  the  poor  without  resource. 

That  the  bulk  of  the  English  people  were  totally  opposed 
to  the  change  of  religion,  especially  under  Henry  VIII.  and 
Edward  VI.,  and  that  the  change  was  forced  on  them  by 
foreign  bayonets,  is  freely  admitted  by  Mr.  Hallam;  who, 
after  saying  that  in  the  towns  many  were  favorable  to  the 
new  opinions,  writes  as  follows  :* 

"But  the  common  people,  especially  in  remote  counties,  had  been  used  to 
an  implicit  reverence  for  the  Holy  See,  and  had  suffered  comparatively  little 
by  its  impositions  (!).  They  looked  up  also  to  their  own  teachers,  as  guides 
in  faith  ;  and  the  main  body  of  the  clergy  were  certainly  very  reluctant  to 
tear  themselves,  at  the  pleasure  of  a  disappointed  monarch,  in  the  most 
dangerous  crisis  of  religion,  from  the  bosom  of  Catholic  unity.  They  com- 
phed  indeed  with  all  the  measures  of  government  far  more  than  men  of 
rigid  conscience  could  have  endured  to  do ;  but  many,  who  wanted  the 
courage  of  More  and  Fisher,  were  not  far  removed  from  their  way  of 
thinking." 
Again : 

"But  an  historian  (Burnet,)  whose  bias  was  certainly  not  unfavorable  to 
Protestantism,  confesses  that  all  endeavors  were  too  weak  to  overcome  the 
aversion  of  the  people  toward  reformation,  and  even  intimates  that  German 
troops  were  sent  for  from  Calais,  on  account  of  the  bigotry  (!)  with  which  the 
bulk  of  the  nation  adhered  to  the  old  superstition  (!).  Tliis  is  a  somewhat 
humiliating  admission,  that  the  Protestant  faith  was  imposed  upon  our 

AJJCESTORS  BY  A  FOREIGN  ARMY."f 

*  Constit.  History  of  England,  p.  49. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  62. — He  quotes  Burnet  (vol.  iii,  pp.  190,  196 ;)  and  adds  this 
testimony  of  the  unscrupulous  lord  Paget  from  Strype,  (vol.  ii.  Appendix, 
H.  H.:) — "  The  use  of  the  old  religion  is  forbidden  by  a  law,  and  the  use  of 
the  new  is  not  yet  printed  in  the  stomachs  of  eleven  out  of  twelve  parts  of 
the  realm,  whatever  countenance  men  may  make  outwardly,  to  please  them 
VOL.  II. — 10 


114  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION EDWARD    VI. 

The  state  of  morals  which  ensued  in  England,  in  conse- 
quence of  all  this  native  and  foreign  violence  to  force  upon 
the  people  the  recent  innovations  in  religion,  was  truly  de- 
plorable. Divorces  were  granted  with  the  greatest  facility. 
The  founder  of  the  Anglican  church  had  set  a  brilliant  ex- 
ample in  this  respect,  and  the  determined  opposition  thereto 
of  the  hated  Roman  Pontiff  was  rather  a  recommendation 
than  an  impediment. 

"Nor  were  the  national  morals  improved,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  por- 
traits drawn  by  the  most  eminent  of  the  reformed  preachers.  They  assert 
that  the  sufferings  of  the  indigent  were  viewed  with  indifference  by  the 
hard-heartedness  of  the  rich  ;  that  in  the  pursuit  of  gain,  the  most  barefaced 
frauds  were  avowed  and  justified ;  that  robbers  and  murderers  escaped 
punishment  by  the  partiality  of  juries ;  that  church-livings  were  given  to 
laymen,  or  converted  to  the  use  of  the  patrons  ;  that  marriages  were  repeat- 
edly dissolved  by  private  authoritj'' ;  and  that  the  haunts  of  prostitution 
were  multiplied  beyond  measure.  How  far  credit  should  be  given  to  such 
representations,  may  perhaps  be  doubtful.  Declamations  from  the  pulpit 
are  not  the  best  historical  evidence.  Much  in  them  must  be  attributed  to 
the  exaggeration  of  zeal,  much  to  the  affectation  of  eloquence.  Still  when 
these  deductions  have  been  made,  when  the  invectives  of  Knox  and  Lever, 
of  Gilpin  and  Latimer,  have  been  reduced  by  the  standard  of  reason  and 
experience,  enough  will  remain  to  justify  the  conclusion,  that  the  change  of 
religious  polity,  by  removing  many  of  the  former  restraints  upon  vice,  and 
enervating  the  authority  of  the  spiritual  courts,  had  given  a  bolder  front  to 
licentiousness,  and  opened  a  wider  scope  to  the  indulgence  of  criminal 
passion."* 

As  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries,  and  the  partition  of 
their  property  and  revenues  among  the  hungry  courtiers  of 
Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI.,  were  among  the  principal,  if 
not  the  principal  means  by  which  the  change  of  religion  in 
England  was  successfully  accomplished;  and  as  this  spolia- 

in  whom  they  see  the  power  resteth." — Du  Bellay,  the  French  ambassador, 
had  written,  as  early  as  1528,  that  a  revolt  was  expected  on  account  of  the 
unpopularity  of  the  divorce. — Ibid.,  p.  49. 

*  Lingard,  vol.  vii,  p.  107-8.  He  refers  to  Strype,  as  having  collected 
several  passages  from  the  invectives  of  the  early  reformed  preachers  on  this 
subject. 


SPOLIATION    OF   MONASTERIES.  115 

tion  did  more,  perhaps,  than  any  thing  else  to  shape  the 
destinies  of  the  English  Reformation  and  the  subsequent  poli- 
tical policy  of  England ;  we  can  not  probably  better  close 
this  chapter,  than  by  endeavoring  to  present  a  condensed 
analysis  of  what  a  very  competent,  and  certainly  an  unex- 
ceptionable witness — the  author  of  the  Constitutional  History 
of  England — says  upon  this  subject,  which  he  examines  at 
considerable  length,  and  in  many  of  its  bearings.  Mr.  Hal- 
lam  says: 

"This  summary  spoliation  led  to  the  great  northern  rebellion  soon  after- 
wards. It  was,  in  fact,  not  merely  to  wound  the  peoples'  strongest  impres- 
sions of  religion,  and  especially  those  connected  with  their  departed  friends, 
for  whose  souls  prayers  were  offered  in  the  monasteries,  but  to  deprive  the 
indigent,  in  many  places,  of  succor,  and  the  better  rank  of  hospitable  recep- 
tion. This,  of  course,  was  experienced  in  a  for  greater  degree  at  the  dis- 
solution of  the  larger  monasteries,  which  took  place  in  1540."* 

The  confiscation  of  monastic  and  church  property  was, 
moreover,  a  stroke  of  policy  no  less  adroit  than  it  was  un- 
principled. It  would  appear,  that  the  same  Cromwell,  who 
had  so  cunningly  suggested  the  bringing  of  the  clergy  under 
the  operation  of  the  terrible  praemunire  in  order  to  frighten 
them  into  acquiescence  in  the  king's  views,  also  suggested 
this  iniquitous  measure  of  seizing  on  the  property  and  reve- 
nues of  the  venerable  monastic  establishments.  Says  Hallam: 

"  It  has  been  surmised  that  Cromwell,  in  his  desire  to  promote  the  Refor- 
mation, advised  the  king  to  make  this  partition  of  abbey  lands  among  the 
nobles  and  gentry,  either  by  grant,  or  by  sale  on  easy  terms,  that,  being  thus 
bound  by  the  sure  ties  of  private  interest,  they  might  always  oppose  any 
return  towards  the  dominion  of  Eome.  In  Mary's  reign  accordingly,  her 
parhament,  so  obsequious  in  all  matters  of  religion,  adhered  with  a  firm 
grasp  to  the  possession  of  church  lands  ;  nor  could  the  papal  supremacy  be 
re-established  until  a  sanction  was  given  to  their  enjoyment.  And  we  as- 
^ribe  part  of  the  zeal  of  the  same  class  in  bringing  back  and  preserving  the 
-eformed  church  under  Elizabeth  to  a  similar  motive  ;  not  that  these  gentle- 
men were  hypocritical  pretenders  to  a  belief  they  did  not  entertain,  but  that 
according  to  the  general  laws  of  human  nature,  they  gave  a  readier  reception 
to  truths  which  made  their  estates  more  secure."  f 

*  Constit.  Hist.,  p.  51.  f  Il^id-,  p.  55. 


116  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION EDWARD   VI. 

Most  of  the  present  aristocratic  families  of  England  owe  the 
foundation  of  their  princely  fortunes  to  the  suppression  of  the 
monasteries,  and  to  the  share  which  their  ancestors  received 
in  the  sacrilegious  spoliation  of  the  same  : 

"  Those  families  indeed,  within  or  without  the  bounds  of  the  peerage, 
which  are  now  deemed  the  most  considerable,  will  be  found,  with  no  gi'eat 
number  of  exceptions,  to  have  first  become  conspicuous  under  the  Tudor 
line  of  kings,  and  if  we  could  trace  the  titles  of  their  estates,  to  have  ac- 
quired no  small  portion  of  them,  mediately  or  immediately,  from  monastic 
or  other  ecclesiastical  foundations."* 

The  suppression  of  the  monasteries  was  a  measure  of  state 
poHcy  under  another  point  of  view  : 

"  The  fall  of  the  mitred  abbots  changed  the  proportions  of  the  two  estates 
which  constitute  the  upper  house  of  parliament.  Though  the  number  of 
abbots  and  priors  to  whom  the  writs  of  summons  were  directed  varied  con- 
siderably in  different  parliaments,  they  always,  joined  to  the  twenty-one 
bishops,  preponderated  over  the  temporal  peers.  It  was  no  longer  possible 
for  the  prelacy  to  offer  an  efficacious  opposition  to  the  reformation  they  ab- 
horred. Their  own  baronial  tenure,  their  high  dignity  as  legislative  counsel- 
ors of  the  land,  remained  ;  but  one  branch,  as  ancient  and  venerable  as  their 
own  thus  lopped  off,  the  spiritual  aristocracy  was  reduced  to  play  a  very  second- 
ary part  in  the  councils  of  the  nation.  Nor  could  the  Protestant  religion 
have  easily  been  established  by  legal  methods  under  Edward  and  Elizabeth, 
without  this  previous  destruction  of  the  monasterieo."f 

Mr.  Hallam  admits,  that  many  enlightened  and  just-minded 
Protestants  have  always  been  and  are  still  strongly  opposed 
to  the  sacrilegious  destruction  of  the  monasteries ;  though  he 
thinks  they  are  not  consistent  with  their  faith  in  their  reason- 
ing on  the  subject : 

"  Those  who,  professing  an  attachment  to  that  religion  (Protestant,)  have 
swollen  the  clamor  of  its  adversaries  against  the  dissolution  of  foundations 
that  existed  only  for  the  sake  of  a  different  faith  and  worship,  seem  to  me  not 

*  Constit.  Hist.  p.  55.  Hallam  makes  a  feeble  attempt  to  show  that  this  sac- 
rilegious spoliation  of  the  monastic  establishments  was  ultimately  beneficial  to 
the  nation.  Its  chief,  if  not  only  benefit  certainly  accrued  to  the  {Jimilies  of  the 
new  nobility  and  gentry,  not  to  the  people  ;  and  if  the  former  constituted  the 
nation,  he  is  in  so  far  right,  not  otherwise. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  52. 


HALLAM's   testimony POOR    LAWS.  117 

very  consistent  or  enlightened  reasoners.  In  some,  the  love  of  antiquity 
produces  a  sort  of  fancifiil  illusion ;  and  the  sight  of  those  buildings,  so 
magnificent  in  their  prosperous  hour,  so  beautiful  even  in  their  present  ruin, 
begets  a  sympathy  for  those  who  founded  and  inhabited  them.  In  many, 
the  violent  courses  of  confiscation  and  attainder  which  accompanied  the 
great  revolution  excite  so  just  an  indignation,  that  they  either  forget  to  ask 
whether  the  end  might  not  have  been  reached  by  more  laudable  means,  or 
condemn  the  end  itself  either  as  sacrilege,  or  at  least  as  an  atrocious  viola- 
tion of  the  rights  of  property.  Others  again,  who  acknowledge  that  the 
monastic  discipline  can  not  be  reconciled  with  the  modern  system  of  religion, 
or  with  public  utility,  lament  only  that  these  ample  endowments  were  not 
bestowed  upon  ecclesiastical  corporations,  freed  from  the  monkish  cowl,  but 
still  belonging  to  that  spiritual  profession  to  whose  use  they  were  originally 
consecrated.  And  it  was  a  very  natural  theme  of  complaint  at  the  time,  that 
such  abundant  revenues  as  might  have  sustained  the  dignity  of  the  crown, 
and  supplied  the  means  of  public  defense  without  burdening  the  subject, 
had  served  little  other  purpose  than  that  of  swelling  the  fortunes  of 
rapacious  courtiers,  and  had  left  the  king  as  necessitous  and  craving  as 
before."* 

Though  Halhim  labors  to  prove  that  the  poor  laws  of 
England  did  not,  at  least  necessarily,  grow  out  of  the  sup- 
pression of  the  monasteries,  yet  the  facts  he  alleges  would 
go  far  towards  proving  that  such  was  precisely  their  origin. 
At  any  rate,  there  is  a  remarkable  coincidence  in  point  of 
time  between  the  vast,  multiplication  of  the  destitute  poor  and 
the  consequent  laws  for  their  relief,  and  the  closing  of  the 
monastic  establishments  which  had  so  long  munificently  aided 
in  feeding  and  cluthing  them.  There  were  no  poor  laws  in  the 
Catholic  times;  they  became  indispensable,  and  were  multi- 
plied to  an  alarming  and  burdensome  extent,  immediately 
after  the  rise  of  the  English  Reformation.  These  two  facts 
are  undeniable.  The  first  parliamentary  act  for  the  relief  of 
the  indigent  poor  was  passed  in  1535,  the  27th  of  Henry 
VIII.;  others  followed  under  Edward  VI.  and  Elizabeth; 

*  Constit.  Hist.,  p.  55-6.  This  single  fact,  which  is  fully  admitted,  goes  far 
towards  overthrowing  the  entire  theory  of  Hallam  about  the  "  public  utility  " 
accruing  from  the  high-handed  confiscation  of  the  monastic  property.  To 
say  nothing  of  the  sacrilege,  the  injustice  of  the  proceeding,  as  well  as  its 
motive,  was  atrocious. 
39 


118  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION EDWARD    VI. 

until  the  system  grew  into  the  enormous  proportions  which  it 
has  since  maintained.* 

Finally,  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  Reforma- 
tion, chiefly  through  the  additional  patronag<i  growing  out 
of  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries,  greatly  increased  the 
prerogative  of  the  crown,  to  the  proportionate  detriment 
of  popular  liberty.  The  nobles  became  sycophants  and  the 
people  slaves.  This  is  not  denied  by  Mr.  Ilallam,  who 
writes : 

"  Nor  were  the  nobles  of  this  age  more  held  in  subjection  by  terror  than 
by  the  still  baser  intluences  of  gain.  Our  law  of  forfeiture  was  well  devised 
to  stimulate  as  well  as  to  deter ;  and  Henry  VIII.  better  pleased  to  slaugh- 
ter the  prey  than  to  gorge  himself  with  the  carcass,  distributed  the  spoils  it 
brought  him  among  those  who  helped  him  in  the  chase.  The  dissolution 
of  the  monasteries  opened  a  more  abundant  source  of  munificence ;  every 
courtier,  every  peer,  looked  for  an  increase  of  wealth  from  grants  of  eccle- 
siastical estates,  and  naturally  thought  that  the  king's  fiivor  would  be  most 
readily  gained  by  an  implicit  conformity  to  his  will.  ISTothing,  however, 
seems  more  to  have  sustained  the  arbitrary  rule  of  Henry  VIIL,  than  the 
jealousy  of  the  two  i-eligious  parties  formed  in  his  time,  and  who  for  all  the 
latter  years  of  his  life  were  maintaining  a  doubtful  ami  emulous  contest  for 
his  favor."f 

Such,  then,  was  the  character  of  the  Anglican  Reforma- 
tion, as  first  introduced  by  Henry  VIIL,  and  as  subsequently 
developed  by  Cranmer  and  his  colleagues  under  his  youthful 
successor  Edward  VI.  Such  were  the  means  by  which  it  was 
forced  on  a  reluctant  people.  Tlie  three  great  concupiscences, 
which  according  to  the  inspired  apostle,  govern  the  world, 
had  certainly  more  to  do  with  the  religi.)us  changes  thus 
introduced  than  any  sincere  desire  for  reformation  in  doctrine 
or  morals.  '"  The  concupiscence  of  the  flesli,  the  concupiscence 
o)  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,"  were  manifestly  the  ani- 
mating principles  of  the  Reformation  in  England.  Had  these 
fearful  passions  been  wanting,  or  been  properly  governed,  there 
would  most  certainly  have  been  either  no  Reformation  at 
all    in  England,  or  surely   not  such  a  one  as  was  actually 


*  See  Constit.  Hist,  p.  55-6.  f  See  Ibid. 


TESTIMONY    OF   MACAULAY    AND   MACKINTOSH.  119 

accomplished.  As  Macaulay  caustically  remarks,  speaking 
of  the  Anglican  Reformation  :* 

"  Here  zeal  was  the  tool  of  worldliness.  A  king,  whose  character  may 
be  best  described  by  saying  that  he  was  despotism  itself  personified,  un- 
principled ministers,  a  rapacious  aristocracy,  a  servile  parliament — such  were 
the  instruments  by  which  England  was  delivered  from  the  yoke  of  Rome. 
The  work  which  had  been  begun  by  Henry,  the  murderer  of  his  wives,  was 
continued  by  Somerset,  the  murderer  of  his  brother,  and  completed  by 
Elizabeth,  the  murderer  of  her  guest.  Sprung  from  brutal  passion,  nurtured 
by  selfish  policy,  the  Reformation  in  England  displayed  little  of  what  had 
in  other  countries  distinguished  it." 

A  very  prejudiced  Protestant  historian  —  Mackintosh  — 
furnishes  the  following  estimate  of  Henry  VIIL,  the  chief 
actor  in  the  first  part  of  the  Reformation  drama  in  England : 

"  Had  he  died  in  the  twentieth  year  of  his  reign,  his  name  might  have 
come  down  to  us  as  that  of  a  festive  and  martial  prince,  with  much  of  the 
applause  which  is  lavished  on  gayety  and  enterprise,  and  of  which  some 
fragments,  preserved  in  the  tradition  of  the  people,  too  long  served  to  screen 
the  misrule  of  his  latter  years  from  historical  justice.  In  the  divorce  of  his 
inoffensive  wife,  the  disregard  of  honor,  of  gratitude,  of  the  ties  of  long 
union,  of  the  sentiments  which  grow  out  of  the  common  habitudes  of  domestic 
union,  and  which  restrain  the  greatest  number  of  imperfect  husbands  from 
open  outrage,  threw  a  deeper  stain  over  the  period  employed  in  negotiating 

and  eifecting  that  unjustifiable  and  unmanly  separation The  execution 

of  More  marks  the  moment  of  the  transition  of  his  government  from  jovial- 
ity and  parade  to  a  species  of  atrocity  which  distinguishes  it  from,  and  per- 
haps above,  any  other  European   tyranny He  is  the  only  prince  of 

modern  times  who  carried  judicial  murder  into  his  bed,  and  imbrued  his 
hands  in  the  blood  of  those  whom  he  had  caressed.  Perhaps  no  other  mon- 
arch, since  the  emancipation  of  women  from  polygamy,  put  to  death  two 
wives  on  the  scaffold  for  in'fidelity,  divorced  another,  whom  he  owned  to 
be  a  faultless  woman,  after  twenty-four  years  of  wedded  friendship,  and 
rejected  a  fourth  without  imputing  blame  to  her,  from  the  first  impulse  of 
personal  disgust."f 

*  Miscellan.,  p.  71.     Review  of  Hallam's  Constit  Hist 

f  Mackintosh,  History  of  England,  p.  237-8.     American  Edit 


REFORMATION    IN    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER     II. 

MARY;    THE    CATHOLIC    RELIGION    RESTORED. 

What  Mary  and  Elizabeth  did — Macaulay's  testimony — Current  opinion— 
What  we  propose  to  establish — Mary's  accession — Conspiracy  and  rebel- 
lion— The  reformed  preachers — The  popular  enthusiasm — Mary  resolves 
to  restore  the  ancient  religion — Her  constant  devotion  to  it — Ridley's  at- 
tempt to  convert  her — Steps  by  which  the  restoration  was  accomplished-- 
Deprived  Catholic  bishops  re-instated  —  The  acts  of  Edward  VI.  on 
religion  repealed — A  compromise  with  the  Holy  See  concerning  church 
property — The  old  Church  restored — Solemn  scene — Cardinal  Pole — His 
address — Chancellor  Gardiner's  last  speech  and  death — The  queen's  noble 
disinterestedness — The  spoilers  retain  their  prey — "  Bloody  Mary  " — The 
persecution — The  principle  of  intolerance  generally  avowed  and  acted  on 
by  early  Protestants — The  "  original  sin  "  of  the  Reformation — Hallam 
and  Miss  Strickland — Number  of  victims — Causes  which  provoked  the 
persecution — Political  motives  and  action — Insurrections  and  rebellions — 
Mary  not  naturally  cruel — Proofs  of  her  clemency — Her  merciful  treat- 
ment of  Elizabeth — Contrasted  with  the  latter's  treatment  of  Mary  of 
Scots — Candid  testimony  of  Agnes  Strickland — Mary  restored  the  British 
Constitution  together  with  Catholicity — Mary's  merciful  treatment  of 
Cranmer — The  career  of  this  man  dissected — His  seven  recantations— 
His  death — Macaulay's  portraiture — Other  provocations  and  palliating  cir- 
cumstances— Bonner  and  Gardiner — And  other  Catholic  bishops — Miss 
Strickland's  theory  on  the  persecution — Cardinal  Pole — Mary's  difficulty 
with  the  Pope — Bishop  Short's  estimate  of  Mary. 

Mary  restored,  Elizabeth  again  destroyed  the  Catholic 
Church  in  England.  To  attain  their  respective  ends,  both 
resorted  to  measures  of  severity ;  the  former  for  more  than 
three  years,  the  latter  during  the  more  than  forty-four  years 
of  her  protracted  reign.  But  history,  as  it  has  been  generally 
written  since  the  Reformation,  has  presented  very  different, 
in  fact,  opposite  portraitures  of  the  two  sister  queens.  Mary 
has  been  usually  painted  in  the  most  odious  colors,  and  her 
(120) 


WHAT   WE   PROPOSE   TO    EXAMINE.  121 

name  has  been  handed  down  to  the  execration  of  posterity 
with  the  epithet  hloody  attached  to  it ;  while  Elizabeth  has 
been  extravagantly  praised  as  the  model  queen,  if  not  as  the 
model  woman  of  English  history. 

The  motives  which  have  led  to  this  relative  estimate  are 
very  apparent.  Elizabeth  may  be  viewed  as  the  real  found- 
ress of  the  church  of  England,  as  it  now  exists.  Her  long 
and  vigorous  administration  consolidated  the  new  order  of 
things,  and  amply  secured  the  new  possessors  in  their  titles 
to  the  church  property,  which  had  been  confiscated  during 
the  two  reigns  of  Henry  VHI.  and  Edward  VI.  Hence  it 
was  obviously  the  interest  of  all  those  who  adhered  to  the 
new  Anglican  church,  and  more  especially  of  that  very  large 
number  of  Englishmen  who  had  been  enriched  by  the  change 
in  religion,  to  make  every  effort  to  exalt  Elizabeth,  and  to 
blacken  Mary.  The  sacrilegious  spoilers  and  their  descend- 
ants, as  well  as  their  numerous  dependent  aiders  and  abettors, 
judged  rightly,  that  such  a  course  would  answer  the  double 
purpose  of  justifying  themselves  in  public  opinion,  and  of 
rendering  more  stable  the  immense  fortunes  which  they  had 
amassed  by  the  religious  revolution.* 

*  In  his  Review  of  Nares'  Memoirs  of  Lord   Burghley  (Miscellaneous 
Essays,  American  Edition,  p.  174,)  Macaulay  writes  as  follows  of  the  Angli 
can  Reformation  : 

' '  The  history  of  the  Reformation  in  England  is  Ml  of  strange  problems. 
The  most  prominent  and  extraordinary  phenomenon  which  it  presents  to 
us,  is  the  gigantic  strength  of  the  government  contrasted  with  the  feeblenesa 
of  the  religious  parties.  During  the  twelve  or  thirteen  years  which  followed 
the  death  of  Henry  VIII.,  the  religion  of  the  state  was  thrice  changed. 
Protestantism  was  estabhshed  by  Edward  ;  the  Catholic  Church  was  restored 
by  Mary  ;  Protestantism  was  again  established  by  Elizabeth.  The  faith  of 
the  nation  seemed  to  depend  on  the  personal  inclinations  of  the  sovereign. 
Nor  was  this  all.  An  established  church  was  then,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
a  persecuting  church.  Edward  persecuted  Catholics.  Mary  persecuted 
Protestants.  Elizabeth  persecuted  Catholics  again.  The  father  of  those 
three  sovereigns  had  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  persecuting  both  sects  at  once ; 
and  had  sent  to  death  on  the  same  hurdle,  the  heretic  who  denied  the  real 
presence,  and  the  traitor  (!)  who  denied  the  royal  supremacy." 
VOL.    II. — 11 


122  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION MARY. 

We  propose  to  examine  the  soundness  of  this  verdict  bo 
generally  rendered  by  English  Protestant  history ;  and  to  do 
80  with  some  order,  we  will  inquire  in  successive  chapters ; 
firstly,  under  what  circumstances  and  in  what  way  Marj 
restored  the  Catholic  religion  in  England ;  secondly,  how 
Elizabeth  subverted  it,  and  what  was  the  character  of  the 
new  Anglican  system  which  she  substituted  in  its  place ;  and 
thirdly,  we  will  briefly  compare  the  character  and  acts  of 
these  two  queens. 

Under  these  three  heads,  we  shall  range  whatever  our  pur- 
pose and  scope  may  seem  to  require  us  to  state  or  establish  in 
regard  to  the  religious  events  and  changes  which  occurred 
during  these  two  important  reigns.  Our  present  chapter  will 
be  devoted  to  the  reign  of  Mary. 

Mary  came  to  the  throne  in  the  midst  of  political  commotion 
and  of  threatened  revolution.  The  ambitious  Northumber- 
land, who  had  succeeded  the  fallen  Somerset  as  lord  Pro- 
tector of  the  realm,  had,  in  conjunction  with  the  royal  coun- 
cil, deliberately  but  secretly  organized  a  conspiracy  to  set  her 
aside,  and  to  place  on  the  throne  her  cousin,  the  youthful  Lady 
Jane  Gray.  Cranmer,  a  leading  and  most  influential  member 
of  the  council,  yielded  his  powerful  co-operation  towards  con 
cocting  and  carrying  out  this  nefarious  scheme. 

Edward  VI.  died  July  6,  1553 ;  but  his  death  was  kept 
secret,  in  order  to  enable  the  conspirators  to  carry  out  their 
design,  before  the  people  could  have  time  to  rise  and  organize 
in  defense  of  the  rightful  heiress.  An  essential  part  of  the 
plan  was  to  seize  on  Mary,  and  imprison,  perhaps  even  make 
way  with  her,  before  the  death  of  Edward  should  be  publicly 
known.  This  design  was  luckily  frustrated.  The  earl  of 
Arundel,  a  member  of  the  council,  thought  himself  bound  in 
loyalty  to  give  Mary  timely  warning  of  the  impending  danger ; 
and  accordingly,  on  the  very  night  of  Edward's  death,  she 
hastily  escaped  on  horseback,  and  rode  to  Kenninghall  in 
Norfolk.  She  fled  not  too  soon ;  for  that  very  night  she 
would  have  been  seized  and  lodered  in  the  tower. 


CONSPIRACY    THWARTED MARY's   FIRM    FAITH.         123 

The  conspirators,  though  thus  sadly  disappointed  and  baulked 
of  their  purpose,  had  gone  too  far  to  recede.  They  hastened 
the  denouement  as  rapidly  as  possible.  They  determined  to 
make  the  contemplated  political  revolution  a  matter  of  re- 
ligion. For  this  purpose,  they  earnestly  invoked  the  aid  of 
the  reformed  preachers  to  stir  up  popular  prejudice,  and  from 
their  pulpits  to  arouse  the  people  to  a  sense  of  the  threatened 
danger  to  their  liberties  and  property,  if  Mary  should  ascend 
the  throne  and  the  Catholic  religion  be  restored.  The  preachers 
responded  to  the  call  with  willing  alacrity.  Cranmer  led  the 
way  and  threw  the  whole  weight  of  his  powerful  influence, 
and  of  his  versatile  talents  and  skill  in  the  management  of 
business,  into  the  scale  of  the  new  line  of  succession.  Kidley 
preached  a  strong  sermon,  full  of  bitter  invectives  against 
Mary,  and  of  denunciation  of  "  Popery,"  at  St.  Paul's  cross ; 
while  Latimer  entered  the  lists  in  his  own  more  coarse  and 
impassioned  style  of  oratory,  well  calculated  to  awaken  the 
prejudices  and  to  excite  the  passions  of  the  more  ignorant 
among  the  populace. 

But  the  attempt  to  create  popular  excitement,  by  combining 
disloyalty  and  rebellion  with  the  new  religion,  signally  failed. 
The  loyalty  of  the  people  was  still  too  deeply  rooted  ;  the 
memory  of  the  virtuous  and  ill-treated  Catharine  was  still  too 
fresh ;  and  the  public  sympathy  for  the  virtuous  mother  des- 
cended too  warmly  to  the  scarcely  less  aggrieved  daughter, 
to  allow  any  general  or  deep  popular  feeling  to  be  aroused 
against  her,  or  awakened  in  favor  of  her  rival.  The  burning 
words  of  Kidley  and  Latimer  made  but  little  impression  on 
the  minds  or  hearts  of  their  hearers ;  and  when  Mary  unfurled 
her  banner,  the  population  rose  in  mass  and  bore  her  in 
triumph  to  the  throne,  while  the  armies  of  her  enemies,  till 
lately  so  formidable,  melted  away  at  her  approach.  The 
people  were  heartily  tired  of  the  perpetual  changes  in  reli- 
gion, as  well  as  of  the  storms  and  insurrections,  of  the  rob- 
beries and  butcheries,  which  had  accompanied  or  followed 
each  successive  religious  innovation.     They  sought   repose. 


124  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION :MARr. 

and  they  hoped  to  obtain  it  under  the  daughter  of  the  venem 
ted  and  beloved  Catharine  of  Arragon. 

On  ascending  the  throne,  the  first  and  dearest  object  of 
Mary's  heart  was  naturally  the  re-establishment  of  the  Catho- 
lic religion.  This  religion  was  closely  associated  in  her  mind 
with  the  memory  and  sufi'erings  of  her  noble  mother ;  it  had 
been  her  chief  solace  and  support  during  the  vicissitudes,  an- 
noyances, and  troiibles  which  had  marked  her  lonely  Hfe  since 
her  mother's  death.  When  all  other  resources  for  comfort  had 
failed  her,  she  had  stood  firmly  by  this,  and  had  courageously 
withstood  every  menace  and  resisted  every  attempt  to  tear 
this  jewel  of  faith  from  her  heart.  Her  health  might,  and  it 
did  sufier,  and  became  enfeebled  under  the  harassing  annoy- 
ances to  which  she  was  continually  exposed ;  her  faith  could 
never  be  impaired.  * 

*  Mary  had  been  frequently  annoyed  on  the  subject  of  religion  during  the 
reign  of  her  father,  and  more  particularly  during  that  of  her  youthful  brother. 
On  one  occasion  Eidley  visited  her  in  her  retirement,  with  a  view  to  bring 
about  her  conversion  to  the  new  doctrines.  The  account  of  the  interview,  as 
given  by  Lingard  from  Foxe,  (vol.  vii,  note  A.)  is  curious  and  interesting ;  as 
showing,  on  the  one  hand,  the  courteous  and  dignified  firmness  of  Mary, 
and,  on  the  other,  the  rude  zeal  and  overweening  self-righteousness  of  the 
preacher : — 

"  Ridley  waited  on  Mary,  Sept.  2,  1552,  and  was  courteously  received. 
After  dinner,  he  ottered  to  preach  before  her  in  the  church.  She  begged  him 
to  make  the  answer  himself.  He  urged  her  again  ;  she  replied,  that  he  might 
preach,  but  neither  she,  nor  any  of  hers,  would  hear  him. 

"  Ridley.  '  Madam,  I  trust  you  will  not  reftise  God's  word.' 

"  Mary.  '  I  can  not  tell  you  what  you  call  God's  word.  That  is  not  God's 
word  now,  which  was  God's  word  during  my  father's  time.' 

"  Ridley.  '  God's  word  is  all  one  in  all  times  ;  but  is  better  understood  and 
practiced  in  some  ages  than  in  others.' 

"  Mary.  '  You  durst  not  for  your  ears  have  preached  that  for  God's  word  in 
my  father's  time,  which  you  do  now.  As  for  your  new  books,  thank  God, 
I  never  read  them.     I  never  did,  nor  ever  will  do.' 

"  Soon  afterwards  she  dismissed  him  with  these  words  :  '  My  lord,  for  your 
gentleness  to  come  and  see  me,  I  thank  you  ;  but,  for  your  offer  to  preach  be- 
fore me,  I  thank  you  not.'     Ajs  he  retired,  he  drank  according  to  custom 


STEPS    FOR    RESTORING   THE   ANCIENT    RELIGION.  125 

Yet  in  3ringing  about  the  change  which  was  nearest  to  hei 
heart,  she  proceeded  slowly  and  cautiously,  in  accordance  with 
the  advice  of  her  cousin,  the  emperor  Charles  V.,  whom  she 
had  thought  proper  to  consult  on  a  subject  of  so  much  import- 
ance. She  decided  to  do  nothing  without  the  advice  of  her 
council  and  the  full  concurrence  of  her  parliament.  We  will 
furnish  a  brief  summary  of  the  successive  steps  by  which  she 
accomplished  her  object.* 

1.  While  she  issued  no  order  for  the  restoration  of  the 
ancient  religion,  she  proclaimed  that  she  had  a  clear  right  to 
worship  God  within  her  own  palace  according  to  the  dictates 
of  her  conscience,  and  she  made  no  secret  of  the  gratification 
which  the  imitation  of  her  example  by  others  would  afford 
her,  as  the  faith  of  her  fathers  was  very  dear  to  her  heart. 

2.  According  to  the  award  made  by  a  new  court  of  dele- 
gates, the  Catholic  bishops  who  had  been  forcibly  deprived 

with  Sir  Thomas  Wharton,  the  steward  of  her  household,  but  suddenly  his 
conscience  smote  him.  '  Surely,'  he  exclaimed,  '  I  have  done  wrong.  I  have 
drunk  in  that  house  in  which  God's  word  hath  been  refused.  I  ought,  if  I 
had  done  my  duty,  to  have  shaken  the  dust  off  my  shoes  for  a  testimony 
against  this  house.' " — Foxe,  ii,  131. 

*  How  very  sincere  and  earnest  Mary  was  in  clinging  to  her  faith,  and 
how  ready  she  was  to  sacrifice  every  thing,  even  life  itself  for  its  preserva- 
tion, will  appear  still  further  fi'om  her  conference  on  the  subject  with  her  brp- 
ther  King  Edward  VI.,  the  particulars  of  which  Miss  Strickland  has  published: 

"  Succeeding  years  have  drawn  the  veil  from  '  the  two  hour's  conference,' 
which  was  Mary's  concern  at  court,  rather  than  the  goodly  banquet.  '  The 
lady  Mary,  my  sister,'  says  young  Edward,  in  his  journal,  'came  to  me  at 
Westminster,  where,  after  salutations,  she  was  called  with  my  council  into  a 
chamber,  where  was  declared  how  long  I  had  suffered  her  3Iass  against  my 
will,  in  the  hope  of  her  reconciliation,  and  how  (now  being  no  hope,  which  T 
perceived  by  her  letters,)  except  I  saw  some  short  amendment,  I  could  not 
bear  it.'  He  told  her,  moreover,  'she  was  to  obey  as  a  subject,  not  rule  as  a 
sovereign.'  She  answered,  '  that  her  soul  was  God's,  and  her  faith  she  would 
not  change,  nor  dissemble  her  opinion  with  contrary  words.'  She  likewise 
ofiFered  'to  lay  her  head  on  the  block  in  testimony  of  the  same.'  To  which 
it  appears  the  young  king  answjred  with  some  tender  and  generous  words." 
— Queens  of  England,  v.  174. 


126  ANGLICAN   REFCRMATION MARY. 

during  the  last  reign,  and  some  of  whom  had  been  imprisoned, 
were  restored  to  their  respective  sees.  Gardiner  was  liberated 
from  the  tower,  and  Tunstall,  Bonner,  Heath,  and  Day  were 
reinstated. 

3.  On  the  assembling  of  her  first  parliament,  her  earliest 
and  most  pressing  solicitude  was  to  have  an  act  passed,  by 
which  the  stain  which  rested  on  the  name  of  her  mother,  and 
the  consequent  taint  on  the  legitimacy  of  her  own  birth, 
might  be  obliterated  from  the  statute  book. 

4.  This  accomplished  by  an  unanimous  vote,  her  next 
step  was,  to  have  an  act  passed,  by  which  all  the  laws  con- 
cerning religion  which  had  been  promulgated  during  Edward'y 
reign  were  repealed,  and  religion  was  reinstated  in  the  same 
condition  in  which  it  was  at  the  death  of  Henry  VHI.  This 
act  was  passed  with  but  little  hesitation  or  difficulty ;  and  it 
was  carried  out  by  the  new  chancellor  Gardiner  almost  with- 
out opposition.  The  married  bishops  and  clergy  retired  or 
were  removed ;  and  new  bishops  were  consecrated  for  the 
vacant  sees,  with  the  secret  approbation  of  the  Roman 
PontLff,  with  whom  Gardiner  had  an  understanding  on  the 
subject. 

5.  The  recognition  of  the  papal  supremacy,  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  the  full  restoration  of  the  Catholic  religion, 
was  a  matter  of  much  more  delicacy  and  of  much  greater 
difficulty.  During  the  two  previous  reigns,  a  new  generation 
had  grown  up  in  a  feeling  of  estrangement  from  the  Holy 
See,  and  this  feeling  was  in  unison  with,  and  had  been 
greatly  strengthened  by,  the  hereditary  jealousy  of  Rome, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  nurtured  by  repeated  acts 
of  legislation  running  far  back  into  the  Catholic  times  of  the 
monarchy.  Moreover,  there  was  another  most  formidable 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  a  reunion  with  Rome.  The  confiscated 
monastic  and  church  property  had  passed  into  the  hands  of 
a  new  and  hungry  body  of  gentry  and  nobility,  who  had 
built  up  their  newly  made  fortunes  and  secured  their  new 
titles  chiefly  o  i  it  as  a  basis.     Much  of  this  property,  too, 


THE   CATHOUC    RELIGION    RESTORED.  127 

had  passed  into  other  hands  than  th:)se  who  had  originally 
seized  on  it,  or  who  had  received  it  I'rom  the  royal  bounty. 
This  class  of  new  proprietors,  who  had  thus  fattened  on  the 
spoils  of  the  Church,  was  numerous,  active,  greedy,  and 
influential.  They  had  much  selfishness  with  but  little 
religious  principle ;  they  might  yield  all  else,  they  certainly 
would  not  yield  this,  and  it  was  dangerous  even  to  try  the 
exjjeriment.  Gardiner  saw  the  difficulty,  and  he  grappled 
with  it  at  once  with  his  usual  ability  and  success.  Fearing 
that  Cardinal  Pole,  the  newly  appointed  papal  legate  to  Eng- 
land, might  entertain  scruples  on  the  subject,  he  had  him 
detained  in  Flanders  until  he  could  obtain  from  the  Pope  ^ 
promise  that  the  holders  of  the  church  property  should  not 
be  interfered  with,  or  forced  to  disgorge  their  ill-gotten  goods. 
Very  reluctantly,  the  Pontiff  consented  to  the  sacrifice,  with 
a  view  to  prevent  greater  evils  and  to  accomplish  a  greater 
good  in  England.  It  was  like  throwing  overboard  the 
treasures,  in  order  to  save  the  ship  in  the  storm. 

6.  This  great  obstacle  being  removed,  and  the  way  for  recon- 
ciliation being  now  fully  prepared,  a  numerous  and  brilliant 
delegation  of  nobles,  among  whom  figured  conspicuously  such 
new  lords  as  Paget  and  Sir  William  Cecil,  *  repaired  to 
Brussels,  and  escorted  the  cardinal  legate  into  England, 
where  he  was  received  with  great  pomp,  and  greeted  with 
the  hearty  acclamations  of  the  people.  Parliament  was 
opened,  and  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  immediately 

*  This  man,  who  showed  himself  so  zealous  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Catholic  religion,  and  who  took  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  proceedings,  be- 
came a  few  years  later  the  most  determined  enemy  and  the  most  deadly  per- 
secutor of  Catholics  ;  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter.  He  appears  to  have 
been  from  the  beginning  a  mere  politician,  if  not  a  time-serving  hypocrite, 
who  made  religion  a  cloak  for  his  selfish  purposes  and  interests.  Mackintosh 
Bays  :  "  Lord  Paget  who  had  been  raised  by  Somerset,  and  Sir  William 
Cecil,  afterwards  distinguished  in  a  policy  more  acceptable  to  Protestants, 
were  among  the  most  forward  persons  in  their  respective  parts  of  the  rocf  n- 
ciliation." — History  of  England,  edit,  sup.  cit.,  p.  287. 


128  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION MARY. 

prepared  and  signed  an  humble  petition,  in  which  they  ac- 
knowledged their  past  errors,  and  earnestly  pleaded  for  par- 
don and  reconciliation  with  the  Holy  See.  The  cardina. 
legate  entered  the  august  assembly  in  state,  and  took  his  scat 
at  the  right  of  the  queen,  who  was  on  her  throne,  with  her 
consort  Philip  of  Spain  at  her  left.  The  chancellor  Gardiner 
then  read  the  petition  of  the  lords  and  commons,  and  the  le- 
gate delivered  a  lengthy  and  impressive  address;*  after 
which,  the  whole  house  being  hushed  in  silence  and  on  bended 
knee,  he  solemnly  pronounced,  in  the  name  of  the  Pontiff,  the 
sentence,  by  which  he  absolved  "  all  those  present,  and  the 
whole  nation,  and  the  dominions  thereof,  from  all  heresy  and 
schism,  and  all  judgments,  censures,  and  penalties  for  that 
cause  incurred ;  and  restored  them  to  the  communion  of  holy 
Church,  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.'' 
A  responsive  "  Amen  "  resounded  from  every  part  of  the  hall ; 
"  and  the  members,  rising  from  their  knees,  followed  the  king 
and  queen  into  the  chapel,  where  Te  Deum  was  chanted  in 
thanksgiving  for  the  event."f 

England,  after  a  quarter  of  a  century's  alienation,  was  now 
at  length  reconciled  to  the  holy  Catholic  Church  and  to  the 
Apostolic  See ! 

7.  Mary  not  only  cheerfully  surrendered  and  renounced  all 
claim  to  the  spiritual  supremacy,  which  her  father  had  vio- 
lently usurped  and  her  young  brother  had  unwittingly  retained, 
but  she  could  not  rest  quiet  in  conscience,  until  she  had  re- 

*  Mackintosh  (Ibid.)  furnishes  us  the  following  extract  fiom  Pole's  ad- 
dress to  the  parliament:  "That  having  for  many  years  been  excluded,  not 
only  from  that  assembly,  but  also  from  his  country,  by  laws  enacted  person- 
ally against  himself,  he  should  ever  be  grateful  for  the  repeal  of  those  laws  ; 
and  that,  in  return,  he  was  come  to  inscribe  them  denizens  of  heaven,  and 
to  restore  them  to  that  Christian  greatness  which  they  had  forfeited  by  re- 
nouncing their  fealty  ;  that  to  reap  so  great  a  blessing,  it  only  remained 
that  they  should  repeal  the  laws  which  they  had  enacted  against  the  Holy 
See,  and  by  which  they  had  cut  themselves  from  the  body  of  the  faithful.* 

t  Poh  epist.  V.  Foxe,  91.   Journal  of  Commons,  38.    Lingard,  vii,  179. 


GARDINER  S    LAST    SrEhCH.  129 

Stored  every  portion  of  the  monastic  and  church  property 
which  still  remained  vested  in  the  crown.  Vain  were  the  ex- 
postulations of  Philip,  who  had  yielded  but  a  reluctant  consent 
to  the  measure  of  restitution  before  his  departure  for  the  con- 
tinent; vain  were  the  remonstrances  of  her  council,  who 
pleaded  the  amount  of  her  debts  and  the  sadly  impoverished 
condition  of  the  royal  exchequer.  Nothing  could  satisfy  her 
conscience,  short  of  a  restoration  in  full  of  what  had  been  so 
unjustly  and  sacrilegiously  obtained ;  and  to  all  arguments  she 
nobly  answered,  in  words  worthy  her  exalted  mother,— that  '*she 
set  more  by  the  salvation  of  her  soul  than  by  ten  such  crowns." 
On  the  re-assembling  of  parliament,  Gardiner  made  known 
her  determination  in  a  speech  of  more  than  usual  ability  and 
eloquence,  even  for  him,  and  which  won  general  admiration 
and  was  greeted  with  a  burst  of  hearty  applause.*  It  is  but 
just,  however,  to  add,  that  the  applause  was  bestowed  not  so 
much  on  the  eloquence  of  the  chancellor,  as  on  the  distinct- 
ness with  which  he  stated,  in  the  name  of  the  queen  and  of 
the  cardinal  legate,  that  the  newly  created  lords  and  com- 
mons would  not  be  required  or  even  expected  to  follow  the 

*  This  was  the  last  speech  of  Gardiner.  It  proved  too  great  an  affort  for 
his  weakened  frame.  He  took  to  his  chamber,  and  died  three  weeks  after- 
wards, Nov.  12,  1555. 

"  During  his  illness,  he  edified  all  around  him  by  his  piety  and  resigna- 
tion: after  observing,  'I  have  sinned  with  Peter,  but  have  not  j^et  learned 
to  weep  bitterly  with  Peter,'  he  desired  that  the  passion  of  our  Saviour 
might  be  redde  to  him,  and  when  they  came  to  the  denial  of  St.  Peter,  he 
bid  them  stay  there;  for  (say the  he)  'negavi  cum  Petro,  exivi  cum  Petro, 
sed  nondum  flevi  amare  cum  Petro.'"  (Lingard,  vii,  113,  who  quotes 
Wardword,  48,  and  Pole,  Ep.  v.  52.) 

It  is  not  true  that  he  and  Pole  disagreed  :  the  cardinal  speaks  of  him  in  the 
highest  terms  of  eulogy,  and  laments  his  death  as  a  great  calamity  to  Eng- 
land. In  this,  he  did  but  share  in  the  sentiments  of  his  royal  relative,  Mary. 
Lingard  fully  refutes  the  absurd  story  concerning  the  sudden  and  violent 
manner  of  Gardiner's  death,  related  by  Foxe  on  the  authority  of  "  an  old 
woman."  He  proves  by  incontestable  facts  and  dates,  that  the  story  is  sim- 
ply absurd  and  impossible — a  fiction  wholly  baseless  and  very  clumsily  con- 
trived. (See  note  D.,  vol.  vii.) 


130  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION MARY. 

noble  and  disinterested  example  of  their  sovereign !  They 
would  be  allowed  to  retain  their  ill-gotten  property ;  which 
was  still  further  and  more  fully  secured  to  them,  by  a  recent 
bull  of  the  Pope  which  the  chancellor  read,  and  which  ex- 
pressly excepted  them  from  the  operation  of  another  bull  of  a 
different  tenor  which  had  been  recently  issued. — It  was  scarce- 
ly to  be  expected  that  they,  the  queen's  loyal  subjects,  would 
be  gifted  with  her  delicacy  of  conscience,  or  would  feel  in- 
clined to  participate  in  her  disinterested  love  of  restitution ! 
They  were  neophytes,  as  yet  weak  in  the  faith,  and  they 
should  be  carefully  guarded  from  so  rude  a  trial  of  their  newly 
born  orthodoxy ! 

Mary  is  usually  represented  by  modern  Protestant  writers 
as  a  monster  of  cruelty,  and  her  name  is  seldom  heard  with- 
out having  attached  to  it  the  odious  prefix  of  bloody.  It  would 
seem  as  if  she  had  monopolized  all  the  cruelty,  and  done  all 
the  blood-shedding  of  her  time.  The  charge  rests  entirely 
upon  the  religious  persecution  which  unhappily  raged  during 
a  portion  of  her  reign ;  the  atrocity  of  which  has  been  too 
vividly  portrayed,  while  the  number  of  its  victims  has  been 
greatly  exaggerated.  Far  be  it  from  us  to  defend  persecution. 
Catholics,  especially  those  who  speak  the  English  language, 
have  been  too  long  the  victims  of  persecution  in  all  its  terrible 
forms,  to  have  grown  enamored  of  it,  or  to  feel  disposed  to  be 
its  advocates.  It  is,  however,  no  justification  of  the  doctrine 
of  persecution,  to  state  the  real  facts  of  history  in  regard  to 
the  executions  of  Protestants  which  took  place  during  Mary's 
reign,  and  which  were  repaid,  more  than  an  hundred  fold,  on 
Catholics  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  and  those  of  her  Prot- 
estant successors.  During  the  sixteenth  century — and  even 
during  the  two  following  ones — the  principal  Protestant  sects 
openly  defended  and  steadily  practiced  persecution  as  fully 
and  to  as  great  an  extent,  to  say  the  very  least,  as  did  Cath- 
olics.    As  Lingard  well  remarks  : 

"  The  extirpation  of  erroneous  doctrine  was  inculcated  as  a  duty  by  the 
leaders  of  every  religious  (Protestant)  denomination.     Mary  only  practiced 


"bloody    MARY" — PROTESTAJNT   TESTIMONY.  131 

what  theij  taught.    It  was  her  misfortune  rather  than  her  fault,  that  she  wag 
not  nioi-e  enlightened  than  the  wises^t  of  her  contemporaries."* 

What  the  great  historian  of  England  here  asserts,  in  Ian 
guage  so  terse  and  elegant,  is  declared  even  more  emphatic- 
ally by  accredited  and  weighty  Protestant  historians.  We 
shall  probably  have  occasion  to  quote  others  hereafter ;  for 
the  present  we  content  ourselves  with  the  testimony  of  Henry 
Hallam  and  Miss  Strickland. 

Hallam  writes  as  follows : 

"  The  dilFerence  in  this  respect  between  the  Catholics  and  Protestants  was 
only  in  degree,  and  in  degi-ee  there  was  much  less  difference  than  we  are 
apt  to  believe.  Persecution  is  the  deadly  original  sin  of  the  reformed 
CHURCHES  ;  that  which  cools  every  honest  man's  zeal  for  their  cause,  in  pro- 
portion as  his  reading  becomes  more  extensive.  The  Lutheran  princes  and 
cities  in  Germany  constantly  refused  to  tolerate  the  use  of  the  Mass,  as  an 
idolatrous  service  ;  and  this  name  of  idolatry,  tliough  adopted  in  retaliation 
for  that  of  heresy,  answered  the  same  end  as  the  other,  of  exciting  animosity 
and  uncharitable ness.  The  Roman  worship  was  equally  proscribed  in  Eng- 
land. Many  persons  were  sent  to  prison  for  hearing  Mass  and  similar 
offenses.  The  princess  Mary  supplicated  in  vain  to  have  the  exercise  of  her 
own  religion  at  home,  and  Charles  V.  several  times  interceded  in  her 
behalf't 

Says  Miss  Strickland : 

"It  is  a  lamentable  trait  in  human  nature,  that  there  was  not  a  sect 
established  at  the  Reformation  that  did  not  avow,  as  part  of  their  religious 
duty,  the  horrible  necessity  of  destroying  some  of  their  fellow-creatures 
(mostly  by  burning  alive),  on  account  of  what  they  severally  termed  heret- 
ical tenets.  The  quakers  were  absolutely  the  first  Christian  community, 
since  the  middle  ages,  who  disavowed  all  destructiveness  in  their  religious 
precepts.f     How  furiously  these  friends  to  their  species  were  persecuted, 

*  Lingard,  vol.  vii,  p.  242.  f  Constitutional  History,  sup.  cit.  p.  63-64, 
\  The  excellent  authoress  is  here  mistaken.  As  we  shall  see  fi'om  her 
own  testimony,  to  be  alleged  later  in  the  present  chapter,  she  herself  admits 
that,  under  this  very  reign  of  Mary,  Plowden  and  a  respectable  minority  of 
both  Catholics  and  Protestants  in  the  British  parliament  were  strongly  and 
decidedly  opposed  to  persecution  for  conscience'  sake  ;  and  so  also  were  Car- 
dinal Pole  and  the  great  body  of  Catholic  bishops  of  the  time,  according  to 
her  own  testimony  and  that  of  the  Protestant  historian  Mackintosh,  whom 
she  quot^js.     We  say  nothing  of  Sir  Thomas  More  and  of  others. 


132  ANGLICAN    REl'URiMATION MARY. 

the  annals  of  New  England  can  tell ;  and  Great  Britain,  though  more  spar 
ing  of  their  blood,  was  equally  wasteful  of  iheir  lives,  for  they  were  penned 
by  Cromwell  and  Charles  II.,  by  hundreds,  in  gaols — such  gaols  as  wer« 
provided  then,  rife  with  malignant  fevers  and  every  horror.  James  II. 
declared  to  the  hon.  Mr.  Bertie,  that  he  had  released  one  thousand  two 
hundred  and  thirty  quakers,  confined  in  different  gaols  at  his  accession."  * 

The  following  summary  of  undoubted,  and  we  believe,  un- 
disputed facts  on  the  subject  will,  if  we  are  not  mistaken, 
exhibit  the  real  causes  and  the  true  measure  of  the  persecu- 
tion under  Mary ;  and  if  we  do  not  greatly  err,  they  will  have 
a  tendency  considerably  to  modify  the  opinion  current  among 
Protestants  in  regard  to  her  supposed  cruelty. 

1.  The  persecution  continued,  with  frequent  interruptions, 
for  less  than  four  years :  from  January,  1554,  to  near  the  end 
of  Mary's  reign  in  November,  1558.  The  total  number  of  its 
victims  did  not  probably  reach  two  hundred  j  all  of  whom, 
except  Cranmer  and  a  few  of  his  immediate  associates,  were 
from  the  lower  walks  of  life.  The  number  of  preachers  who 
suffered  was  comparatively  small ;  and  most  of  these  had 
been  implicated,  some  as  leaders,  some  as  accessories,  in  the 
treasonable  attempt  to  set  aside  Mary  and  to  set  up  Lady  Jane 
Gray.  This  offense,  of  itself,  might  have  been  visited  by 
the  death  penalty,  even  under  a  milder  administration  and  in 
milder  times  than  Mary's.f 

*  Queens  of  England,  sup.  cit.  v,  166,  note. 

f  See  Lingard,  vol.  vii,  p.  206. 

Many  of  the  preachers,  not  coveting  the  crown  of  martyrdom,  fled  to  the 
continent  of  Europe  ;  where,  though  they  were  welcomed  by  the  Zuing- 
lians,  they  were  coldly  received  by  the  Lutherans,  who  viewed  them  as 
heretics,  for  denying  the  real  presence  in  the  holy  Communion.  Even  the 
usually  mild  Melancthon,  quoted  by  the  Anglican  historian  Heylin,  (p.  250) 
coarsely  denounced  the  refugees  as  "  martyrs  of  the  devil ! " — "  Vociferantem 
martyres  Anglicos  esse  martyres  diaboli."  (Apud  Waterworth,  sup.  cit.  p. 
283,  note.) 

The  number  of  those  who  suffered  under  Mary  has  been  variously 
estimated  by  Protestant  writers,  as  exceeding  two,  and  not  reaching  three 
hundred.  Miss  Stricldand  places  it  above  two  hundred.  (Vol.  vii,  p.  271.) 
Burnet's  list  comprises  two  hundred  and  eighty-four ;  while  that  of  Strype 


PROVOCATIONS    AND    PALLIATING    CIRCUMSTANCES.        133 

2.  The  persecution  did  not  commence  for  more  than  a 
year  after  her  accession  ;  and  it  originated  in  a  series  of  most 
provoking  causes,  which,  if  they  did  not  excuse,  at  least  greatly 
palliated  its  enormity.  It  appears  certain,  that  Mary  was  led  to 
adopt  these  measures  of  severity  by  the  urgent  advice  of  hei 
counselors,  against  the  natural  promptings  of  her  own  gentle 
heart,  and  from  political  much  more  than  from  religious  mo- 
tives. The  treacherous  conspiracy  and  stormy  rebellion, 
through  which  she  came  to  the  throne,  and  which  had  well- 
nigh  succeeded  in  depriving  her  of  her  hereditary  right,  by 
setting  up  one  who  was  plainly  an  usurper;  the  subsequent 
rebellion  of  Wyat,  which  threatened  to  hurl  her  from  the 
throne  shortly  after  she  had  been  seated  thereon ;  the  fear- 
fully agitated  state  of  the  kingdom,  of  which  these  and  other 
later  conspiracies  were  the  index ;  and  above  all,  the  well 
known  fact,  that  the  leaders  of  the  reformed  party  either 
actively  promoted  all  these  treasonable  commotions,  or  at 
least  warmly  sympathized  with  them : — these  were  some  of 
the  principal  reasons  that  led  to  the  deplorable  measure  of 
persecution ;  which,  Mary's  counselors  earnestly  pleaded,  was 
the  only  eflectual  means  for  securing  the  peace  of  the  realm, 
and  for  upholding  her  throne. 

3.  That  Mary  was  not  naturally  cruel,  but  rather  equitable 
and  even  kind-hearted,  is  apparent  from  the  following  plain 
facts  and  considerations.     1.  At  her  accession,  she  issued  two 

makes  the  number  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight.  Cooper's  estimate  is  twc 
hundred  and  ninety  ;  Speed's,  two  hundred  and  seventy-four  ;  and  that  of 
Soames,  the  same  as  Strype's — two  hundred  and  eighty-eight.  We  believe 
that  Dr.  Lingard  was  nearer  the  truth,  when  he  wrote  :  "  After  having  ex- 
punged the  names  of  all  who  perished  as  felons  or  traitors,  or  who  died 
peaceably  in  their  beds,  or  who  survived  the  publication  of  their  martyrdom, 
or  who  would  for  their  heterodoxy  have  been  sent  to  the  stake  by  the  reformed 
prelates  themselves,  had  thej'  been  in  possession  of  the  power,  ....  almost 
two  hundred  persons  perished  in  the  flames  for  religious  opinion."  (Vol.  vii, 
p.  207.)  For  the  detailed  lists  of  Burnet  and  Strype,  and  other  particulars 
on  this  subject,  see  Waterworth,  Lectures,  etc.,  p.  282  note  ;  also  Bishop 
Short's  History  of  the  Church  of  England. 
40 


134  ANGLICAN     REFORMATION MARY. 

proclamati(;ns  which  drew  down  upon  her  the  benediction  of 
the  whole  nation :  by  the  first  she  restored  to  its  standard 
value  the  coin,  which  had  been  depreciated  by  her  predeces- 
sors, and  she  did  this  at  the  expense  of  the  royal  exchequer ; 
by  the  second,  she  remitted  a  heavy  tax,  which  had  been 
imposed  by  the  last  parliament  under  her  brother.  2.  Though 
many  persons,  both  among  the  lords  and  commoners,  were 
deeply  involved  in  the  treason  of  Northumberland  which 
had  set  up  Lady  Jane  Gray,  and  though  three  of  the  former 
and  four  of  the  latter  had  already  pleaded  guilty  to  the 
charge,  only  Northumberland  among  the  lords,  and  Gates 
and  Palmer  among  the  commoners,  were  executed,  Mary 
willingly  granted  all  the  last  requests  which  were  made  by 
the  arch-traitor  Northumberland  himself;  and,  at  the  instance 
of  Gardiner  who  had  visited  him  in  prison,  she  even  pro- 
•posed  to  spare  his  life,  and  she  would  probably  have  done  so, 
had  not  a  portion  of  her  council  strongly  opposed  the  act  of 
clemency,  and  induced  her  cousin,  the  emperor  Charles  V.  to 
write  to  her,  "  that  it  was  not  mfe  for  her  or  the  state  to  par- 
don his  life."*  3.  Mary  went  further  in  her  clemency,  and 
even  intended  to  spare  the  life  of  her  rival  Lady  Jane  Gray, 
and  of  her  husband  Guildford  Dudley.  For  this  benevolent 
purpose,  she  delayed  their  execution  as  long  as  possible.  It 
was  only  after  the  putting  down  of  Wyat's  rebellion,  that  her 
was  only  after  the  putting  down  of  Wyat's  rebellion,  when  hei 
lenity  was  so  severely  censured  by  the  emperor  and  by  her 
own  council,  that  she  found  herself  compelled  reluctantly  to 

*  For  the  authorities  clearly  proving  this  statement,  see  Lingard,  vii,  p. 
127-8,  note.  Northumlierland's  requests,  which  the  queen  granted,  were  : 
that  he  might  be  beheaded,  instead  of  suffering  as  a  traitor ;  that  his  chil- 
dren might  be  spared ;  that  an  able  Catholic  divine  might  be  sent  to  prepare 
him  for  death  ;  and  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  confer  with  two  lords  of 
the  council  on  certain  secrets  of  state.  He  died  a  fervent  Catholic,  publicly 
stating — "not  being  required  or  moved  thereto  of  any  man,  nor  lor  any 
flattery  or  hope  of  life" — that  he  died  in  the  faith  of  his  fathers,  which  am- 
bition alone  had  induced  him  to  abandon  to  conform  to  a  worsliip  whicb  h* 
flonderared  in  his  heart.     Ibid. 


HER   TREATMENT    OF   ELIZABETH.  135 

sign  the  death  warrant;  which  she  did  on  the  very  day  after 
the  decisive  action  at  Temple  Bar,  wherein  Wyat  had  been 
captured,  and  his  followers  defeated  and  scattered.  So  much 
clemency,  under  all  the  aggravating  circumstances  of  the 
case,  may  be  justly  regarded  as  without  a  parallel  in  the  his- 
tory of  those  times,  if  not  in  the  annals  of  all  history. 

4.  IVJary's  treatment  of  her  half-sister,  the  princess  ELza- 
beth,  is  another  signal  proof  of  her  natural  kindness  and  clem- 
ency, Elizabeth  was  the  daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn,  who  had 
basely  supplanted  her  good  mother  Catharine  in  the  afl'ections 
of  Henry  her  father.  The  very  sight  of  Elizabeth  must  have 
recalled  to  her  mind  the  bitter  memories  of  the  past — ^lier 
mother's  disgrace  and  her  own  multiplied  and  protracted 
sufferings,  from  early  childhood  to  mature  womanhood, 
Elizabeth  was,  moreover,  a  formidable  rival  to  the  throne. 
Having  been  reared  up  a  Protestant,  she  was  the  hope  and 
almost  the  idol  of  the  reformed  party.  She  was  well  aware 
of  this,  and  she  had  cunningly  shaped  her  course  accord- 
ingly. 

In  the  first  rebellion — that  of  Northumberland — Elizabeth 
had  cautiously  abstained  from  taking  sides ;  had  given  vague 
and  non-committal  answers  to  those  who  approached  her  on 
the  subject;  and  had  remained  shut  up  in  her  apartments, 
ready  to  make  the  best  terms  for  herself  with  whichever  party 
might  prove  ultimately  victorious.  She  was  also  known  to 
have  sympathized  with  the  objects  of  Wyat's  rebellion,  though 
she  had  prudently  avoided  committing  any  overt  act  of  trea- 
son, by  which  she  might  be  fully  and  legally  compromised. 
She  had  certainly  participated  in  the  previous  treasonable 
conspiracy  of  Courtenay ;  and  she  was  strongly  suspected  of 
having  been  implicated  in  the  subsequent  attempts  of  Dudley 
and  Cleobury,  and  in  several  other  conspiracies  having  for 
their  object  the  removal  of  her  sister  from  the  throne.  She 
was,  undoubtedly,  a  focus  of  insurrection,  and  the  disaffected 
constantly  looked  up  to  her  for  encouragement,  if  not  f')r 
positive  assistance,  in  carrying  out  their  treasonable  designs- 


136  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION MiRY. 

Now,  under  all  these  aggravating  circumstances,  involving 
the  strongest  political  and  personal  considerations,  what  was 
tlie  treatment  which  Elizabeth  received  at  the  hands  of  her 
sovereign  sister — "the  blood j  Mary?"  Against  the  urgent 
advice  of  her  council,  who  recommended  the  at  least  tem- 
porary arrest  of  Elizabeth  as  a  necessary  stroke  of  policy, 
Mary  on  her  accession  sent  for  her,  greeted  her  as  her  dear 
sister,  treated  her  according  to  her  high  rank,  and  made  her 
ride  in  state  by  her  own  side  in  the  solemn  procession  at  her 
coronation.  To  her  council,  who  represented  that  the  reform- 
ers looked  up  to  Elizabeth  as  her  rival,  she  generously  and 
nobly  replied;  that  she  would  endeavor  to  weaken  their 
interest  in  her  good  sister,  by  employing  every  means  in  her 
power  to  promote  her  conversion  to  the  Catholic  faith.  She 
succeeded  in  her  purpose.  Elizabeth  at  first  exhibited  some 
reluctance,  but  suddenly,  after  only  a  week's  instruction,  she 
conformed  to  the  faith  of  her  fathers ;  and  to  show  the  sin- 
cerity of  her  conversion,  she  piibliciy  accompanied  her  royal 
sister  to  Mass,  procured  all  the  implements  of  Catholic  wor- 
ship from  Flanders,  and  set  up  a  Catholic  chapel  in  her  own 
house  !* 

Her  subsequent  conduct  soon  tested  the  sincerity  of  these 
early  religious  and  sisterly  professions.  She  secretly  and  cau- 
tiously, and  we  may  add  treacherously,  availed  herself  of  every 
occasion  which  offered,  to  supplant  her  sister,  as  Anne  Boleyn 
had  supplanted  Catharine.  Fully  implicated,  through  inter- 
cepted letters  and  dispatches,  in  the  conspiracy  of  Courtenay, 
she  was  arrested  and  consigned  to  the  tower.  Mary  was  very 
unwilling  to  yield  her  consent  to  this  measure  of  necessary 
severity,  and  she  consented  to  sign  the  warrant,  only  after  she 
had  in  vain  pleaded  with  each  member  of  her  council  to 
assume  the  responsibility  of  guarding  her  sister  in  her  own 
house.      Elizabeth    was    soon    afterwards    released,    chiefly 


*  Dispatches  of  Nouailles,  the  French  ambassado;    and  of  Kenaud,  the 
ambassador  of  Charles  V.     Lingard,  vii,  135. 


Elizabeth's  intrigues.  137 

through  the  active  influence  and  signal  legal  ability  of  the 
chancellor  Gardiner ;  whom  many  modern  writers  neverthe 
less  choose  to  represent  as  her  worst  enemy.  In  spite  of  the 
advice  of  the  emperor  from  Brussels ;  in  spite  of  the  en- 
treaties of  the  imperial  party  in  the  queen's  own  council,  who 
strongly  urged  that  she  would  not  be  safe  on  her  throne  so 
long  as  Elizabeth  lived ;  in  spite  of  the  powerful  effort  made 
to  prejudice  Gardiner  in  her  good  opinion ;  she  openly  took 
his  side  which  inclined  towards  mercy,  and  she  followed  his 
opinion  in  practice.*  Elizabeth  was  not  again  arrested,  nor 
even  seriously  molested  during  her  reign. 

Had  their  relative  positions  been  reversed,  would  Elizabeth 
have  treated  her  royal  sister  with  the  same  indulgent  clem- 
ency? For  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the  question,  look  to  her 
subsequent  treatment  of  the  unfortunate  sisters  of  Lady  Jane 
Gray,  and  another  imaginary  rival  to  the  throne,  her  ill-fated 
cousin,  Mary  Queen  of  Scots ! 

One  who  has  studied  the  character  of  Mary  and  Elizabeth 
more  deeply,  perhaps,  than  any  other  modern  writer,  who  has 
probably  done  more  than  any  other  to  rescue  the  name  of 
Mary  from  obloquy,  and  who,  though  a  Protestant,  has  had 
the  courage  to  tell  the  truth  as  unfolded  in  the  original 
records,  fully  confirms  all  that  we  here  say  concerning  Mary's 
clemency.  We  refer  to  Miss  Strickland,  who  testifies,  more- 
over, to  another  important  fact :  that  Mary  wholly  repudiated 
the  system  of  political  tyranny  which  had  been  introduced  by 
her  father  and  brother,  and  restored  the  British  Constitution 
to  its  ancient  Catholic  integrity !  Speaking  of  her  successful 
effort  to  save  Elizabeth  from  punishment.  Miss  Strickland 
says  and  proves  by  her  authorities,  which  we  also  copy,  what 
follows : 

"  It  was  fortunate  for  Elizabeth,  that  the  queen  meant  conscientiously  in 
abide  by  the  ancient-  constitutional  law  of  England,  restored  in  her  first  par- 
liament, which  required,  that  an  overt  or  open  act  of  treason  must  be  proved 


*  Dispatches  of  Nouailles,  Lingard,  vii,  166,  seq. 
VOL.    II. — 12 


138  ANGLICAN    REFORMAflON MARY. 

before  an_y  English  person  could  be  attainted  as  a  traitor.  Courtenay  waa_ 
as  well  as  Elizabeth,  in  disgrace;  he  had  been  arrested  a  kw  days  aflei-  the 
contest  with  Wyat,  and  sent  to  the  tower.  It  is  to  Queen  Mary's  credit 
that  she  urged  the  law  of  her  cou  it'-y  to  the  Spanish  ambassador,  when  he 
informed  her  'that  her  marriage  with  the  prince  of  Spain  could  not  be  cot.- 
eluded  till  Courtenay  and  Elizabeth  were  punished.'* 

"  Tlie  Spaniard  thus  quotes  her  words  to  his  master,  Charles  V. : — Tht 
queen  replied,  '  that  she  and  her  council  were  laboring  as  much  as  possible 
to  discover  the  truth,  as  to  the  practices  of  Elizabeth  and  Courtenay ;  and 
that,  as  to  Courtenay,  it  was  certain  he  was  accused  by  many  of  the  prison- 
ers of  consenting  and  assisting  in  the  plot,  and  that  the  cipher  by  which  he 
corresponded  with  Sir  Peter  Carew  had  been  discovered  cut  on  his  guitar; 
that  he  had  intrigued  with  the  French,  and  that  a  match  had  been  projected 
between  him  and  Elizabeth,  which  was  to  be  foUovv'ed  by  the  deposition  and 
death  of  her,  the  queen ;  yet  the  law  of  England  condemns  to  death  only 
those  who  have  committed  overt  acts  of  treason ;  those  who  have  merely 
implied  consent  by  silence,  are  punished  but  by  imprisonment,  and  some  ■ 
times  by  confiscation  of  goods.'  Renaud,  the  Spanish  ambassador,  angrily 
observes  elsewhere,  '  that  it  was  evident  the  queen  wished  to  save  Courte- 
nay, and  of  course,  Elizabeth ;  since  she  does  not  allow  that  her  guilt  was 
as  manifest  as  his.'f  Correspondence,  of  a  nature  calculated  to  enrage  any 
sovereign,  was  discovered,  which  deeply  implicated  Elizabeth.  Notwith- 
standing all  that  has  been  urged  against  Mary,  it  is  evident,  fi'om  the  letters 
of  the  Spanish  ambassador,  that  she  proved  her  sister's  best  friend,  by  remain- 
ing steadfast  to  her  expressed  determination,  that  'although  she  was  convinced 
of  the  deep  dissimulation  of  Elizabeth's  character,  who  was  in  this  instance, 
what  she  had  alwaj's  shown  herself,  yet  proof,  upon  proot^  must  be  brought 
against  her  before  any  harsher  measures  than  temporary  imprisonment  were 
adopted.'  In  short,  wnatever  advei'se  coloi-s  may  be  cast  upon  a  portion  of 
her  history,  which  really  does  her  credit,  the  conclusion,  built  on  the  irre 
fragable  structure  of  results,  is  this, — Mary  dealt  infinitely  more  mercifully 
by  her  heiress,  than  Elizabeth  did  by  hers.  And  how  startling  is  the  fiict, 
that  Queen  Mary  would  not  proceed  against  her  sister  and  her  kinsman, 
because  the  proof  of  their  treason  was  contained  in  cipher  letters,  easy  to  be 
forged,  when  correspondence  in  cipher  brought  Mary  queen  of  Scots  to  the 
block,  protesting,  as  she  did,  that  the  correspondence  was  forged ! 

"At  this  crisis  Queen  Mary  gave  waA'  to  anger;  she  had  offered  if  any 
nobleman  would  take  the  charge  and  responsibility  of  her  sister,  that  she 
should  not  be  subjected  to  imprisonment  m  the  tower;  but  no  one  would 
undertake  the  dangerous  office.     The  queen  then  expedited  the  warrant,  to 


*  Tytler's  Mary  I.,  vol.  ii,  p.  3'20.  f  ^^^' 


HER    TREATMENT    OF    CRANME}?.  139 

commit  Elizabeth  to  the  tower.  The  earl  of  Sussex  and  another  nobleman 
were  appointed  to  conduct  the  princess  thither ;  but  she  persuaded  them, 
(it  does  not  seem  for  any  particular  object,  except  v/riting  a  letter  to  the 
queen)  to  outstay  the  time  of  the  tide  at  London  bridge.  This  act  of  dis- 
obedience incensed  Mary ;  she  rated  the  oifending  parties  at  the  council- 
board,  '  told  them  that  they  were  not  traveling  in  the  right  path,  that  they 
dared  not  have  done  such  a  thing  in  her  father's  time,'  and  finally,  as  the 
most  awful  feature  of  her  wrath,  'wished  that  he  were  alive  for  a  month!' 

"  Well  she  knew  that  he  was  never  troubled  with  scruples  of  conscience, 
concerning  how  the  ancient  laws  of  England  regarded  treasons,  open  or  con- 
cealed ;  for  if  he  supposed,  that  even  a  heraldic  lion  curled  its  tail  contu- 
maciously, that  supposition  brought  instant  death  on  its  owner,  despite  of 
genius,  virtue,  youth,  beauty,  and  faithful  service."* 

5.  Maiy's  treatment  even  of  Cranmer  affords  additional 
evidence  that  she  was  not  naturally  inclined  to  severity, 
much  less  to  wanton  cruelty.  Cranmer  had  been  her  very 
worst  enemy,  and  he  had  done  her  mortal  and  almost  irre- 
parable wrong.  He  had  officially  divorced  her  mother,  had 
stigmatized  her  memory  by  solemnly  declaring  that  she  had 
never  been  the  lawful  wife  of  her  father,  and  had  conse- 
quently stigmatized  her  own  birth  by  pronouncing  her  ille- 
gitimate. On  the  death  of  her  brother,  he  had  been  one  of 
the  prime  movers  in  the  attempt  to  exclude  her  from  the 
throne,  and  had  successfully  urged  the  other  leading  reformed 
preachers  to  denounce  her  publicly  as  illegitimate,  and  there- 
fore as  not  entitled  to  the  throne.  He  was  the  active  promoter 
of  all  the  mischief  by  which  her  whole  life  had  been  embit- 
tered, and  now  he  had  crowned  all  his  previous  misdeeds  by 
treacherous  conspiracy  and  open  rebellion. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  indignities  so  long  endured  and 
80  keenly  felt — as  only  a  woman  born  and  reared  as  she  had 
been  could  feel  them — the  "  bloody  Mary "  exhibited  no  inde- 
cent haste  to  punish  the  arch-traitor,  and  her  own  arch-enemy. 
She  allowed  him  tranquilly  to  officiate  at  the  funeral  of 
Edward;  she  did  not  permit  him  to  be  arrested  for  several 

*  The  gallant  earl  of  Surrey  was  put  to  death  for  a  supposed  difference 
in  the  painting  cf  the  tail  of  the  lion  in  his  crest. 


140  ANGLICAN    reformatio:; MARY. 

months  after  her  accession,  content  with  merely  orderinj^ 
him  to  confine  himself  to  his  palace  at  Lambeth;  and  she 
finally  consented  to  his  arrest,  only  after  he  had  published  a 
coarse  and  violent  attack  on  what  she  prized  more  dearly 
than  honor  or  life — her  religion.*  Even  then,  she  allowed 
nearly  two  years  to  elapse  before  he  was  led  to  execution.f 
A  portion  of  this  very  long  interval  was  employed,  at  the 
instance  of  the  "bloody"  queen,  in  the  attempt  to  win  him 
and  his  associates,  Ridley  and  Latimer,  back  to  the  true  faith, 
and  thereby  to  promote  their  eternal  salvation.  For  this 
purpose  the  conference,  or  theological  discussion  at  Oxford, 
between  the  three  leaders  of  the  reformed  party  and  three 
Catholic  divines,  was  ordered  and  took  place.  Mary  would 
probably  have  saved  them  all  from  death,  had  she  been 
allowed  to  follow  her  own  gentle  womanly  impulses ;  but  her 
council  resolutely  demanded  the  execution  of  Cranmer  "  for 
ensample's  sake."J  Ridley  and  Latimer,  though  both  likewise 
deeply  implicated  in  Northumberland's  rebellion,  might  be 
spared,  on  condition  they  would  recant;  Cranmer's  crimes 
had  been  too  atrocious  and  too  mischievous,  to  allow  him  to 
go  unpunished. 

6.  Ridley  and  Latimer  refused  to  recant,  and  they  were 
led  to  the  stake,  where  they  died  martyrs  to  their  opinions.§ 

*  In  this  manifesto,  he  denounced  the  Mass  as  "a  device  and  invention 
of  the  father  of  Hes,"  though  he  had  caused  others  to  be  burnt  for  much  less 
during  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. — Apud  Lingard,  vol.  vii. 

f  Mary  came  to  the  throne  July  15,  1553  ;  Cranmer  was  executed 
March  21,  1555. 

t  Stryi;e's  Cranmer,  p.  385.     Ibid.,  p.  200. 

^  Ridley  had  been  promoted  by  the  influence  of  Cranmer,  and  under 
Henry  VIII.  he  had  blindly  followed  the  theological  views  of  that  despotic 
monarch,  uniting  with  Cranmer  in  sending  Protestants  and  Catholics  alike 
to  the  stake.  Under  Edward,  he  exhibited  himself  one  of  the  most  zealous 
promoters  of  the  new  religion,  which  he  would  not  have  dared  defend  under 
Henry.  We  have  already  seen  how  he  intruded  his  officious  zeal  on  the 
princess  Mar}',  and  with  what  meagre  result.  Implicated  in  the  conspiracy 
%)T  setting  up  Lady  Jane  Gray  and  excluding  Mar}'  from  the  throne,  he  was 


cranmer's   recantations.  141 

Not  so  Cranmer.  True  to  the  policy  of  bis  whole  life,  he 
recanted  not  once,  but  seven  times  i*  each  form  of  recanta- 
tion being  more  ample  than  the  preceding.f 

arrested  as  a  traitor  on  the  accession  of  the  latter.  In  prison,  he  recanted 
and  conformed  to  the  ancient  faith ;  but  finding  that  the  step  was  hkely  to 
bring  him  no  favor  with  Catholics,  while  it  brought  on  him  the  execration 
of  his  former  co-religionists,  he  relapsed ;  and  thenceforward,  says  Foxe, 
(iii,  836,  apud  Waterworth,  p.  269,)  "he  never  after  polluted  himself  with 
that  filthy  dregs  of  anti-Christian  service." 

Latimer  had  been  still  more  erratic  in  his  religious  changes  and  evolu- 
tions. He  conformed  backward  and  forward  so  frequently,  that  it  were  te- 
dious to  reckon  his  changes.  First  the  bitter  opponent,  then  the  warm 
liupporter  of  the  German  reformers ;  then,  on  the  command  of  Cardinal 
Wolsey,  a  second  time  their  opponent  and  denouncer ;  then  again,  after  two 
years,  threatened  with  excommunication  by  Cranmer  and  with  the  stake  by 
Henry  VIII.,  for  being  supposed  to  have  relapsed  into  his  former  German 
errors,  and  narrowly  escaping  the  spiritual  and  consequent  temporal  penalty 
by  begging  pardon  on  his  knees  and  promising  amendment,  before  Henry ; 
we  next  find  him  named  by  the  royal  monster — head  of  the  new  church — 
to  the  bishopric  of  Worcester,  in  reward  for  his  coarse  invectives  against  the 
Papacy ;  then  again  thrown  into  prison  for  dissenting  from  Henry  in  theo- 
logical matters ;  finally,  arrested  by  order  of  Mary's  council  for  alleged 
seditious  preachings  against  her,  on  her  accession  to  the  throne.  Such  was 
Latimer.     See  Tytler  and  Strype. 

*  That  the  number  of  recantations  was  seven  instead  of  six,  Lingard 
proves  by  reference  to  a  very  old,  if  not  the  oldest  printed  copy  of  the  book 
containing  them,  published  in  London  shortly  after  Cranmer's  death.  Set 
his  Vindication  against  the  strictures  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  etc., 
printed  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  in  the  American  edition  of  his  History  ot 
England. 

f  Bishop  Short  speaks  of  Cranmer's  "fall"  in  the  following  tone  of  re- 
gret :  "  The  Ml  of  which  this  good  man  was  subsequently  guilty,  in  signing 
the  recantation,  takes  off  from  the  whole  of  the  glorious  dignity  with  which 
the  closing  scene  of  the  other  martyrs  was  enlightened."  In  a  note,  he 
adds :  "  Fuller's  view  of  this  part  of  his  history  is  far  less  favorable,  (p.  371). 
Cranmer  '  had  done  no  ill  and  privately  many  good  offices  for  the  Pn^test- 
ants,  yet  his  cowardly  compliance  hitherto  with  popery,  against  his  con- 
science, can  not  be  excused ;  serving  the  times  present  in  his  practice,  and 
waiting  on  a  future  alteration  in  his  hopes  and  desires.' " — History  of  the 
Church  of  England,  sup.  cit.  p.  115. 


142  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION MARY. 

"  He  acknowledged  that  he  had  been  a  greater  persecutor  of  the  Churtjh 
than  Paul,  and  wished  that,  like  Paul,  he  might  be  able  to  make  amends. 
He  could  not  rebuild  what  he  had  destroyed ;  but  as  the  penitent  thief  on 
the  cross,  by  the  testimony  of  his  lips,  obtained  mercy,  so  he  trusted  that, 
by  this  offering  of  his  lips,  he  might  obtain  mercy  of  the  Almighty.  He 
was  unworthy  of  favor,  and  worthy  not  only  of  temporal,  but  eternal  pun- 
ishment. He  had  offendod  against  King  Henry  and  Queen  Catharine :  he 
was  the  cause  and  author  of  the  divorce,  and  also  of  the  evils  which  resulted 
from  it.  He  had  blasphemed  against  the  Sacrament,  had  sinned  against 
heaven,  and  had  deprived  men  of  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from  the 
Eucharist."* 

*  Lingard,  Hist.  England,  ibid.  This  recantation  is  contained  in  Strype, 
iii.  2o5.  See  also  Foxe,  iii,  559.  The  recantations  are  given  in  flill  by 
Waterworth,  p.  275,  seqq.,  notes. 

We  subjoin  the  sixth  recantation  as  a  specimen  of  the  rest,  and  with  a 
view  to  show  how  much  he  was  in  earnest  in  his  efforts  to  persuade  others 
of  his  sincerity  : 

"I  Thomas  Cranmer,  late  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  confess  and  grieve 
from  my  heart  that  I  have  most  grievously  sinned  against  heaven,  and  the 
English  realm ;  yea  against  the  universal  church  of  Christ ;  which  I  have 
more  cruelly  persecuted  than  Paul  did  of  old ;  who  have  been  a  blasphemer, 
a  persecutor,  and  contumelious.  And  I  wish  that  I,  who  have  exceeded 
Saul  in  malice  and  wickedness,  might  with  Paul  make  amends  for  the 
honor  which  I  have  detracted  from  Christ,  and  the  benefit  of  which  I  have 
deprived  the  Church.  But  yet  that  thief  in  the  gospel  comforts  my  mind. 
For  then  at  last  he  repented  from  his  heart,  then  it  irked  him  of  his  theft, 
when  he  might  steal  no  more.  And  I,  who,  abusing  my  office  and 
authority,  purloined  Christ  of  his  honor,  and  the  realm  of  faith  and  relig- 
ion ;  now  by  the  great  mercy  of  God  returned  to  myself,  acknowledge  my- 
self the  greatest  of  all  sinners,  and  to  every  one  as  well  as  I  can,  to  God 
first,  then  to  the  Church  and  its  supreme  head,  and  to  the  king  and  queen, 
and  lastly  to  the  realm  of  England,  to  render  worthy  satisfiiction.  But  as 
that  happy  thief,  when  he  was  not  able  to  pay  the  money  and  wealth  which 
he  had  taken  away,  when  neither  his  feet  nor  his  hands,  fiistened  to  the 
cross,  could  do  their  office ;  by  heart  only  and  tongue,  which  were  not 
bound,  he  testified  what  the  rest  of  his  members  would  do,  if  they  enjoyed 
the  same  liberty  that  his  tongue  did  ;  by  that  he  confessed  Christ  to  be  in- 
nocent ;  by  that  he  reproved  the  impudence  of  his  fellow  ;  by  that  he  detested 
his  former  life,  and  obtained  the  pardon  of  his  sins  ;  and,  as  it  were  by  a 
kind  of  key,  opened  the  gates  of  paradise ;  by  the  example  of  this  man,  I 
di)  conceive  no  small  hopes  of  Christ's  n^ercy,  that  he  will  pardon  my  fsins. 


cranmer's  recantations.  143 

Trembling  for  his  life,  his  last  act  before  he  marched  to  the 
stake,  was  a  striking  evidence  of  that  duplicity  which  had 
marked  his  entire  career.     After  duly  signing  the  last  recan- 


I  want  hands  and  feet  by  which  I  might  build  up  again  that  which  I  have 
destroyed,  for  the  lips  of  my  mouth  are  only  left  me.  But  he  will  receive 
the  calves  of  our  lips,  who  is  merciful  beyond  all  belief.  By  this  hope  con- 
ceived, therefore,  I  chuse  to  offer  this  calf,  to  sacrifice  this  very  small  part 
of  my  body  and  life. 

"  I  confess,  in  the  first  place,  my  unthankfulness  against  the  great  God ; 
I  acknowledge  myself  unworthy  of  all  favor  and  pity,  but  most  worthy,  not 
only  of  human  and  temporal,  but  divine  and  eternal  punishment.  That  I 
exceedingly  offended  against  King  Henry  VIII.,  and  especially  against 
Queen  Catharine  his  wife,  when  I  was  the  cause  and  author  of  the  divorce. 
Which  fault  indeed  was  the  seminary  of  all  the  evils  and  calamities  of  this 
realm.  Hence  so  many  slaughters  of  good  men  ;  hence  the  schism  of  the 
whole  kingdom ;  hence  heresies ;  hence  the  destruction  of  so  many  souls 
and  bodies  sprang,  that  I  can  scarce  comprehend  with  reason.  But  when 
these  are  so  great  beginnings  of  grief,  I  acknowledge  I  opened  a  great  win- 
dow to  all  heresies ;  whereof  myself  acted  the  chief  doctor  and  leader. 
But.  first  of  all,  that  most  vehemently  torments  my  mind,  that  I  affected 
the  holy  Sacrament  of  the  Eucharist  with  so  many  blasphemies  and  re- 
proaches ;  denjnng  Christ's  body  and  blood  to  be  truly  and  really  contained 
under  the  species  of  bread  and  wine.  By  setting  forth  also  books,  I  did 
impugn  the  truth  with  all  my  might.  In  this  respect,  indeed,  not  only 
worse  than  Saul,  and  the  thief,  but  the  most  wicked  of  all  which  the  earth 
ever  bore.  '  Lord,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven  and  before  thee.'  Against 
heaven,  which  I  am  the  cause,  it  hath  been  deprived  of  so  many  saints ; 
denying  most  impudently  that  heavenly  benefit  exhibited  to  us.  And  I 
have  sinned  against  the  earth,  which  so  long  hath  miserably  wanted  this 
sacrament ;  against  men  whom  I  have  called  from  this  supersubstantial 
morsel ;  the  slayer  of  so  many  men  as  have  perished  for  want  of  food.  I 
have  defrauded  the  souls  of  the  dead  of  this  daily  and  most  celebrious  sacrifice. 

"  And  from  all  these  things  it  is  manifest,  how  greatly  after  Christ  I  have 
been  injurious  to  his  vicar,  whom  I  have  deprived  of  his  power  by  books  set 
forth ;  wherefore  I  do  most  earnestly  and  ardently  beseech  the  Pope,  that 
he,  for  the  mercy  of  Christ,  forgive  me  the  things  I  have  committed  against 
him  and  the  Apostolic  See.  And  I  most  humbly  beseech  the  most  serene 
kings  of  England,  Spain,  etc.,  that  by  their  royal  mercy  they  would  pardon 
me ;  I  ask  and  beseech  the  whole  realm,  yea,  the  universal  church,  that 
they  take  pity  of  this  wretched  soul ;  to  whom,  besides  a  tongue,  nothing 


144  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION MARY. 

tation  to  be  read  at  the  stake,  he  secretly  wrote  anctlicr 
directly  opposite,  which  he  meant  to  read — and  which  he 
did  read — in  case  pardon  should  not  be  extended  to  him  at 
the  last  moment!  In  this  last  instrument,  he  retracted  all 
his  previous  recantations,  which  he  declared  were  wrung 
from  him  by  the  fear  of  death  alone.  He  even  thrust  the 
oifending  hand  which  signed  them  into  the  fire  first;  and 
thus  he  perished — a  willing  martyr,  because  he  could  not 
help  it  and  could  not  save  his  life!  He  perished  in  the 
flames  which  ht^  had  so  often  enkindled  for  much  better  men 
than  himself;*  and  this  circumstance,  as  well  as  the  whole 
tenor  of  his  life,  must  greatly  modify  the  sympathy  with  his 

is  left,  whereby  to  make  amends  for  the  injuries  and  damages  I  have  brought 
in.  But  especially  because  against  thee  only  have  I  sinned,  I  beseech  thee, 
most  merciful  Father,  who  desirest  and  commandest  all  to  come  to  thee, 
however  wicked,  vouchsafe  to  look  upon  me  neerly,  and  under  thy  hand,  as 
thou  lookedst  upon  Magdalen  and  Peter  ;  or  certainly,  as  thou,  looking  upon 
the  thief  on  the  cross,  didst  vouchsafe  by  the  promise  of  thy  grace  and 
glory,  to  comfort  a  fearful  and  trembling  mind  ;  so,  by  thy  wonted  and  jiat- 
ural  pity,  turn  the  eyes  of  thy  mercy  to  me,  and  vouchsafe  me  worthy  to 
have  that  word  of  thine  spoken  to  me,  '  I  am  thy  salvation  ;'  and  in  the  day 
of  death,  '  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise.' 

"  Written  this  year  of  our  Lord  1555,  in  Thomas  Cranmer." 

the  18th  day  of  the  month  of  March. 

*  As  we  have  already  seen,  he  had  employed  the  whole  weight  of  his 
powerful  influence  with  the  amiable  boy  Edward  VI.,  to  steel  his  tender 
heart  against  its  natural  reluctance  to  persecution ;  and  in  the  last  year  of 
Edward's  reign,  he  had  prepared  a  code  which  provided  for  the  burning  of 
heretics  )  but  luckily,  it  was  not  formally  approved,  in  consequence  of  the 
king's  death. 

That  such  was  really  the  meaning  of  the  law  concerning  the  punishment 
of  heretics,  contained  in  this  code,  is  sufficiently  proved  by  Lingard,  who 
was  probably  the  first  to  direct  attention  to  the  subject.  Hallam,  in  his  Con- 
stitutional History,  discusses  this  point  at  considerable  length,  but  does  not 
venture  to  dissent  from  the  opinions  of  Lingard,  which  he  deems  at  least 
plausible.  The  prejudiced  Sir  James  Mackintosh  flippantly  blames  Hallam 
for  his  qualified  indorsement  of  Lingard  ;  but  impartial  men  will  be  disposed 
Lo  attach  far  more  value  to  the  opinions  of  the  English  constitutional  lawyei 
than  to  that  of  the  Scotchman. 


macaulay's  portraiture.  l4o 

fate,  which  would  otherwise  be  strongly  felt  by  every  one 
who  detests  persecution. 

In  his  review  of  Hallam's  Constitutional  History,  Macaulay 
pronounces  the  following  severe,  but  just  opinion  on  the 
character  of  the  false  and  time-serving  patriarch  of  the 
Anglican  church : 

"  If  we  consider  Cranmer  merely  as  a  statesman,  he  will  not  appear  a 
much  worse  man  than  Wolsey,  Gardiner,  Cromwell,  or  Somerset.  But 
when  an  attempt  is  made  to  set  him  up  as  a  saint,  it  is  scarcely  possible  for 
any  man  of  sense,  who  knows  the  historj^  of  the  times  well,  to  preserve  his 
gravity 

"  The  shameful  origin  of  his  history,  common  enough  in  the  scandalous 
chronicles  of  courts,  seems  strangely  out  of  place  in  a  hagiology.  Cranmer 
rose  into  favor  by  serving  Henry  in  a  disgraceful  affair  of  his  first  divorce. 
He  promoted  the  marriage  of  Anne  Boleyn  with  the  king.  On  a  frivolous 
pretense  he  pronounced  it  null  and  void.  On  a  pretense,  if  possible,  still 
more  frivolous,  he  dissolved  the  ties  which  bound  the  shameless  tyrant  to 
Anne  of  Cleves.  He  attached  himself  to  Cromwell,  while  the  fortunes  of 
Cromwell  flourished.  He  voted  for  cutting  off  his  head  without  a  trial, 
when  the  tide  of  roj^al  favor  turned.  He  conformed  backwards  and  forwards 
as  the  king  changed  his  mind.  While  Henry  lived,  he  assisted  in  condemn- 
ing to  the  flames  those  who  denied  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation. 
When  Henry  died,  he  found  out  that  the  doctrine  was  false.  He  was,  how- 
ever, not  at  a  loss  for  people  to  burn.  The  authority  of  his  station,  and  of 
his  gray  hairs,  was  employed  to  overcome  the  disgust  with  which  an  intel- 
ligent and  virtuous  child  regarded  persecution. 

"  Intolerance  is  always  bad.  But  the  sanguinary  intolerance  of  a  man 
who  thus  wavered  in  his  creed,  excites  a  loathing  to  which  it  is  diflScult  to 
give  vent  without  calling  foul  names.  Equally  false  to  political  and  to  re- 
ligious obligations,  he  was  first  the  tool  of  Somerset,  and  then  the  tool  of 
Northumberland.  When  the  former  wished  to  put  his  own  brother  to 
death,  without  even  the  form  of  a  trial,  he  found  a  ready  instrument  in 
Cranmer.  In  spite  of  the  canon  law,  which  forbade  a  churchman  to  take 
any  part  in  matters  of  blood,  the  archbishop  signed  the  warrant  for  the 
atrocious  sentence.  When  Somerset  had  been  in  his  turn  destroyed,  his 
destroyer  received  the  support  of  Cranmer  in  his  attempt  to  change  the 
couree  of  the  succession. 

"  The  apology  made  for  him  by  his  admirers  only  renders  his  conduct 
more  contemptible.  He  complied,  it  is  said,  against  his  better  judgment, 
because  he  could  not  resist  the  entreaties  of  Edward !  A  holy  prelate  of 
VOL.  II. — 13 


14G  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION MARY. 

sixty,  one  would  think,  might  be  better  employed  by  the  Vjodside  of  a  dyin^ 
child,  than  committing  crimes  at  the  request  of  his  disciple.  If  he  had 
shown  half  as  much  firmness  when  Edward  requested  him  to  commit  trea- 
son, as  he  had  before  shown  when  Edward  requested  him  not  to  commit 
murder,  he  might  have  saved  the  country  from  one  of  the  greatest  misfor- 
tunes that  it  ever  underwent.  He  became,  from  whatever  motive,  the  ac- 
complice of  the  worthless  Dudley.  The  virtuous  scruples  of  another  young 
and  amiable  mind  were  to  be  overcome.  As  Edward  had  been  forced  into 
persecution,  Jane  was  to  be  seduced  into  usurpation.  No  transaction  in  our 
annals  is  more  unjustifiable  than  this.  If  a  hereditary  title  were  to  be  re- 
spected, Mary  possessed  it.  If  a  parliamentary  title  were  preferable,  Mary 
possessed  that  also.  If  the  interest  of  the  Protestant  religion  required  a 
departure  from  the  ordinary  rule  of  succession,  that  interest  would  have 
been  best  served  by  raising  Elizabeth  to  the  throne.  If  the  foreign  relations 
of  the  kingdom  were  considered,  still  stronger  reasons  might  be  found  for 
preferring  Elizabeth  to  Jane.  There  was  great  doubt  whether  Jane  or  the 
Queen  of  Scotland  had  the  better  claim ;  and  that  doubt  would,  in  all  proba- 
bility, have  produced  a  war,  both  with  Scotland  and  with  France,  if  the 
project  of  Northumberland  had  not  been  blasted  in  its  infancy.  That  Eliza- 
beth had  a  better  claim  than  the  Queen  of  Scotland  was  indisputable.  To 
the  part  which  Cranmer,  and  unfortunately  some  better  men  than  Cranmer, 
took  in  this  most  reprehensible  scheme,  much  of  the  severity,  with  which 
the  Protestants  were  afterwards  treated,  must  in  fairness  be  ascribed. 

"  The  plot  failed ;  popery  triumphed ;  and  Cranmer  recanted.  IMost 
people  look  on  his  recantation  as  a  single  blemish  on  an  honorable  life,  the 
frailty  of  an  unguarded  moment.  But,  in  fact,  it  was  in  strict  accordance 
with  the  system  on  which  he  had  constantly  acted.  It  was  part  of  a  regu- 
lar habit.  It  was  not  the  first  recantation  that  he  had  made  ;  and,  in  all 
probability,  if  it  had  answered  its  purpose  it  would  not  have  been  the  last. 
We  do  not  blame  him  for  not  choosing  to  be  burned  alive.  It  is  no  very 
severe  reproach  to  any  person,  that  he  does  not  possess  heroic  fortitude. 
But  surely  a  man  who  liked  the  fire  so  little,  should  have  had  some  sym- 
pathy for  others.  A  persecutor  who  inflicts  nothing  which  he  is  not  ready 
to  endure  deserves  some  respect.  But  when  a  man,  who  loves  his  doctrines 
more  than  the  lives  of  his  neighbors,  loves  his  own  little  finger  better  than 
his  doctrines,  a  very  simple  "argument,  a  fortiori,  will  enable  us  to  estimate 
the  amount  of  his  benevolence. 

"  But  his  martyrdom,  it  is  said,  redeemed  every  thuig.  It  is  extraordinary 
that  so  much  ignorance  should  exist  on  this  subject.  The  fact  is,  that  if  a 
martyr  be  a  man  who  chooses  to  die  rather  than  to  renounce  his  opinions, 
Cranmer  was  no  more  a  martyr  than  Dr.  Dodd.  He  died  solely  because  he 
could  not  help  it.     He  never  retracted  his  recantation,  till  he  found  he  had 


OTHER    PROVOCA  nONS.  147 

made  it  in  vain.  The  queen  was  ftilly  resolved  that,  Cathohc  or  Protestant, 
he  should  burn.  Then  he  spoke  out,  as  people  generally  speak  out  when 
they  are  at  the  point  of  death,  and  have  nothing  to  hope  or  to  fear  on  earth. 
If  Mary  had  suffered  him  to  live,  we  suspect  that  he  would  have  heard 
Mass,  and  received  absolution,  like  a  good  Catholic,  till  the  accession  of 
Elizabeth  ;  and  that  he  would  then  have  purchased,  by  another  apostasy, 
the  power  of  burning  men  better  and  braver  than  himseE" 

7.  Besides  the  causes  already  indicated,  there  were  others 
which  tended  more  immediately  to  overcome  Mary's  natural 
repugnance  to  measures  of  severity,  and  which  should  fairly 
be  taken  into  account  in  considering  the  deplorable  religious 
persecution  of  her  brief,  unhappy,  and  agitated  reign.  Not 
only  had  Ridley  preached  against  her  legitimacy  and  de- 
nounced her  "  bigotry,"  at  St.  Paul's  Cross,  and  Latimer  had 
thundered  forth  his  coarse  and  exciting  invectives  against  her 
religion  and  herself  among  the  people,  even  before  she  had 
mounted  the  throne,  but  shortly  after  her  accession  a  popular 
riot  was  excited  in  London,  in  consequence  of  a  priest  cele- 
brating Mass  at  a  church  in  the  horse  market.  Bourne,  one 
of  the  royal  chaplains,  was  rudely  assaulted  on  the  next  day, 
while  preaching  by  order  of  the  council  at  St.  Paul's  Cross  ; 
he  was  interrupted  by  tumultuous  shouts,  and  a  dagger, 
thrown  at  him  from  the  crowd,-  stuck  in  one  of  the  columns 
of  the  pn'pit.  The  tumult  was  evidently  preconcerted,  and 
it  was  intended  as  a  menace  to  the  queen  and  an  insult  to 
her  religion. 

"  A  proclamation  followed,  in  which  the  queen  declared  that  she  could  not 
conceal  her  religion,  which  God  and  the  world  knew  that  she  had  professed 
from  her  infancy  ;  that  she  had  no  intention  to  compel  any  one  to  embrace 
it,  till  further  order  were  had  by  common  consent ;  and  therefore  she  strictly 
forbade  all  persons  tb  excite  sedition,  or  to  foment  dissensions  by  using  the 
opprobrious  terms  of  heretic  or  papist."* 

More  than  a  year  later,  on  tlie  eve  of  the  breaking  out  of 
the  persecution  itself,  Ross,  a  reformed  preacher,  had  openly 
prayed,  in  presence  of  a  large  congregation  which  he  had 

*  Lingard,  ibid.  p.  134.     Wilkins,  Cone,  iv,  p.  86. 


148  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION MARY. 

assembled  at  midnight,  "  that  God  would  either  convert  the 
heart  of  the  queen,  or  take  her  out  of  this  luorldP  There- 
upon he  was  apprehended  and  imprisoned  with  his  disciples; 
and  the  parliament  hastened  to  declare  it  treason  "  to  have 
prayed  since  the  commencement  of  the  session,  or  to  pray 
hereafter,  for  the  queen's  death,*  It  was,  however,  provided 
that  all  who  had  been  already  committed  for  this  offense 
might  recover  their  liberty,  by  making  an  humble  protesta- 
tion of  sorrow  and  a  promise  of  amendment."f 

8.  After  the  first  four  victims  had  perished,  in  February,  1555, 

*  The  statute  was  passed  in  great  haste  on  the  16th  of  January,  the  day 
on  which  the  parliament  was  dissolved.  Speaking  of  the  excesses  and  out- 
rages committed  by  some  of  the  reformed  party,  before  the  persecution  broke 
out,  Heylin  says  :  "  The  like  exorbitances  were  frequent  in  this  queen's 
reign,  to  which  some  men  were  so  transported  by  a  furious  zeal,  that  a  g-un 
was  shot  at  one  Dr.  Pendleton,  as  he  preached  at  St.  Paul's  Cross,  on  Sun- 
day, 10th  of  June,  the  pellet  whereof  went  very  near  him,  but  the  gunner 
was  not  to  be  heard  of.  Before  which  time,  that  is  to  say,  on  the  8th  of 
April,  some  of  them  had  caused  a  cat  to  be  hanged  on  a  gallows,  near  the 
cross  in  Cheapside,  with  her  head  shorn,  the  likeness  of  a  vestment  cast 
upon  her,  and  her  two  fore-feet  tied  together,  holding  between  them  a  piect- 
of  paper  in  the  form  of  a  wafer  (!).  The  governors  of  the  Church,  exaspe 
rated  by  these  provocations,  and  the  queen  charging  Wyat's  rebellion  on  the 
Protestant  party,  she  (they?)  both  agreed  on  the  reviving  of  some  ancient 
statutes  made  in  the  time  of  King  Richard  II.,  King  Henry  IV.,  and  King 
Henrj^  V.,  for  the  severe  punishment  of  obstinate  hereticks,  even  to  death 
itself" — Heylin,  p.  47,  apud  Waterworth,  p.  261-2. 

So  that  Mary's  parliament  did  not  enact  new  statutes,  but  merely  revived 
the  old  ones,  according  to  Heylin.  It  merely  carried  out  the  programme  of 
Cranmer. 

After  the  persecution  was  suspended,  on  occasion  of  De  Castro's  excellent 
sermon,  and  while  the  council  were  hesitating  whether  to  renew  it  or  not, 
new  excesses  were  committed.  The  statue  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury 
was  first  mutilated,  and  then  totally  destroyed  after  it  had  been  again  re- 
paired and  set  up.  On  the  14th  of  April,  "  as  a  priest  was  administering  the 
Eucharist  in  St.  Margaret's  church,  Westminster,  a  man  drew  a  hanger,  and 
K^ounded  him  upon  the  head,  hand,  and  other  parts  of  the  body." — Soames 
and  Strype,  apud  Waterworth,  p.  266. 

f  liingard,  p.  I'Jl.     Statutes  of  licalni,  iv,  254. 


DE  CASTRO's   SERMON.  149 

Alphouso  de  Castro,  a  distinguished  Spanish  fi  lar  and  con- 
fessor of  king  Philip,  preached  before  the  court  and  strongly 
denounced  these  bloody  executions,  as  contrary  not  only  to 
the  spirit  but  to  the  text  of  the  gospel.  He  declared  "  that 
it  was  not  by  severity,  but  by  mildness,  that  men  were  to  be 
brought  into  the  fold  of  Christ,  and  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  bishops,  not  to  seek  the  death,  but  to  instruct  the  ignor- 
ance of  their  misguided  brethren."*  Coming  from  the  (quar- 
ter it  did,  the  noble  rebuke  of  the  friar  made  a  deep  impres- 
sion ;  the  executions  were  suspended  for  five  weeks  ;t  and 
they  would  probably  not  have  been  revived  at  all,  but  for 
fresh  outbreaks  of  fanaticism  among  the  advocates  of  the  new 
gospel,  and  the  discovery  of  a  new  conspiracy  extending 
throughout  several  counties  of  England.  These  things  af- 
forded a  plausible  pretext  for  those  members  of  the  council 
who  had  been  from  the  first  in  favor  of  adopting  strong  meas- 
ures, and  their  arguments  finally  but  too  unhappily  triumphed 
over  those  of  the  more  moderate  and  more  enlightened  mem- 
bers. 

9.  Mary  at  length  yielded  to  the  arguments,  and  gave  her 
reluctant  consent  to  the  stern  resolves  of  her  council.  When 
their  final  resolution  was  communicated  to  her,  she  gave  in 
writing  the  following  answer  : 

"  Touching  the  punishment  of  heretics,  we  think  it  ought  to  be  done  with- 
out rashness,  not  leaving  in  the  meantime  to  do  justice  to  such  as,  by  learn- 
ing, would  seem  to  deceive  the  simple  ;  and  the  rest  so  to  be  used,  that  the 

*  Miss  Strickland  presents  the  following  account  of  De  Castro's  sermon  : 
(Vol.  v.,  p.  271.) 

"At  the  end  of  the  week  of  crime,  which  saw  the  sufferings  of  these  four 
good  men,  Alphonso  de  Castro,  a  Franciscan  friar,  confessor  to  king  Philip^ 
preached  before  the  court  a  sermon,  inveighing  against  the  wickedness  of 
burning  them  ;  he  boldly  declared  the  truth,  that  the  English  bishops  learned 
not,  in  Scripture,  to  burn  any  one  for  conscience  sake.  This  truly  Christian 
sermon  produced  an  order  from  court,  whether  from  the  queen  or  her  hus- 
band is  not  known,  to  stop  the  burnings  for  upwards  of  five  weeks,  which 
raised  hopes  <  f  ftiturd  clemency,  but  in  vain." 

t  Lingard,   vu,  193— Strype,  iii,  209. 
41 


150  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION — MARY. 

people  might*  well  perceive  them  not  to  becondemned  without  just  occasion; 
by  which  they  shall  both  understand  the  truth,  and  beware  not  to  do  the 
like.  And  especially  within  London,  I  would  wish  none  to  be  burnt,  with- 
out some  of  the  council's  presence,  and  both  there  and  everywhere,  good 
sermons  at  the  same  time."* 

10.  By  the  statute,  the  bishops  were  made  the  judges  of 
aeresy,  and  were  directed  to  use  all  diligence  in  finding  out 
the  guilty,  whom  on  conviction  they  were  to  hand  over  to  the 
secular  arm  for  punishment.  That  they  did  not  relish  the  un- 
gracious task  thus  imposed  upon  them,  and  that  they  performed 
it  with  much  reluctance,  is  apparent  from  the  fact,  that  they 
were  often  rebuked  by  the  council  for  their  tardiness.  The 
chancellor  Gardiner  was  so  averse  to  the  office,  that  he  sat  but 
once  in  virtue  of  his  office — in  the  first  prosecution  for  heresy ; 
after  which  he  handed  over  the  unwelcome  duty  to  Bonner, 
bishop  of  London.  But  Bonner  did  not  proceed  fast  enough, 
to  escape  the  severe  reprimands  of  the  council ;  he  seems  to 
have  judged  and  with  much  apparent  unwillingness,  only  such 
as  were  sent  to  him  for  trial ;  and  he  was  heard  to  complain, 
that  he  was  often  compelled,  as  bishop  of  London,  to  judge 
persons  not  born  in  his  diocese.f 

11.  Our  account  of  the  causes  which  led  to  the  persecution 
under  Mary  tallies,  in  the  main,  with  that  furnished  by  Agnes 
Strickland  in  her  learned  and  graphic  account  of  this  reign 

*  Collier,  ii,  371.  Ibid.,  p.  189-190.        f  SeeFoxeiii,462.  Ibid.,  p.  194,  note. 

The  numerous  letters  of  rebuke  addressed  to  Bonner  by  the  council,  prove 
that  he  a<"ted  too  slowly  and  too  tardily  to  suit  their  newly  awakened  zeal  for 
the  Catholic  faith.  In  one  of  the  prelate's  letters,  addressed  to  Philpot,  he 
complains  thus  :  "I  am  right  sorry  for  your  trouble,  neither  would  I  you 
should  think  that  I  am  the  cause  thereof  I  marvel  that  other  men  will  trouble 
me  with  their  matters  ;  but  I  must  be  obedient  to  my  betters ;  and  I  fear 
men  speak  of  me  otherwise  than  I  deserve." — Foxc,  iii,  462,  apud  Water- 
worth,  p.  268,  note. 

Had  Bonner  been  the  bloody  monster  he  has  been  painted,  he  would  pro- 
bably have  fared  wor.se  than  he  did  wl:°n  Elizabeth  came  into  power.  The 
dreadful  character  given  of  him  and  of  "bloody  Mary"  seems  to  have  beer 
an  after-thought  of  the  reformed  writers,  hit  upon  and  developed  for  effect 
on  popular  pi  ijudicc. 


Misy  t'.i;  Iceland's  theory.  151 

Speaking  of  the  conspiracies  formed,  and  of  the  l.bels  uttered 
or  published,  against  Mary,  she  writes  : 

"Conspiracies  against  Queen  Mary's  life  abounded  at  this  unsettled  time ; 
even  the  students  of  natural  philosophy  (which,  despite  of  the  stormy  atmos- 
phere of  the  times,  was  p  oceeding  with  infinite  rapidity)  were  willing  to 
apply  the  instruments  of  science  to  the  destruction  of  the  queen.  '  I  have 
heard,'  says  Lord  Bacon,  '  there  was  a  conspiracy  to  have  killed  Queen  Mary, 
as  she  walked  in  St.  James'  Park,  by  means  of  a  burning  glass  fixed  on  the 
leads  of  the  neighboring  house.  I  was  told  so  by  a  vain,  though  great  dealer 
in  secrets,  who  declared  he  had  hindered  the  attempt.'  Of  all  things,  the 
queen  most  resented  the  libelous  attack  on  her  character,  which  abounded 
on  all  sides.  She  had  annulled  the  cruel  law,  instituted  by  her  father,  which 
punished  libels  on  the  crown  with  death  ;*  but,  to  her  anguish  and  astonish- 
ment, the  country  was  soon  after  completely  inundated  with  them,  both 
written  and  printed ;  one  she  showed  the  Spanish  ambassador,  which  was 
thrown  on  her  kitchen  table.  She  could  not  suffer  these  anonymous  accu- 
sations to  be  made  unanswered  ;  she  said,  with  passionate  sorrow,  that '  she  i ,  ad 
always  lived  a  chaste  and  honest  life,  and  she  would  not  bear  imputations  to 
the  contrary  silently  ;  and,  accordingly,  had  proclamation  made  in  every  county, 
exhorting  her  loving  subjects  not  to  listen  to  the  slanders  that  her  enemies 
were  actively  distributing.!  This  only  proved  that  the  poisoned  arrows  gave 
pain,  but  did  not  abate  the  nuisance." |: 

Her  theory  for  explaining  the  origin  of  the  persecution  is  a 
very  plausible  one,  and  with  one  exception  upon  which  we 
shall  comment  in  a  note,  it  appears  conformable  to  the  facts 
of  history.  She  puts  the  blame  on  the  parliament  and  the  coun- 
cil, and  pleads  the  queen's  extreme  illness  and  feebleness,  as 
an  argument  that  she  ought  not  to  be  held  responsible  fur  acts 
which  she  could  scarcely  control,  even  if  she  would.  But  we 
will  let  the  fair  historian  speak  in  her  own  words,  and  give 
her  own  authorities  :  § 

"  Her  hope  of  bringing  offspring  was  utterly  delusive  :  the  increase  of  her 
figure  was  but  symptomatic  of  dropsy,  attended  by  a  complication  of  the 
most  dreadful  disorders  which  can  afflict  the   female  fi^me ;  under  which 

*  "  See  the  abstracts  from  Parliamentary  History  and  Holingshed,  which 
show  that  Henry  VIII.  for  the  first  time  in  England,  caused  an  act  to  be 
made  punishing  libel  with  death." 

f  Tytler's  Edward  and  Mary,  vol.  ii,  p.  377. 

t  Queens  of  England,  v.,  237.  5  Ibid.,  vol.  v.,  p.  268-9 


152  ANGLldAN    REFORMATION MARY. 

every  faculty  of  lier  mind  and  body  sunk,  for  many  months.  At  this  time 
commenced  the  liorrible  persecution  of  the  Protestants,  which  has  stained  her 
name  to  all  futurit}^.  But  if  eternal  obloquy  was  incuired  by  the  half-dead 
queen,  what  is  the  due  of  tlie  parliaments  which  legalized  the  acts  of  cruelty 
committed  in  her  name  ?  Shall  we  call  the  house  of  lords  bigoted,  when  its 
majority,  which  legalized  this  wickedness,  were  composed  of  the  same  indi- 
viduals who  had  planted,  very  recently,  the  Protestant  Church  of  England  ?* 
Surely  not ;  for  the  name  implies  honest,  though  wrong-headed  attachment 
to  one  religion.  Shall  we  suppose,  that  the  land  laid  groaning  under  the  iron 
sway  of  a  standing  army,  or  that  the  Spanish  bridegroom  had  introduced 
foreign  forces  ?  But  reference  to  facts  will  prove,  that  even  Philip's  house- 
hold servants  were  sent  back,  with  his  fleet ;  and  a  few  valets,  fools,  and 
fiddlers,  belonging  to  the  grandees,  his  bridesmen,  were  all  the  forces  per- 
mitted to  land — no  very  formidable  band  to  Englishmen.  The  queen  had 
kept  her  word  rigorously  ;  when  she  asserted,  '  that  no  alteration  should  be 
made  in  religion,  without  universal  consent.'  Three  times  in  two  years  had 
she  sent  the  house  of  commons  back  to  their  constituents ;  although  they 
were  most  compliant  in  every  measure  relative  to  her  religion.  If  she  had 
bribed  one  parliament,  why  did  she  not  keep  it  sitting  during  her  short 
reign  ?  If  her  parliament  had  been  honest  as  herself,  her  reign  would  have 
been  the  pride  of  her  country,  instead  of  its  reproach ;  because,  if  they  had 
done  their  duty,  in  guarding  their  fellow  creatures  from  bloody  penal  laws 
regarding  religion,  the  queen,  by  her  first  regal  act,  in  restoring  the  ancient  free 
constitution  of  the  great  Plantagenets,  had  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  her 
government,  to  take  furtive  vengeance  on  any  individual,  who  opposed  it. 
She  had  exerted  all  the  energy  of  her  great  eloquence,  to  impress  on  the 
minds  of  her  judges,  that  they  were  to  sit,  as  'indifferent  umpires  between  her- 
self and  her  people.'  She  had  no  standing  army,  to  awe  parliaments — no  rich 
civil  list,  to  bribe  them.  By  restoring  the  great  estates  of  the  Howard,  the 
Percy,  and  many  other  victims  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI.'s  regency ;  by 
giving  back  the  revenues  of  the  plundered  bishoprics,  and  the  church  lands, 

*  "  The  house  of  lords,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  was  composed  of  fewer 
members  than  our  present  queen's  privy  council.  A  numerous  legislative 
nobility,  it  may  be  inferred,  from  the  history  of  the  Tudors,  is  far  more  favor- 
able to  civil  and  religious  liberty.  Many  of  the  haughty  ancient  nobility, 
who  controlled  the  crown  in  the  preceding  age,  were  cut  off  by  Henry  VIII. ; 
and  their  places  supplied  by  parvenus;  the  menial  servants  of  the  royal 
household,  raised  by  caprice,  whose  fathers  had  been  mace-bearers  to  lord- 
mayors,  heralds,  and  lower  limbs  of  the  law,  etc  ;  proper  candidates  for  the 
lower  house  if  they  won  their  way  by  ability,  but  awkward  members  of  a 
house  of  peers,  th  n  amounting  to  but  fifty  laymen." — Queens  of  England. 


MISS   STRICKLAND    AND  MA^KIXT'^SH.  15S 

possessed  by  the  crown  ;  she  had  reduced  herself  to  poverty,  as  complete,  ae 
the  most  enthusiastic  lover  of  freedom  could  desire.  But  her  personal  ex- 
penditure was  extremely  economical,  and  she  successfully  struggled  with 
poverty,  till  her  husband  involved  England  in  a  French  war. 

"  The  fact  of  whether  the  torpid  and  half-dead  queen  was  the  instigator  of 
a  persecution,  the  memory  of  which  curdles  the  blood  with  horror,  at  this 
distance  of  time,  is  a  question  of  less  moral  import,  at  the  present  day,  than  a 
clear  analyzation  of  the  evil,  with  which  selfish  interests  had  infected  the 
legislative  powers  of  our  country.  It  was  in  vain,  that  Mary  almost  ab- 
stained from  creating  peers,  and  restored  the  ancient  custom  of  annual  par- 
liaments ;*  the  majority  of  the  persons  composing  the  houses  of  peers  and 
commons  were  dishonest,  indifferent  to  all  religions,  and  willing  to  establish 
the  most  opposing  rituals,  so  that  they  might  retain  their  grasp  on  the  ac- 
cursed thing  with  which  their  very  souls  were  corrupted — for  corrupted 
they  were,  though  not  by  the  unfortunate  queen.  The  church  lands,  with 
which  Henry  VIII.  had  bribed  his  aristocracy,  titled  and  untitled,  into  co- 
operation with  his  enormities,  both  personal  and  political,  had  induced  na^ 
tional  depravity. 

"  The  leaders  of  the  Marian  persecution,  Gardiner  and  Bonner,  were  of 
the  apostate  class  of  persecutors.  '  Flesh  bred  in  murder,'  they  had  belonged 
to  the  government  of  Henry  VIII.,  which  sent  the  zealous  Roman  Catholic 
and  the  pious  Protestant  to  the  same  stake.  For  the  sake  of  worldly  advan- 
tage, either  for  ambition  or  power,  Gardiner  and  Bonner  had,  for  twenty 
years,  promoted  the  burning  or  quartering  of  the  advocates  of  papal  supre 
macy  ;  they  now  turned  with  the  tide,  and  burnt,  with  the  same  degree  of 
conscientiousness,  the  opposers  of  papal  supremacy. 

"  The  persecution  appears  to  have  been  greatly  aggravated  by  the  caprice, 
or  the  private  vengeance,  of  these  prelates  ;  for  a  great  legalist  of  our  times, 
who  paid  unprejudiced  attention  to  the  facts,  has  thus  summed  up  the  case : 
'  Of  fourteen  bishoprics,  the  Catholic  prelates  used  their  influence  so  success- 
fiilly,  as  altogether  to  prevent  bloodshed  in  nine,  and  to  reduce  it  within 
hmits  in  the  remaining  flve.f     Bonner,  'whom  all  generations   shall  call 

*  Drake's  Parliamentary  History. 

f  We  are  sorry  to  find  that  the  usually  candid  authoress  here  omits  an 
important  sentence  in  Mackintosh's  testimony,  going  very  far  towards  ex- 
onerating Gardiner.  The  omitted  passage  is  this:  "Justice  to  Gardiner 
requires  it  to  be  mentioned  that  his  diocese  was  of  the  bloodless  class." 

She  also  omits  a  passage  which  immediately  follows  that  quoted  by  her, 
and  which  contains  a  palliating  circumstance  in  favor  of  Bonner ;  and  she 
forgets  to  mrntion  Fuller,  as  the  author  of  the  strong  denunciation  uttered 
tgainst  him.    We  give  the  passage,  marking  in  italics  the  omitted  portioas :  — 


154  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION MARY. 

bloody,'  raged  so  furiously  m  the  diocese  of  London,  as  to  be  charged  with 
burning  half  the  martyre  in  the  kingdom."* 

"  Cardinal  Pole,  the  queen's  relative  and  familiar  friend,  declined  all  inter- 
ference with  these  horrible  executions ;  he  considered  his  vocation  was  the 
reformation  of  manners  ;  he  used  to  blame  Gardiner,  for  his  reliance  on  the 
arm  of  flesh,  and  was  known  to  rescue  from  Bonner's  crowded  piles  of  mar- 
tyrs the  inhabitants  of  his  own  district.f  It  is  more  probable  that  the 
queen's  private  opinion  leant  to  her  cousin,  who  had  retained  the  religion 
she  loved  unchanged,  than  to  Gardiner,  who  had  been  its  persecutor  ;  but 

"  Of  fourteen  bishoprics,  the  Catholic  prelates  used  their  influence  so  suc- 
cessfuUy  as  altogether  to  prevent  bloodshed  in  nine,  and  to  reduce  it  within 
limits  in  the  remaining  five.  Justice  to  Oardiner  requires  it  to  he  mentioned 
that  his  diocese  was  of  ilw  bloodless  class.  Thirlhy,  bishop  of  Ely,  who  ivept 
plentifully  when  he  was  employed  in  desecrating  Cranmer,  perliaps  thought  him- 
self obliged  to  cause  one  man  to  be  burned  at  Cambridge,  as  an  earnest  of  his 
zeal.  '  Bonner,'  says  Fuller,  '  whom  all  generations  shall  call  bloody,'  raged 
so  furiously  in  the  diocese  of  London,  as  to  be  charged  with  burning  about 
one  half  of  the  martyrs  of  the  kingdom.  Truth,  however,  exacts  the  observa- 
tion, that  the  number  brought  to  the  capital  for  terrific  example,  swells  the  appar- 
ent account  of  Bonner  even  beyond  his  desert."  (Mackintosh's  History  of  Eng- 
land, p.  249.  Edit.  Carey,  Lea  &  Blanchard,  Philadelphia,  1834.) 

Surely,  while  so  strongly  blaming  Gardiner,  she  should  not  have  omitted 
a  passage  so  much  in  his  favor.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  conduct  of 
Bonner  and  Gardiner  under  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII..  we  are  strongly  in- 
clined to  Delieve  that  injustice  is  done  them  by  the  amiable  authoress,  in  as- 
signing to  them  so  prominent  a  part  in  the  Marian  persecution.  They  ap- 
pear to  have  been  rather  reluctant  agents  than  active  instigators,  much  less 
originators  of  the  persecution  ;  as  we  have  partly  shown  above. 

Of  the  Catholic  prelates  under  Mary,  Mackintosh  says,  that  many  of  them 
"  are  recorded  by  Protestant  writers  to  hs^ve  exercised  effectual,  and  perhaps 
hazardous  humanity.  Tunstall,  bishop  oi  Durham,  appears  to  have  some- 
times spoken  to  the  accused  with  a  violence  foreign  from  the  general  tenor 
of  his  life.  It  has  been  suggested  that,  according  to  a  practice  of  which  there 
are  remai'kable  instances,  in  other  seasons  of  tyranny  and  terror,  he  submit- 
ted thus  far  to  wear  the  disguise  of  cruelty,  in  order  that  he  might  be  better 
able  to  screen  more  victims  from  destruction."  (Ibid.  p.  291.  See  also  Water- 
worth,  p.  268,  note.)  And  even  the  prejudiced  Soames  says  :  "  Tha  bishops 
eagerly  availed  themselves  of  any  subterfuge  by  Avhich  they  could  escape 
pronouncing  these  revolting  sentences." — Vol.  iv,  p.  412,  Ibid. 

♦  History  of  England,  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  vol.  ii,  p.  328. 

*  Burnet's  History  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  ii. 


A   NOBLE   MINORITY CARDINAL   POLE.  155 

(Jardiner  was  armed  with  the  legislative  powers  of  the  kingdom,  unworthy 
as  its  time-serving  legislators  were  to  exercise  them. 

"let  all  ought  not  to  be  included  in  one  sweeping  censure  :  a  noble  mi- 
nority of  good  men,  disgusted  at  the  detestable  penal  laws,  which  lighted  the 
torturing  fires  for  the  Protestants,  seceded  bodily  fiom  the  house  of  com- 
mons, after  vainly  opposing  them.  This  glorious  band,  for  the  honor  of  hu- 
man nature,  was  composed  of  CatKilics  as  well  as  Protestants;  it  was  headed 
by  the  great  legalist.  Sergeant  Plowden,*  a  Catholic  so  firm,  as  to  refuse  the 
chancellorship,  when  pei-suaded  to  take  it  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  because  he 
would  not  change  his  religion.  This  secession  is  the  fii'st  indication  of  a 
principle  of  merciful  toleration  to  be  found  among  any  legislators  in  England- 

"  Few  were  the  numbers  of  these  good  men,f  and  long  it  was  before  their 
principles  gained  ground.  For  truly  the  world  had  not  made  sufiicient  ad- 
vance in  Christian  civilization,  at  that  time,  to  recognize  any  virtue  in  reli- 
gious toleration." 

* "  When  Francis  Plowden  published  his  History  of  Ireland,  Sir  Philip 
Musgrave  entered  into  some  strictures  on  it.  He  was  answered  by  the  au- 
thor, who  quoted  a  letter  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  offering  the  chancellorship  to 
his  ancestor,  if  he  would  abjure  his  religion.  Fuller,  our  church  historian, 
a  man  as  honest  as  himself,  is  enthusiastic  in  the  praise  of  this  noble-minded 
lawyer,  who  is,  perhaps,  a  still  finer  specimen  of  human  nature  than  Sir 
Thomas  More  himself,  since  he  was  so  far  in  advance  of  his  age,  as  to  have 
understood  that  religious  toleration  was  a  virtue.  Camden,  another  honest 
man,  speaks  with  delight  of  Plowden.  '  How  excellent  a  medley  is  made,' 
says  he,  '  when  honesty  and  ability  haeet  in  a  man  of  his  profession  ! '  He 
was  treasurer  of  the  Temple  in  1572,  when  that  magnificent  hall  was  builded, 
he  being  a  great  advancer  thereof  His  monument  is  to  be  seen  in  the  Tem- 
ple church  close  by,  at  the  north-east  of  the  choir,  lying  along,  with  his 
hands  in  the  attitude  of  supplication  ;  he  is  represented  in  his  coif  and  gown, 
and  a  little  ruff  about  his  neck.     He  died  Feb.  6,  1584." 

f  "  They  were  thirty-seven  in  number.  See  Parliamentary  History,  vol. 
iii,  p.  333,  where  the  names  of  all  these  intrepid  members  of  parliament  may 
be  read.  Good  Christians  they  were,  though  different  denominations  of  re- 
ligion were  found  in  their  ranks.  Some  of  their  descendants  are  Catholics  to 
this  day,  as  the  Plowdens  ;  some  are  Protestants  of  our  church,  as  the  des- 
cendants of  Rous,  member  for  Dunwich.  The  humane  seceders  from  parlia- 
ment were  punished  for  the  desertion  of  their  seats  by  fine,  imprisonment, 
and  other  star-chamber  inflictions,  and  (what  does  not  appear  so  very  un- 
reasonable) by  loss  of  their  parliamentary  loage^.  The  secession  took  place 
twice.  Sir  Edward  Coke  has  preserved  some  pnrticulars  relating  to  it ; — he 
«ras  the  last  man  who  would  have  followed  such  an  example." 


i56  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION xMARY.    ' 

12.  There  is  abundant  evidence,  besides  that  already 
alleged,  to  show,  that  Cardinal  Pole,  the  papal  legate,  waa 
greatly  averse  to  all  these  severe  proceedings,  and  that  his 
moderation  even  gave  oflense  aiid  provoked  censure ;  and  it 
were  manifestly  unjust  tu  charge  them  on  the  Catholic 
Church    or    on    the   sovereign     Pontiff.*       Though    Mary 

*  Of  Cardinal  Pole,  the  papal  legate  and  official  representative  of  the  sen- 
timents of  the  Holy  See  in  England,  the  two  standard  Protestant  historians, 
Burnet  and  Heylin,  speak  as  follows  :  "  He  professed  himself  an  enemy  to 
extreme  proceedings.  He  said,  pastors  ought  to  have  bowels,  even  to  their 
straying  sheep  ;  bishops  were  fathers,  and  ought  to  look  on  those  that  erred 
as  their  sick  children,  and  not  for  that  to  kill  them ;  he  had  seen  that  severe 
proceedings  did  rather  inflame  than  cure  that  disease."  "  He  advised  that 
they  should  rest  themselves  satisfied  with  the  restitution  of  their  own  reli- 
gion ;  that  the  said  three  statutes  should  be  held  forth  for  a  terrour  only, 
but  that  no  open  persecution  should  be  raised  upon  them ;  following  therein, 
as  he  affirmed,  the  counsell  sent  unto  the  queen  by  Charles  the  emperour, 
at  her  first  comming  to  the  crown,  by  whom  she  was  advised  to  create  no 
trouble  unto  any  man  for  matter  of  conscience,  but  to  be  warned  unto  the 
contrary  by  his  example,  who,  by  endeavoring  to  compell  others  to  his  own 
religion,  had  tried  and  spent  himself  in  vain." — Burnet  ii,  467,  apud  Water- 
worth,  p.  263-4.     Heylin,  p.  47,  Ibid. 

Even  the  worst  enemies  of  Pole  seem  never  to  have  accused  him  of  intol- 
erance. The  fact  that  he  was  a  near  relative  of  Mary,  and  her  official 
adviser  in  behalf  of  the  Church  and  thfe  Pontiff,  would  seem  to  point  to  the 
inference,  that  her  opinion  agreed  with  his,  and  that  she  was  forced  by  the 
pressure  of  her  council  and  parliament,  and  by  the  reasons  of  state  which 
these  alleged,  to  act  against  her  own  opinion  and  wishes.  Certain  it  is,  that 
in  persecuting  she  was  not  led,  nor  even  warranted,  by  any  principle  or  doc- 
trine of  her  Church. 

In  his  History  of  England,  Mackintosh  very  unjustly  censures  Pole  for 
not  having  prevented  the  persecution,  thereby  supposing  that  he  had  more 
power  in  England  than  he  really  possessed.  Bishop  Short  is  more  just ;  he 
says  (p.  114  sup.  cit.)  : 

"  Pole  had  always  been  averse  to  violent  persecution,  but  was  unable  to 
show  any  opposition  to  it  sufficiently  strong  even  to  mitigate  its  severity ; 
for  independently  of  the  suspicions  which  were  entertained  concerning  his  own 
opinions,  Gardiner  had  sent  unfavorable  reports  of  his  conduct  to  the  apos- 
tolic chamber." 

This  last  fact  may  be  questioned,  but  Short's  opinion  of  Pole  is  valuable, 
He  says,  moreover,  (p.  117)  that  the  reason  why  Pole  was  recalled   from 


BISHOP   short's    estimate    OF   MARY.  157 

inherited  the  exalted  virtues  of  her  mother,  she  haa  some- 
thing, too,  of  the  rude  Tudor  boldness  and  waywardness  of 
her  father,  though  she  generally  kept  this  temper  under  sub- 
jection. She  made  no  scruple,  for  instance,  of  quarreling 
with  the  Pope,  when  he  thwarted  her  views.  Thus,  true  to 
the  traditions  of  her  house,  she  urged  the  penalty  of  a  prae- 
munire, to  prevent  the  bulls  of  the  Pope  from  entering  the 
kingdom,  when  she  apprehended  his  intention  of  recalling 
Pole.*  She  even  went  to  the  length  of  causing  the  bearer 
of  the  papal  letters  to  be  arrested  at  Calais  on  his  way  to 
England,  of  having  his  despatches  secretly  forwarded  to  her- 
self, and  of  suppressing  or  destroying  them;  so  that  Pole 
might  receive  no  official  account  of  his  being  displaced. 
Such  a  sovereign  was  likely  to  rule  on  her  own  responsibility, 
and  not  to  be  guided  by  the  advice,  much  less  to  brook  the  dicta- 
tion of  the  Poutifi'.  Her  acts  were  her  own,  and  she,  with  her 
parliament  and  council,  is  alone  fairly  responsible  for  them. 

But  that  she  was  really  a  most  virtuous,  upright,  conscien- 
tious, and  even  merciful  woman,  and  that  there  were  strongly 
mitigating  circumstances  in  the  case  of  her  persecution,  all 
candid  persons  who  have  read  English  history,  or  even  the 
imperfect  summary  of  facts  above  given,  will  be  fully  pre- 
pared to  admit.  That  she  does  not  deserve  the  epithet  of 
"bloody,"  must  be  apparent  to  every  man  of  justice  and 
moderation. 

We  will  close  this  chapter  by  presenting  the  estimate  of 
Mary's  character  as  made  even  by  the  prejudiced  Anglican 
bishop  Short.  Though  he  naturally  censures  her  for  perse 
cuting  Protestants,  yet,  under  some  respects,  he  does  a  mea 
sure  of  justice  to  the  long  proscribed  and  unfortunate  queen, 
as  well  as  to  Cardinal  Pole  and  her  chancellor  Gardiner.  Of 
the  latter  he  writes : 

England,  and  his  legative  powers  were  withdrawn  by  the  Pope  was,  that  he 
had  not  prevented  the  war  between  France  and  Spain  into  whicl\  England 
was  drawn. 
*  For  a  full  account  of  this  difficulty,  see  Lingard,  ibid.,  p.  233-4. 


158  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION MARY. 

"He  was  a  shrewd,  clever  man,  and  proDaol}'  much  more  of  a  pohtician 
than  a  churchman.  The  treatment  which  he  himself  had  received  may 
account  for  some  of  his  virulence,  if  it  cannot  excuse  it ;  nor  does  he  appeal 
to  have  been  totally  devoid  of  kindness  towards  Protestants ;  for  during  hia 
prosperity  he  screened  Sir  Thomas  Smith  and  R.  Ascham  from  persecution : 
and  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  he  eftectually  prevented  this  country 
fi'om  falling  under  the  Spanish  yoke,  at  a  moment  when  his  personal  inter- 
ests would  have  induced  him  to  promote  a  connection  with  that  court."* 

Of  Mary  and  Pole  he  writes  as  follows : 

"In  the  earlier  part  of  the  summer,  the  queen  had  been  engaged  in  re- 
building the  convent  of  Franciscans  at  Greenwich ;  and  for  the  purpose  of 
endowing  as  many  religious  houses  as  she  could,  gave  up  all  the  Church 
lands  vested  in  the  crown,  and  in  the  end  of  the  year  discharged  the  clergy 
fi'om  the  payment  of  fu'st  fi'uits  and  tenths ;  anxious  no  doubt  that  the 
Church  should  be  provided  for  in  temporalities,  as  well  as  reformed  in  its  dis- 
cipline :  for  in  the  convocation  which  was  held  by  Cardinal  Pole  (Nov.  2), 
many  constitutions  were  made  highly  beneficial  to  the  ecclesiastical  body,  in 
preventing  abuses  and  reforming  its  members,  and  which,  had  they  been  car- 
ried into  full  execution,  must  have  gone  far  to  establish  the  Roman  CathoUc 
rehgion,  for  a  time  at  least,  on  a  firm  basis."f 

"  With  all  her  faults,  Mary  must  be  allowed  the  praise  of  sincerity  ;  for 
the  love  she  bore  to  the  Roman  Catholic  rehgion  and  the  Papacy  induced 
her  to  advance  its  supposed  interests  at  her  own  expense,  as  well  as  that 
of  her  pereecuted  subjects ;  and  her  chief  misfortune  seems  to  have  been 
this,  that  a  genius  which  would  have  shone  in  a  nuimery  was  exalted  to  a 
throne."}: 

In  proof  of  her  disinterested  zeal  for  religion,  he  adds : 

"Her  foundations  were  made  out  of  the  revenues  of  the  crown,  and  in- 
stead of  making  a  gain  of  godliness,  as  was  the  general  plan  of  the  Befoi~ma- 
tion,  she  ofiered  not  up  unto  the  Lord  of  that  whicli  cost  her  nothing, 
'^mong  other  donations,  she  gave  some  rectories,  which  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  crown,  to  Oxford,  to  repair  the  schools ;  and  restored  the  tempoi'ali- 
ties  to  Durham,  which  had  been  taken  away  as  a  prey  for  the  duke  of 
Northumberland."  ^ 

*  History  Church  of  England,  p.  114.  f  Ibid.  J  Ibid.,  p.  117. 

5  Ibid.,  note.  We  omit  some  of  his  remarks  about  Mary,  whose  chief 
misfortune  he  considers  was  not  to  have  had  more  wise  and  liberal  counsel- 
ors. He  must  needs  say  something  to  show  his  sound  orthodoxy  as  an 
Anglican,  which  circumstance  renders  his  admissions  all  the  more  valuable 


REFORMATION  IN   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER     III. 

ELIZABETH  — THE    ANGLICAN    CHURCH    FIR  ML  IT 
ESTABLISHED    BY    LAW. 

Q-lance  at  the  four  reigns  of  Henry  VIIL,  Edward  VI.,  Mary,  ar.d  Elizabeth  - 
Elizabeth  the  real  foundress  of  the  Anglican  Church — Four  questions  pro- 
pounded— The  first  question — Temporal  interests  and  political  expediency 
— Elizabeth  and  the  Pontiff — Stern  consistency  of  the  Papacy — Elizabeth 
takes  her  stand — Sir  William  Cecil — Her  insincerity  and  his  intrigues — 
Measures  adopted  for  re-establishing  Anglicanism — Cecil's  plan — Firm 
opposition  of  the  Catholic  bishops — Reasons  for  their  alarm — The  queen 
crowned — And  immediately  breaks  her  solemn  oath — The  second  ques- 
tion— Did  the  Anglican  church  reform  itself? — A  packed  parliament — 
The  convocation  in  the  opposition — How  its  voice  was  hushed — The  pub- 
lic discussion — Bishop  Short  reviewed — Catholic  bishops  imprisoned — 
The  acts  enforcing  conformity — And  establishing  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  and  Thirty-nine  Articles — The  Church  established  by  law — Catholic 
bishops  deposed — The  non-juring  clergy — Vacancies  in  parishes — Me- 
chanics appointed  to  read  the  new  service — Bishop  Short's  testimony — 
Third  question — Foundations  of  Anglican  hierarchy — Embarrassment — 
Parker's  consecration — Three  gi-eat  difficulties  stated — The  validity  of 
Anglican  ordinations  at  least  doubtful — The  question  of  jurisdiction — The 
fourth  question  stated — And  answered — A  curious  "  bull "  of  Elizabeth — 
Elizabeth  swears — Testimony  of  Hallam  and  McCrie — Penal  laws  of 
1562-3 — Lord  Montague's  noble  speech — Hallam  on  Camden  and  Strype — 
Northern  insurrections — A  terrible  and  bloody  code — Hallam  on  Lingard — 
Elizabeth's  Inquisition — Her  "  Pursuivants  " — Fines  for  recusancy — The 
prisons  filled — And  the  magistrates  complaining — Nobility  and  gentry 
ruined — Bloody  executions — Number  of  victims — The  rack  seldom  idle — 
Bull  of  Pope  Pius  V. — Did  not  cause,  but  greatly  aggravated  the  perse- 
cution— Hallam's  testimony — He  confirms  all  our  important  statements — 
Loyality  of  Catholics — Cecil  defends  the  use  of  the  rack — The  hunted 
priests — The  chiu-ch  spoilers — Their  fate — Three  other  Protestant  wit- 
nesses— Notliing  can  soften  Elizabeth — Bishop  Short  on  her  rapacity, 
sacrilege,  and  tj^ranny — The  verdict  of  history  rendered. 

Under  Henry  VHI.  the  foundations  of  the  Anglican  church 
were  laid,  by  the  violent  wresting  of  Englanc'  from  obedience 

(159:) 


160  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

to,  and  communion  with  the  Holy  See;  under  Edward  VI ,  the 
breach  was  made  still  wider,  the  remnants  of  Carhulicity 
which  Henry  had  left  were  swept  away,  and  the  prelimina- 
ries were  arranged  for  a  new  and  distinct  church  organiza- 
tion ;  under  Elizabeth,  finally,  the  work  of  the  Reformation 
was  completed,  the  old  Church  was  finally  destroyed  in  Eng- 
land, and  the  new  church  firmly  established  by  law.  Under 
her  long  reign  of  more  than  forty-fuur  years,  the  new  church 
organization  was  consolidated,  and  England  took  her  finai 
stand  among  the  nations  which  were  arrayed  in  opposition  to 
Rome  and  to  the  Catholic  Church.  Elizabeth  may  then  be 
viewed  as  the  zeal  foundress  of  the  Anglican  church,  as 
established  by  law,  and  as  existing  to  this  day ;  and  to  her 
rightly  belongs  the  merit  or  demerit  of  having  firmly  estab- 
lished in  England  a  new  church  on  the  ruins  of  the  old.* 

Such  being  plainly  the  case,  it  is  not  only  curious,  but 
highly  important  to  inquire,  what  motives  prompted,  and 
what  means  were  employed  to  bring  about  and  to  consummate 
this  final  separation  of  England  from  Catholic  unity. 

1.  Was  the  action  of  Elizabeth  prompted  by  religious,  or 
by  merely  temporal  and  political  motives ;  by  a  newly  born  love 
of  the  truth  as  contained  in  the  new  gospel,  or  by  a  wish  to 
promote  her  own  interests  and  the  consolidation  of  her  own 
throne  ? 

2.  Did  the  regularly  constituted  authorities  and  organs  of 
the  English  church  willingly  adopt  the  change  in  religion, 
and  thereby  make  it  true  that  "  the  English  church  reformed 
itself;"  or  was  the  change  brought  about  by  the  state  in  spite 
of  their  solemn  protest  and  united  opposition  ? 

3.  Were  the  foundations  of  the  new  hierarchy,  which  super- 

*  Bishop  Short,  an  accredited  authority,  admits  this.  He  says  (History 
of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  125)  :  "As  these  documents  together,  (he  is 
speaking  of  the  acts  passed  in  the  first  year  of  Ehzabeth)  form  the  basis  of 
our  present  church,  we  may  deem  the  Reformation  to  have  now  received  its 
accompHshment ;  the  changes  which  have  been  since  made  are  in  theii 
nature  insignificant." 


POLITICAL   EXPEDIENCY.  161 

seded  the  old,  solidly  laid;  or  are  the  claims  of  the  new 
Anglican  bishops  to  valid  orders  and  lawful  jurisdiction  even 
plausibly  defensible  ? 

4.  Finally,  were  the  means  employed  for  establishing  the 
new  religions  order,  and  for  securing  conformity  with  the 
new  worship  and  obedience  to  the  new  organization,  such  as 
are  consistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  and  such  as  we 
would  naturally  look  for  in  a  change  for  the  better  ? 

We  propose  briefly  to  answer  these  four  questions,  in  the 
order  in  which  they  are  here  placed ;  and  the  facts  which  we 
will  endeavor  to  present  under  each  head  will,  if  we  mistake 
not,  go  far  towards  enabling  our  candid  readers  to  form  a 
proper  estimate  of  the  real  foundations  upon  which  rest  the 
claims  of  the  present  Anglican  church  to  be  the  Church  of 
Christ. 

I.  Was  the  action  of  Elizabeth,  in  bringing  about  and 
consummating  the  final  separation  of  England  from  Caftho- 
lic  unity,  prompted  by  religious  or  by  merely  temporal  and 
political  motives  ?  — 

There  can  be  but  one  answer  to  this  question ;  the  facts  of 
history  clearly  allow  of  no  other.  They  all  point  in  one 
direction — not  heavenward  but  earthward.  We  may  not, 
indeed,  penetrate  the  secrets  of  hearts,  which  only  He  "  who 
searcheth  hearts  and  reins"  is  able  to  fathom;  but  it  is  fair 
to  estimate  the  motives  of  public  characters  by  their  un- 
doubted public  acts ;  and,  in  fact,  we  have  no  other  criterion 
than  this  for  forming  a  sound  judgment  on  matters  of  his- 
torical importance.  Judged  by  this  standard,  it  is  altogether 
certain,  that  Elizabeth  was  prompted  to  her  new  course  of 
religious  policy,  not  by  the  love  of  truth,  but  by  temporal 
motives  alone. 

Elizabeth  was  a  Catholic  when  she  ascended  the  throne  on 

the  death  of  Mary,  in  November,  1558.    As  we  have  already 

seen,  she  had  conformed  to  the  Catholic  faith  during  the 

reign  of  her  sister,  and  had  striven  to  give  palpable  evidence 

VOL.  II. — 14 


162  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

of  her  sincerity  by  the  zeal  and  alacrity  with  which  she  pei 
formed  the  outward  duties  of  the  ancient  religion,  which  she 
had  with  so  much  seeming  willingness  embraced.  The 
Catholics  at  first  seem  to  have  trusted  her  sincerity ;  the 
Protestants  hoped  that  she  had  conformed  only  temporarily, 
through  motives  of  enlightened  self-interest,  and  that  her  real 
sympathies  were  still  with  them.  The  Protestants  were  right, 
and  the  Catholics  were  deceived,  as  the  event  abundantly 
proved.*  With  the  sturdy  self-will  and  tyrannical  spirit  of 
her  father,  she  had  inherited  the  coquetry,  the  finesse,  and 
the  insincerity  of  her  mother ;  but  she  was  endowed  with  far 
more  adroitness  and  cunning,  was  possessed  of  far  more  ad- 
ministrative ability,  and  was  probably  guided  in  her  conduct 
by  less  of  moral  principle,  than  either  of  her  parents.  All 
this  is  proved  by  the  whole  tenor  of  her  long  reign. 

2.  It  is  probable  that  she  was  really  indifierent  on  the 
subject  of  religion,  and  that  if  it  had  suited  her  interests  as 
wel},  she  would  have  continued  a  zealous  Catholic,  and  would 
have  maintained  the  Catholic  religion  just  as  she  found  it  on 
her  accession.  But  she  was  well  aware,  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  through  the  Pope,  had  decided  against  the  divorce  of 
her  father  and  his  attempted  marriage  with  her  mother, 
thereby  declaring  her  own  birth  illegitimate ;  and  that,  as  a 
principle  was  involved,  and  the  Catholic  Church  never  yields 
a  principle,  she  could  not  reasonably  hope  that  her  claim  to 
be  considered  the  lawful  heir  of  her  father  and  the  rightful 
successor  to  the  throne,  however  it  might  be  acquiesced  in  as 

*  There  is  no  evidence  to  sustain  what  Hallam  says,  in  his  Constitutional 
History  of  England  (p.  71)  concerning  Elizabeth's  "forced  compliance  with 
the  Catholic  rites  during  the  late  reign."  As  we  have  seen,  Mary  treated 
her  with  the  utmost  kindness,  and  no  threats,  much  less  forcible  means, 
were  employed  for  her  conversion ;  to  the  full  sincerity  of  which  Elizabeth 
most  solemnly  swore  before  her  sister's  death.  Oaths,  however,  seemed  to 
have  cost  her  very  little,  and  to  have  weighed  but  very  lightly  on  her  pecu- 
liarly versatile  and  elastic  conscience.  What  cared  she,  if  the  earth  did  open 
and  swallow  her  up,  in  case  she  did  not  tell  the  truth ! — she  had  not  suffi- 
cient faith  to  make  this  terrible  imprecation  even  impressive. 


POPE   PAUL   IV.  163 

a  matter  of  fact,  would  ever  be  formally  recognized  on  prm- 
ciple  by  the  Pontiffs  or  the  Church. 

This  apprehension  was  still  further  increased  by  the  answer 
of  Pope  Paul  IV.  to  Carne,  the  English  ambassador  at  Rome, 
when  the  latter  announced  to  him  her  accession  to  the  throne, 
with  the  additional  message  containing  her  promise,  that  she 
would  offer  no  violence  to  the  consciences  of  her  subjects. 
The  aged  Pontiff — he  had  passed  his  eightieth  year — is  said 
to  have  responded  rather  coolly,  that  "  he  could  not  com- 
prehend the  hereditary  right  of  one  not  born  in  lawful  wed- 
lock ;  that  the  queen  of  Scots  claimed  the  crown  as  the 
nearest  legitimate  descendant  of  Henry  VIL ;  but  that,  if 
Elizabeth  were  willing  to  submit  the  controversy  to  his  arbi- 
tration, she  should  receive  from  him  every  indulgence  which 
justice  could  allow."*     If  this  statement  may  be  relied  on,f 

*  Pallavicino,  Storia  del  Concilio  di  Trento,  ii,  521 ;  quoted  by  Lingard, 
History  of  England,  vii,  253. 

f  In  his  Constitutional  History  of  England,  (p.  72,  note,)  Mr.  Hallam 
says,  in  reference  to  this  alleged  message  to  the  Pontiff  and  the  answer  of 
the  latter :  "  This  remarkable  fact,  which  runs  through  all  domestic  and 
foreign  histories,  has  been  disputed,  and,  as  far  as  appears,  disproved  by  the 
late  editor  of  Dodd's  Church  History  of  England  (vol.  iv,  preface,)  on  the 
authority  of  Game's  own  letters  in  the  State  Paper  office.  It  is  at  least 
highly  probable,  not  to  say  evident  from  these,  that  Elizabeth  never  con- 
templated so  much  intercourse  with  the  Pope,  even  as  a  temporal  sovereign, 
or  (as  ?)  to  notify  her  accession  to  him ;  and  it  had  before  been  shown  by 
Strype,  that  on  December  1,  1558,  an  order  was  despatched  to  Carne,  for- 
bidding him  to  proceed  in  an  ecclesiastical  suit,  wherein,  as  English  ambas- 
sador, he  had  lieen  engaged."  Mr.  Tierney,  the  editor  of  Dodd,  ascribes  the 
story  to  "the  inventive  powers  of  Paul  Sarpi."  However,  it  had  been  stated, 
or  copied,  by  Spondanus  and  Pallavicino,  and  from  them  had  passed  to  most 
historians. 

One  thing  appears  certain :  that  Elizabeth's  early  movements  against 
Rome  were  taken  without  any  reference  whatever  to  the  alleged  reply  of  the 
Pontiff,  which  she  could  not  have  had  time  to  receive,  before  she  took  her 
final  stand  on  the  subject  of  religion.  This  is  clearly  proved  by  Hallam,  by 
reference  to  dates  and  other  arguments.  He  says  :  "  But  it  is  chiefly  mate- 
rial to  observe,  that  Elizabeth  displayed  her  determination  to  keep  aloof  from 
Rome  in  the  very  beginning  of  her  reign  ; "  and  again,  "  From  the  dates  oi 


164  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETTH. 

probably  the  Pontifl'  had  been  previously  addressed  on  the 
subject  by  the  French  ambassador,  who  had  strongly  urged 
the  claims  of  Mary  of  Scots ;  she  having  lately  become  the 
daughter-in-law  of  the  French  monarch,  by  marrying  Fran- 
cis, his  eldest  son  and  the  heir  to  the  throne. 

The  alleged  response  of  •  the  Pontiff,  if  unfortunate  and 
highly  impolitic,  as  it  may  have  been,  was  at  least  dictated 
by  sound  principle,  and  by  that  love  of  truth  which  rises 
above  all  merely  human  considerations  and  leaves  conse- 
quences in  the  hands  of  God.  It  was  fully  in  conformity 
with  the  hereditary  traditions  of  the  Papacy,  which  has 
always  preferred  truth  and  justice  to  mere  expediency.  The 
opinion  of  the  Pontiff,  if  ever  uttered,  was,  moreover,  clearly 
in  accordance  with  the  declaration  of  the  English  statute 
book  itself,  upon  which  the  record  of  her  mother's  attainder 
and  of  Elizabeth's  illegitimacy  still  remained  unrepealed. 
The  result  was,  to  confirm  Elizabeth  in  her  determination  to 
abolish  the  Catholic  religion  in  England,  and  to  set  up  another 
of  her  own  creation,  which  would  be  more  supple  in  prin- 
ciple, more  compliant  with  her  wishes,  and  more  subservient 
to  her  policy.  She  was  haunted  by  the  phantom  of  a  Cath- 
olic rival  to  the  throne  from  the  very  moment  of  her  acces- 
sion ;  and  this  phantom,  while  it  seems  to  have  thus  deter- 
mined her  early  policy,  pursued  her  during  more  than  half  of 
her  long  reign,  until  it  was  finally  laid  by  the  bloody  consum- 
mation of  a  cruelty,  combined  with  a  treachery  unparalelled 
in  the  annals  of  history — the  barbarous  murder  of  her  cousin, 
poor  Mary  of  Scots! 

these  and  other  facts,  it  may  be  fairly  inferred  that  Elizabeth's  resolution 
was  formed  independently  of  the  Pope's  behaviour  towards  Came."— Constit. 
Hist.,  p.  72,  note. 

The  argument  in  the  text  is  based  on  the  supposed  authenticity  of  the  Pope's 
answer  to  Came,  as  generally  reported  by  historians.  If  this  be  not  true, 
however,  the  argument  is  not  weakened,  but,  in  one  point  of  view,  rather 
strengthened ;  for  then  the  action  of  Elizabeth  w;vs  wholly  unprovoked,  and 
her  insult  to  the  rehgion  of  her  subjects  more  atrocious,  because  wanton  and 
without  any  excuse.    The  truth  is,  she  wished  to  be  Pope,  or  Popess,  herself! 


INTRIGUES    OF   SIR    WILLIAM    CECIL.  165 

3.  Having  determined  on  her  line  of  policy,  Elizabeth 
chose  her  instruments  for  carrying  it  out.  In  this  she  dis- 
played that  sagacity  in  the  selection  of  her  advisers,  which 
distinguished  her  throughout  her  reign.  She  chose,  as  her 
prime  minister  and  principal  counselor,  a  man  as  remarkable 
for  his  signal  ability  in  the  administration  of  public  aflairs, 
as  for  his  utter  disregard  of  principle  in  carrying  out  his 
measures.  Sir  William  Cecil  was  a  man  after  Elizabeth's 
own  heart.  Pardoned  by  the  clemency  of  Mary  for  his  par- 
ticipation in  the  treason  of  Northumberland,  he  had,  like 
Elizabeth,  conformed  to  the  Catholic  religion,  and  had  taken 
great  pains  to  ingratiate  himself  with  Mary  by  outward  com- 
pliance with  Catholic  duties  and  an  aflectation  of  zeal  for 
Catholic  interests,  especially  in  bringing  about  the  reconcilia- 
tion with  Rome.  But  Mary  with  reason  distrusted  his  sin- 
cerity, and  was  slow  in  bestowing  on  him  her  confidence,  in 
spite  of  Cardinal  Pole's  recommendation.  Cecil,  thus  foiled 
in  his  ambition,  directed  his  attention  towards  Elizabeth, 
"the  rising  sun"  and  heir  presumptive  to  the  crown;  and  by 
his  wily  arts  and  fulsome  flattery,  he  succeeded  in  worming 
himself  fully  into  her  confidence,  even  during  the  latter  days 
of  her  sister's  reign.  From  the  moment  of  her  accession,  he 
became  the  controlling  spirit  of  her  council,  and  regulated 
her  whole  policy.  He  was  as  ready  as  she,  to  turn  his  back 
on  the  old  Church,  and  to  undertake  the  task  of  destroying  it 
from  the  face  of  England.  To  accomplish  this  end  the  more 
surely,  he  suggested  the  following  plan,  which  was  acted  on 
within  the  first  montli  of  Elizabeth's  reign:* 

"  1.  To  forbid  all  manner  of  sermons,  that  the  preachers  (Catholic)  might 
not  excite  their  hearers  to  resistance  ;  2.  to  intimidate  the  clergy  by  prose- 
cutions under  the  statute  of  prasmunire  and  other  penal  laws ;  3.  to  debase 
in  the  eyes  of  the  people  all  who  had  been  in  authority  under  the  late 
queen,  by  rigorous  inquiries  into  their  conduct,  and  by  bringing  them,  when- 
ever it  was  possible,  under  the  lash  of  the   law ;  4.  to  remove   the  present 

=^   Lingard,  vii,  p.  244-5.      Condensed  from  the  paper  as  published  by 
Burnet,  ii,  327,  and  more  accurately  t"  Strype,  Annals,  i,  Rec.  4. 
42 


166  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

magistrates,  and  to  appoint  others  'mcianer  in  substance  and  younger  in 
years,'  but  better  affected  towards  the  reformed  doctrines ;  5.  to  name  a 
secret  committee  of  divines,  who  should  revise  and  correct  the  liturgy  pub 
lished  by  Edward  VI. ;  and  lastly,  to  communicate  the  plan  to  no  othei 
persons  than  Parr,  the  late  marquess  of  Northampton,  the  earls  of  Bedford 
and  Pembroke,  and  the  lord  John  Grrey,  till  the  time  should  arrive  when  it 
must  be  laid  before  the  whole  council." 

4.  By  degrees  this  secret  movement  became  generally 
known.  The  Catholic  bishops,  most  of  whom  were  then  in 
London  to  attend  the  funeral  of  Mary  and  assist  at  the  coro- 
nation of  her  successor,  were  justly  alarmed.  Their  appre- 
hension was  increased  by  the  arrest  and  impris(.)nment  of 
Bishop  White  of  Winchester,  for  having  dared  defend  the 
Catholic  religion  in  his  funeral  sermon  over  the  remains  of 
the  late  queen;  it  settled  down  into  a  conviction  of  coming 
mischief  to  the  Church,  when  a  royal  proclamation  appeared, 
forbidding  the  clergy  to  preach,  and  ordering  the  established 
worship  to  be  observed  "  until  consultation  might  be  had  in 
parliament  by  the  queen  and  the  three  estates."  Another 
indication  of  the  royal  councils  tended  still  further  to  aggra- 
vate the  alarm.  Oglethorpe,  bishop  of  Carlisle,  when  about 
to  celebrate  Mass  in  the  royal  chapel  on  Christmas  day, 
received  an  order  not  to  elevate  the  sacred  Host  in  the 
queen's  presence.  He  replied,  with  noble  independence, 
"  that  his  life  was  the  queen's,  but  his  conscience  his  own ; 
on  which  Elizabeth,  rising  immediately  after  the  gospel, 
retired  with  her  attendants."* 

5.  Thank  God,  thei*e  was  now  found  to  exist  some  independ- 
ence of  royal  dictation  in  the  episcopal  body;  which  appears 
to  have  been  only  surprised  into  acquiescence  or  conformity 
in  Henry's  reign,  but  had  now  learned  by  bitter  experience 
the  wiles  of  unscrupulous  politicians  seeking  to  destroy  the 
Church  of  God.  The  bishops  immediately  met  in  council, 
and  after  mature  deliberation,  unanimously  resolved,  that 
they  could   not  in  conscience  assist  at  the  consecration  of  a 


*  Lingard,  vii,  p.  255.     Camden  33,  34.  etc. 


DID    TIIK    CIILRCH    REFORM    ITSELF?  167 

queen,  who  even  at  this  early  day  undertook,  by  her  sale  will, 
to  settle  against  them  grave  questions  of  theology ;  who 
would  probably  take  it  upon  herself  to  set  aside,  in  the  same 
arbitrary  way,  the  most  solemn  and  important  rites  of  the 
coronation  service  itself;  and  who,  if  she  took  the  usual  oath 
to  uphold  with  her  entire  authority  the  freedom  and  stability 
of  the  established  Catholic  Church,  could  not  reasonably  be 
expected  to  comply  with  her  solemnly  sworn  promise, 

Elizabeth  and  Cecil  were  now  embarassed ;  their  artful 
design  had  prematurely  transpired,  and  fears  were  entertained 
that  it  might  meet  with  serious  popular  opposition,  perhaps 
be  entirely  thwarted,  should  the  queen  not  be  crowned  in  the 
usual  way.  At  length,  the  scruples  of  Oglethorpe  were  over- 
come, and  he  consented  to  crown  the  queen,  but  only  on  con- 
dition that  the  entire  service  should  be  performed,  and  that 
she  should  take  the  oath  in  its  usual  form.  She  did  so,  and 
solemnly  sealed  it  by  the  reception  of  the  holy  Sawament 
under  one  kind.  How  she  kept  her  oath — or  rather  how 
recklessly  she  trampled  it  under  foot  ahnost  immediately 
afterwards* — we  shall  see  more  fully  in  the  answer  to  the 
second  question. f 

*  The  coronation  took  place  January  15,  1559  ;  the  parliament  which 
abohshed  the  religion  she  had  so  solemnly  sworn  to  uphold,  was  opened  on 
the  25th  of  the  same  month — only  ten  days  afterwards.  The  bishops  were 
clearly  right  in  doubting  her  sincerity. 

f  Says  Macaulay  (Review  of  Hallam's  Constit.  History)  : 
"  Elizaljeth  clearly  discerned  the  advantages  which  were  to  be  derived 
from  a  close  connection  between  the  monarchy  and  the  priesthood.  At  the 
time  of  her  accession,  indeed,  she  evidently  meditated  a  partial  reconciliation 
with  Rome.  And  throughout  her  whole  life,  she  leaned  strongly  to  some  of 
the  most  obnoxious  parts  of  the  Catholic  system.  But  her  imperious  temper, 
her  keen  sagacity,  and  her  peculiar  situation,  soon  led  her  to  attach  herself 
completely  to  a  church  which  was  all  her  own.  On  the  same  principle  on 
which  she  joined  it,  she  attempted  to  drive  all  her  people  within  its  pale  by 
persecution.  She  supported  it  by  severe  penal  laws,  not  because  she  ^thought 
conformity  to  its  discipline  necessary  to  salvation,  but  because  it  was  the 
fastness  which  arbitrary  power  was  making  strong  for  itself;  because 


168  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZ.VBETH. 

II.  Did  the  regularly  constituted  authorities  and  organs 
of  the  English  church  wilUngly  adopt  the  change  of  reli- 
gion, and  thereby  make  it  true  that  "  the  English  c-hurch 
reformed  itself; "  or  was  the  change  brought  about  by  the 
state  in  spite  of  their  solenm  protest  and  united  opposition  ? 

Nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  the  truth  of  the  propo- 
sition implied  in  the  latter  member  of  the  question.  The 
popular  theory — that  "the  English  church  reformed  itself" — 
is  a  mere  fiction  of  the  imagination,  and  it  has  not  even  the 
shadow  of  a  foundation  in  the  real  facts  of  English  history. 
The  change  of  religion  in  England  was  introduced  and  ac 
'Complished  solely  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  state,  and. in 
direct  opposition  to  the  known  and  clearly  expressed  wishes, 
not  only  of  the  entire  Catholic  episcopate,  but  of  nearly  all 
the  higher  clergy,  including  the  leading  members  of  the  two 
great  universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  It  was  made, 
too,  in  plain  opposition  to  the  faith  and  will  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  English  population,  which  was  still  Catholic. 
By  what  expedients  the  religious  revolution  was  brought 
about,  under  such  seemingly  untoward  circumstances,  we  will 
now  attempt  briefly  to  show. 

1.  The  parliament,  which  was  to  accomplish  the  great 
work,  had  been  previously  carefully  packed  by  the  arch 
manceuvrer,  Cecil.  To  secure  a  majority  in  the  upper  house, 
five  new  lords  of  well  known  Protestant  principles  were 
created ;  while  a  majority  was  obtained  in  the  commons  by 
the  high-handed  measure  of  sending  to  the  sherifts  of  the 
counties  lists  of  court-candidates,  out  of  which  the  members 

expected  a  more  profound  obedience  from  those  who  saw  in  her  both  their 
civil  and  their  ecclesiastical  head,  than  from  those  who,  like  the  Papists, 
ascribed  spiritual  authority  to  the  Pope,  or  from  those  who,  like  some  of  the 
Puritans,  ascribed  it  only  to  Heaven.  To  dissent  from  her  establishment 
was  to  dissent  from  an  i-lstitution  founded  with  an  express  view  to  the 
anaintenance  and  extension  •)f  the  royal  prerogative." 


A    PACKED    PARLIAMENT DESPOTIC    TONE.  1G9 

to  be  returned  must  be  selected.*  With  a 'parliament  thus 
artfully  selected,  composed  of  crouching  aspira  ts  after  court 
favor  and  of  greedy  new  lords  who  had  their  fortunes  to 
make  out  of  the  remaining  spoils  of  the  old  Church,  Cecil 
entertained  no  apprehensions  of  failure  in  carrying  out  his 
favorite  project.  Constituted  as  it  was,  the  parliament 
clearly  did  not  fairly  represent  the  sentiment  of  England,  and 
its  action  could  be  no  certain  exponent  of  the  opinions, 
religious  or  otherwise,  of  the  English  masses.  The  members 
were,  like  Cecil's  new  magistrates,  "  meaner  in  substance  and 
younger  in  years,"  than  their  predecessors ;  but,  for  this  very 
reason,  they  were  all  the  better  qualified  to  do  the  work 
which  was  expected  of  them.  And  they  did  it  accordingly, 
most  promptly  and  most  zealously. 

The  better,  however,  to  prepare  their  minds  for  obedience 
to  the  royal  will,  the  queen's  opening  speech,  delivered  by 
the  new  lord  keeper,  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  was  marked  by  the 
imperious  tone  of  Henry  YIII. ;  and  it  boldly  assumed  the 
ground  of  an  absolute  and  all  absorbing  royal  prerogative, 
which  could  illy  brook  popular  opposition.  Such  a  pretension 
was  comparatively  unknown  in  the  good  old  Catholic  times, 
and  it  had  become  fashionable  only  since  England  had  con- 
sented humbly  to  lay  her  reli'gion,  and  with  it  the  liberties  of 
her  Catholic  Magna  Charta,  at  the  foot  of  the  throne.f  The 
houses  of  parliament  "were  not,  however,  to  sup])ose,  that 
their  concurrence  was  necessary  for  these  purposes — the  queen 
could  have  effected  them  if  she  had  so  pleased,  of  her  own 
authority — but  'she  rather  sought  contentation  by  assent, 
and  surety  by  advice,  and  was  willing  to  require  of  her  lov- 

*  "  The  court  named  five  candidates  for  shires,  or  counties,  and  three  for 
the  boroughs."— Str3^pe,  i,  32.     Ibid.,  p.  257. 

f  How  very  different  was  the  tone  of  her  sister,  the  "bloody  Mary,"  wlio 
had  the  noble  courage  to  relinquish  prerogative  and  to  restore  the  ancient 
Catholic  constitution  of  England  to  its  pnsiine  freedom  and  integrity,  we 
have  already  seen  in  the  pre>  'ous  chapter,  on  the  authority  of  Miss  Strick- 
'and. 

VOL.    II. 15 


170  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

ing  subjects  nothing  which  they  were  not  contented   freely 
and  frankly  to  offer.' "  * 

'2.  In  the  commons,  as  was  already  foreseen  and  carefully 
provided  for,  the  bill  to  abolish  the  old  and  establish  the  new 
religion,  passed  without  much,  at  least  serious  opposition  ;  in 
the  lords,  it  passed  only  after  a  stormy  debate.  But  what  is 
more  to  our  present  purpose,  in  the  convocation  of  the  clergy, 
it  experienced  a  most  vigorous  and  unanimous,  but  fruitless 
opposition.  This  body  presented  to  the  house  of  lords  u 
memorial,  setting  forth  their  full  and  unshaken  belief  in  all 
the  principal  articles  of  the  Catholic  faith,  with  a  solemn 
protestation,  "that  to  decide  on  doctrine,  sacraments,  and 
discipline  belonged,  not  to  any  lay  assembly,  but  to  he  aw- 
ful pastors  of  the  Church.  Both  universities  subscribed  the 
confession  of  the  convocation,  and  the  bishops  unanhnously 
seized  every  opportunity  to  speak  and  vote  against  the 
measure."! 

To  neutralize  or  overcome  this  opposition,  Cecil  adopted  an 
expedient  well  worthy  of  his  sagacity.  He  ordered  a  public 
dispute  on  religion  between  five  Catholic  bishops  and  three 
Catholic  doctors  on  the  one  side,  and  eight  Protestant  minis- 
ters on  the  other.  The  lord  keeper  Bacon — a  violent  partisan 
of  the  new  gospelers — was  appointed  to  act  as  moderator; 
and  the  debates  of  parliament  were  suspended  that  all  might 
be  able  to  attend  the  discussion.  The  manifestly  partial 
regulation  was  adopted,  that  on  each  day  of  the  debate  the 
Catholic  side  should  have  the  opening  and  the  Protestant  the 
closing  argument :  and  when,  on  the  second  day,  the  bishops 
objected  to  this  unjust  arrangement,  and  claimed  equal  pri- 
vileges with  their  adversaries,  their  request  was  sternly 
refused  by  Bacon ;  whereupon  the  bishops  refused  to  go  on 
with   the  discussion,  under  disadvantages  so  manifest  and 

*  The  hand  of  the  adroit  and  wily  Cecil  is  apparent  in  this  speech,  which 
'vhile  claimin":  despotic  power,  seems  to  defer  to  the  wishes  of  the  people. 
Bee  Strype,  and  D'Ewes,  ii. 

t  Wilkins,  Ooncil.  iv.,  179.     Ibid.,  p.  260. 


THE   CHURCH    ESTABLISHED   BY    LAW.  ill 

glaring.  This  seems  to  have  been  precisely  the  i-eisiUL  con- 
templated and  desired  by  Cecil.  Two  of  the  most  influential 
bishops — of  Winchester  and  Lincoln — were  committed  to  the 
tower,  and  the  other  six  disputants  on  the  Catholic  side  weie 
bound  over  to  make  their  appearance  daily,  till  judgment 
would  be  pronounced  on  them.* 

The  desired  object  was  now  attained:  the  majority  wa8 
fully  assured  in  the  house  of  lords  by  the  efiectual  silencing 
of  two  strong  voices  ;  and  it  was  calculated  with  confidence, 
that  the  fear  of  similar  punishment  by  the  rest  of  the  clergy 
would  break,  if  not  silence,  the  determined  opposition  in  the 
convocation.  The  convocation  does  not  seem  to  have  yielded 
to  the  menace ;  but  such  of  its  members  as  had  a  vote  in 
parliament  were  utterly  powerless  to  prevent  the  passage  of 
the  additional  bill  in  favor  of  the  new  book  of  Common 
Prayer,  which  was  adopted  in  the  house  of  lords,  however, 
only  by  the  meagre  majority  of  three ;  nine  temporal  and 
nine  spiritual  lords — including  all  the  bishops  who  could  be 
in  attendance — voting  against  its  passage. 

3.  The  bills  passed  on  the  subject  of  religion,  in  this  first 
parliament  under  Elizabeth,  provided  for  the  repeal  of  all  the 

*  They  attended  daily  for  more  than  a  month — from  the  5th  of  April  till 
the  10th  of  May,  1559  —  and  were  then  heavily  fined.  Strype,  i,  87.  Rec. 
41.     Foxe,  iii,  822,  etc.  Ibid. 

Bishop  Short  is  very  unfair  in  his  statement  of  this  discussion.  He  omits 
many  of  the  facts  and  distorts  others.  Following  a  document  signed  "  by 
several  of  the  privy  council "  republished  by  the  partisan  Burnet,  he  lays  all 
the  blame  for  breaking  up  the  discussion  on  the  Catholic  bishops.  Still  he 
admits  the  fact  of  the  harsh  treatment  of  the  disputants  and  the  imprison- 
ment of  the  two  Cathohc  bishops  ;  "a  step,"  he  adds,  "which,  though  it  may 
possibly  be  defended,  on  the  plea  of  their  disorderly  (!)  conduct,  can  not  but 
appear  severe  and  vexatious."  He  says  the  Catholic  bishops  objected  "  in 
toto  to  thus  allowing  the  laity  to  become  judges  in  ecclesiastical  aflfairs  ; " 
which  objection  was  reasonable  enough.  He  concludes  :  "  Thus  ended  the 
disputation,  of  which  the  result  was  such  as  might  naturally  have  been  ex- 
pected, in  which  all  the  passions  are  excited  by  its  publicity,  and  no  room 
left  for  quiet  discussion  ;  and  yet  it  was  not  tuithout  its  use." —  History  of  the 
Church  of  England,  p.  120-1,  and  note. 


172  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

laws  restoring  the  Catholic  religion  enacted  under  the  late 
reign,  and  for  the  revival  of  the  acts  of  Henry  VIII.  against 
the  papal  supremacy,  as  well  as  of  those  of  Edward  VI.  in 
favor  of  the  reformed  worship.  The  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  as  amended  by  the  committee  of  divines  already 
referred  to,  was  ordered  to  be  everywhere  used  under  the 
penalties  of  confiscation  of  property,  of  deprivation  of  oflSce, 
and  n\timiite\ J  rrf  deatJi  itself!*  All  spiritual  jurisdiction, 
for  the  correction  of  heresies  and  abuses,  was  declared  to  be 
vested  in  the  crown,  and  it  might  be  delegated  "  to  any  per- 
son or  persons  whatever  at  the  pleasure  of  the  sovereign." 
The  penalties  for  asserting  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope  were : 
forfeiture  of  all  real  and  personal  property  for  the  first  ofiense, 
perpetual  imprisonment  for  the  second,  and  the  death  of  a 
traitor  for  the  third  !  Finally,  all  clergymen  taking  orders  or 
having  livings,  all  magistrates  and  inferior  oflicers  paid  by 
the  government,  as  well  as  laymen  suing  out  the  livery  of 
their  lands,  or  about  to  do  homage  to  the  queen,  should,  under 
penalty  of  deprivation,  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  whereby 
they  renounced  all  foreign  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  whatever 
within  the  realm,  and  acknowledged  the  queen  as  supreme 
head  and  governor  of  the  church  in  England,  in  all  things 
and  causes  spiritual  as  well  as  temporal. f 

4.  The  creed  of  the  new  church,  like  its  worship,  had 
undergone  various  changes,  and  had  been  improved  by 
various  amendments  in  the  previous  reigns  of  Henry  and 
Edward.  Under  Henry,  the  number  of  articles  to  be  believed 
under  penalty  of  death  was  reduced  to  six;  under  Edward, 
these  six  were  all  excluded,  and  forty-two  were  substituted  in 
their  place ;  under  Elizabeth,  the  matter  of  doctrine  was  still 
further  reconsidered,  and  the  number  of  articles  was  reduced 
to  thirty-nine,  as  they  stand  to  this  day.  They  passed,  with 
very  little  debate,  in  the  convocation  of  1563,  which  during 

*  For  more  on  the  Book  of  Common  Prajer  and  the  AHicles  of  Religion 
we  note  A.  at  the  end  of  this  vohmie. 

I-  suit.  1,  Ehzabeth  L     Lingard,  ibid.,  vii,  260. 


A    LAV/    AND    PARLIAMENT- CHURCH.  173 

the  previous  four  years  had  been  duly  expurgated  and  drilled 
into  conformity  by  the  government.  The  convocation  waa 
still,  indeed,  through  the  royal  clemency,  permitted  to  as- 
semble simultaneously  with  the  parliament ;  without  whose 
authority  and  that  of  the  council,  however,  the  clergy  could 
accomplish  nothing.  Thus,  in  the  present  instance,  the  con- 
vocation wished  also  to  make  provision  for  the  adequate  sup- 
port of  the  inferior  clergy,  as  well  as  to  establish  a  code  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline  ;  but  they  were  peremptorily  ordered 
to  pass  over  these  matters,  as  not  within  their  province,  and 
to  confine  themselves  to  the  exposition  of  doctrine.  Thus 
again,  the  convocation  labored  hard  to  force  these  articles  on 
the  consciences  of  all,  and  to  make  the  rejection  of  them  a 
penal  ofiense ;  but  the  council  opposed  and  defeated  their 
design,  as  not  then  necessary  against  the  Catholics,  who  were 
already  completely  at  the  mercy  of  the  government,  and  as 
being  offensive  to  the  Protestant  dissenters  whom  it  was 
thought  prudent  to  conciliate.  All  officials  of  the  new  church 
were,  however,  compelled  to  sign  them  under  pain  of  depri- 
vation.* 

5.  Such  was  the  sweeping  and  terrible  legislation,  by  which, 
in  a  few  short  days,  the  religion  and  tlie  worship  which  had 
been  hallowed  by  reverent  adoption  and  constant  use,  with 
but  slight  interruption,  for  nearly  a  thousand  years  in  Eng- 
land, were  ruthlessly  swept  away  forever !  The  work  of 
destruction  was  evidently  accomplished  by  laymen,  headed 
by  a  \'dj-woman,  against  the  solemn  protest  and  united  oppo- 
sition of  the  bishops  and  of  the  higher  clergy  of  England. 
It  was  done  by  persons  to  whom  Christ  never  certainly  dele- 
gated any  spiritual  authority  whatsoever,  and  who  were  there- 
fore evidently  incompetent  either  to  set  up  one  church  or  to 
destroy  another,  to  adopt  one  set  of  doctrines  and  one  kind 
of  worship,  or  to  abolish  another.  It  was  done  by  men  clothed 
with    no    spiritual    authority,    but   armed   with    the   caiiial 

*  See  for  authorities  Lingard,  ibid,  p.  318  seq. 


174  ANGIJCAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

weapons  of  civil  power  alone.  Hence,  they  very  appropn 
ately  hedged  their  new  church  around  with  civil  pains  and 
penalties,  and  made  the  chief  executive  in  temporals  iti 
supreme  head  also  in  spirituals.  It  was  thus  manifestly  a 
law  and  a  parliament-church,  from  its  very  inception,  and  it 
could,  by  no  possibility,  be  regarded  in  any  other  light.  It 
was  a  novelty  in  legislation,  before  utterly  unheard  of  in  all 
Christian  times,  to  declare  the  supreme  spiritual  jurisdiction 
and  power  vested  in  a  woman  ;  and  thus,  while  rejecting  the 
Pope,  really  setting  up  a  popess ; — clad,  too,  with  power  far 
more  ample  than  ever  Roman  Pope  claimed,  or  even  thought 
of  claiming!* 

6.  Of  all  the  bishops,  only  one — Kitchin  of  Llandaff — could 
be  prevailed  upon  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  and  he  did 
it  with  reluctance,  and  only  to  retain  his  see.  The  rest  were 
immediately  deposed,  and  many  of  them  imprisoned. f     The 

*  Of  the  nature  of  the  headship  over  the  church  of  England  claimed  by 
Elizabeth,  we  will  speak  more  fully  a  little  further  on,  when  we  will  come 
tx)  treat  of  the  oath  of  supremacy.  It  will  be  seen,  that  what  is  here  stated 
in  the  text  is  not  too  strong.  Bishop  Short  says  as  much,  in  substance,  in 
more  than  one  place.  Thus,  among  other  instances  of  high-handed  author- 
ity, he  mentions  her  having  suspended  her  primate,  Grindal  archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  for  having  dared  write  her  a  respectful  letter  of  remonstrance 
on  a  matter  purely  ecclesiastical.     See  his  Church  History  etc.,  p.  l-tO-seq. 

f  This  is  confirmed  by  Hallam,  a  moderately  just,  but  prejudiced  Angli- 
can writer,  as  appears  particularly  from  his  two  elaborate  chapters  on  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth ;  in  one  of  which  he  speaks  of  her  treatment  of  Cath- 
olics, in  the  other  of  that  of  dissenters.  He  tells  the  truth  by  instalments, 
►  and  with  sundry  qualifications  and  awkward  interruptions,  as  an  English 
orator  often  pauses  in  speaking,  to  recover  his  breath  and  collect  his  ideas  ! 
He  tells  us  that  the  number  of  Catholic  bishops  happened  then  "  not  to  ex- 
ceed sixteen,  one  of  whom  was  prevailed  on  to  conform ;  while  the  rest, 
refusing  the  oath  of  supremacy,  were  deprived  of  their  bishoprics  by  the 
court  of  ecclesiastical  High  Commission." — Constit.  History,  p.  73. 

He  admits  (Ibid.,  p.  72)  that  all  the  bishops  opposed  the  new  religious 
establishment : 

"  These  acts  did  not  pass  without  considerable  opposition  among  the  lords ; 
nine  temporal  peers,  besides  all  the  bishops,  having  protested  against  the  bill 


THIRD    QUESTION — ANGLICAN    ORDINATIONS.  175 

same  may  be  said  of  the  great  body  of  the  higher  and  more 
learned  and  pious  of  the  clergy ;  such  as  the  deans,  preben- 
daries, archdeacons,  and  leading  members  of  the  two  uni- 
versities, who  nobly  preferred  to  the  sacrifice  of  their  con- 
sciences the  loss  of  their  places,  and,  as  happened  in  naany 
cases,  of  their  personal  liberty.  It  was  only  among  the  lower 
clergy,  who  either  dreaded  the  hardships  of  poverty  or  ex- 
pected another  speedy  change  in  religion,  that  the  odious  oath 
was  taken  by  any  considerable  number.  Still,  with  every 
effort  to  induce  them  to  conform,  and  after  repeated  injunc- 
tions and  commissions  issued  and  appointed  by  the  govern- 
ment, in  order  the  more  effectually  to  purge  out  the  non- 
juring  clergy,  the  number  of  vacancies  was  still  so  great  in 
the  parishes,  that  lay-teachers,  mostly  mechanics,  had  to  be 
employed  to  read  the  new  service.* 
This  leads  us  to  the  third  question: 

of  Uniformity  establishing  the  Anglican  Liturgy,  though  some  pains  had 
been  taken  to  soften  the  passages  obnoxious  to  Catholics." 

Bishop  Short  confirms  all  this.     Tie  says  : 

"  During  the  whole  of  the  debate  on  this  act  (of  conformity)  the  strongest 
opposition  was  shown  on  the  part  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  bishops,  wlw  advo- 
cated the  cause  of  civil  liberty;  being  naturally  adverse  to  opinions  so  much 
at  variance  with  what  they  had  lately  professed,  and  which  were  at  the 
same  time  likely  to  eject  them  from  their  preferments."  ....  "All  the 
bishops,  with  the  exception  of  one  only,  Kitchin  of  Llandaff,  refused  to  do 
so  (to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,)  and  were  ejected  from  their  sees  to  the 
number  of  fourteen."     Sup.  cit.  p.  120-1. 

*  Strype,  i,  139  etc.     Lingard,  ibid.,  p.  265. 

Bishop  Short  speaks  of  the  deplorable  state  to  which  the  two  universities 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  were  reduced  a  year  after  Elizabeth's  accession, 
and  he  quotes  for  this  purpose  Jewell  and  Bullinger,  who  declare  the  mem- 
bers "without  piety,  without  religion,  without  a  doctor,  without  any  hope 
of  hterature,  etc."  (p.  123,  note.)  The  terrible  system  of  wholesale  confis- 
cation adopted  during  the  reigns  of  Henry  and  Edward  had  done  its  sad 
work,  which  Mary  could  not  repair  during  her  short  reign,  though  she 
labored  to  do  so.  Of  Elizabeth's  clergy  the  same  Anglican  prelate  furnishep 
a  very  sad  account.  They  seem,  in  general,  to  have  been  men  of  little 
learning  and  of  less  piety.     Thus  among  the  queen's  injunctions,  was  one 


176  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION — ELIZABETH. 

III.  Were  the  foundations  of  the  new  hierarchy,  whiiih 
superseded  the  old,  soUdly  laid  ;  and  are  the  claims  set  up 
by  the  Anglican  bishops  to  vaUd  orders  and  lawful  jurisdic- 
tion even  plausibly  defensible  ? 

This  is  a  vital  question  for  the  Anglican  church  establish- 
ment. Its  discussion  has  filled  volumes  on  both  sides.  We 
can  only  furnish  some  of  the  principal  facts,  and  state  some 
of  the  chief  points  which  have  been  made,  referring  our 
readers  for  fuller  information  to  works  wherein  the  subject  is 
discussed  in  full. 

1.  Cardinal  Pole,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  died  in  July 
1558,  twenty-two  hours  after  his  relative,  Queen  Mary.  This 
was  opportune  for  the  new  religious  establishment,  and  it 
became  a  matter  of  great  importance  to  its  interests  to  fill  the 
vacant  primatial  see  with  a  man  who  would  be  the  best  cal- 
culated to  promote  them.  Elizabeth,  the  royal  head  of  the 
new  church,  selected  for  the  post  Dr.  Matthew  Parker,  who 
had  been  chaplain  to  her  mother,  and  her  own  particular 
friend.    But  who  was  to  consecrate  him,  and  in  what  manner? 

forbidding  the  clergy  to  marry  a  woman,  "without  the  consent  of  the 
master  or  mistress  with  whom  she  was  at  service,  in  case  she  had  no 
relatives — a  proof  of  the  low  rank  held  by  the  clergy." — (P.  121,  note.) 
Thus  again,  the  primate  Parker  wrote  to  Grindal,  bishop  of  London,  "desir- 
ing him  not  to  ordain  any  more  mechanics." — (P.  124.)  Thus  again,  he 
quotes  Gibson,  afterwards  bishop  of  London,  to  show  the  learning  and 
abilities  of  the  clergy  in  the  archdeaconry  of  Middlesex  in  1563  ;  from 
whose  statement  it  appears,  that  out  of  one  hundred  and  eighteen  clergymen, 
only  three  were  learned  in  Greek  and  Latin,  and  eighty-eight  were  only 
moderately  (mediocriter)  or  very  slightly  (parum  aliquid)  learned  in  Latin 
only;  while  thirteen  knew  no  Latin  at  all,  and  three  seem  to  have  been 
complete  know-nothings  (indocti)  ! — Gibson  adds  :  "  If  the  London  clergy 
were  thus  ignorant,  what  must  we  imagine  the  country  divines  were?.' 
(P.  124  and  note.) 

Elsewhere  Short  quotes  from  Bullinger's  Decads  a  passage  which  may  aid 
us  in  accounting  for  this  sad  degeneracy  of  Elizabeth's  clergy  :  •'  Patrons 
now-a-days  search  not  the  universities  for  a  most  fit  pastor  ;  but  they  post 
up  and  down  the  country  for  a  most  gainful  chapman  :  he  that  hath  the  big- 


Parker's  consecration.  177 

2.  The  difficulties  in  the  way  were  naanit'uJd.  All  the 
Catholic  bishops,  except  Kitchin  of  Llandaff,  had  been  de- 
posed, and  it  could  scarcely  be  expected  that  they  would  con- 
sent to  consecrate  an  archbishop  who  belonged  to  the  party 
which  had  supplanted  them.  The  law  of  the  25th  Henry 
YIII.,  which  had  been  revived  in  the  first  parliament  of 
Elizabeth,  required  the  election  of  the  archbishop  to  be  con-' 
firmed,  and  his  consecration  to  be  performed  by  four  bishops. 
If  four  could  even  be  found  to  perform  the  ceremony,  how 
should  they  do  it  ?  The  Catholic  ordinal  had  been  abolished 
in  the  present,  and  that  of  Edward  VI.,  in  the  last  reign ;  so 
that  there  was  actually  left  in  existence  no  legal  form  what- 
ever for  the  consecration  of  a  bishop.  The  difiicult  case  was 
referred  by  the  council  to  six  learned  theologians  and  canon- 
ists, who  decided  that  in  such  an  emergency  the  queen,  as 
supreme  head  of  the  church,  had  authority  to  supply  all 
deficiencies  !* 

3.  Accordingly,  after  having,  as  it  would  seem,  first  ap- 
plied in  vain  to  an  Irish  Catholic  archbishop,  who  was  then 

gest  purse  to  pay  largely,  not  he  that  hath  the  best  gifts  to  preach  learned- 
ly."    (P.  138.)  ■ 

Hallam  says  (Constit.  History,  p.  73),  on  the  authority  of  Burnet  and 
Strype  :  "  In  the  convocation  of  1559,  the  queen  appointed  a  general  eccle- 
siastical visitation,  to  compel  the  observance  of  the  Protestant  formularies. 
It  appears  from  their  reports,  that  only  about  one  hundred  dignitaries  and 
eighty  parochial  priests  resigned  their  benefices,  or  were  deprived."  This 
number  was  for  a  single  year,  the  first  of  Elizabeth  ;  and  still  it  is,  no 
doubt,  far  below  the  mark.  Bishop  Short  states  the  number  as  one  hundred 
and  eighty-nine.  (P.  122.)  The  members  of  the  ecclesiastical  visitation 
were  court  employees  and  partial  witnesses,  whose  interest  it  clearly  was, 
to  make  out  as  favorable  a  statement  as  possible  to  the  new  head  of  their 
church.  Lingard  and  other  historians  place  the  number  of  the  clergy,  who 
were  deprived  or  who  resigned,  much  higher.  Burnet,  quoted  by  Hallam 
(Ibid.,  note,)  says,  that  "pensions  were  reserved  for  those  who  quitted  their 
benefices  on  account  of  religion."  If  so,  and  the  pensions  were  not  partial, 
Rnd  not  merely  nominal — which  we  greatly  suspect — it  was  an  act  of  simple 
justice,  not  "  a  very  liberal  measure,"  as  Hallam  says  it  was. 

*  See  authorities,  Lingard,  ibid.,  p.  263. 


178  ANGLICAN    REFORM \TION ELIZABETH. 

a  prisoner  for  his  faith  in  the  tower,*  EHzabeth  on  the  9th  ol ' 
September,  1559,  issued  a  commission,  with  the  requisite  san- 
atory ckiuse,  to  Tunstal,  bishop  of  Durham,  Bourne  of  Bath 
and  Wells,  Pool  of  Peterborough,  Kitchin  of  Llandaff,  and 
Barlowe  and  Scorey,  the  deprived  bishops  of  Bath  and  Chi- 
chester under  Mary.  The  four  first  named  Catholic  prelates 
including  even  Kitchin,  refused  to  act ;  and  the  time  having 
elapsed,  another  commission  was  issued  in  December  follow- 
ing to  William  Barlowe,  John  Hodgkins,  John  Scorey,  and 
Miles  Coverdale,  all  reformed  bishops,  who  had  been  deprived 
under  the  last  reign.  It  is  said,  that  these  four,  after  having 
first  confirmed  his  election,!  proceeded  shortly  afterwards, 
(December,  17,)  to  consecrate  Parker  according  to  the  rite 
prescribed  in  the  repealed  ordinal  of  Edward  VI.  Parker, 
as  archbishop,  then  confirmed  the  election  of  two  among 
those  nominal  prelates  who  had  confirmed  his  own ;  and  he 
subsequently  proceeded  to  consecrate  all  the  other  newly  ap- 
pointed bishops. 

Parker  is  thus,  plainly,  the  fountain  of  all  subsequent  epis- 
copal ordinations  in  the  Anglican  establishment;  and  if  he 
was  not  himself  validly  consecrated,  none  of  the  present  epis- 
copal bishops  and  clergy — all  of  whom  derive  their  ordination 
from  him — can  claim  to  possess  valid  orders. 

4.  In  regard  to  the  validity  of  Parker's  consecration,  three 
principal  difticulties  were  raised  at  the  time  by  his  opponents, 
and  they  have  never  been  satisfactorily  solved  even  to  the 
present  day. J     1.  It  was  doubted  whether  Barlowe,  the  prin- 

*  This  fact  is  expressly  stated  by  Sanders,  a  contemporary  writer,  in  hia 
well  known  work  on  the  Anglican  Schism,  to  which  we  may  refer  more  par- 
ticularly hereafter. 

f  The  majority  of  the  chapter  of  Canterbury  had  refused  to  concur  in  the 
election  of  Parker.     See  Lingard,  and  his  authorities.     Ibid.,  p.  262. 

I  Besides  the  difficulties  mentioned  in  the  text,  there  was  another  very 
embarrassing  legal  one  which  was  raised,  notwithstanding  the  sanatory 
clause  in  the  commission  for  the  consecration  of  Parker.  We  cannot  better 
Ktate  it  than  -o  the  words  of  Dr.  Lingard.     (Hist.  England,  note  G,  vol.  viL) 


THREE    DIFFICULTIES.  179 

cipal  consecrator,  was  himself  validly  consecrated.  The 
Catholics  at  the  time  challenged  their  adversaries  to  produce 
evidence  proving  the  fact  of  Barlowe's  consecration,  but  they 
seem  to  have  challenged  in  vain. 

"Neither  Archbishop  Bramhall,  with  all  his  industry ;  nor  Mason,  with 
all  his  art ;  nor  Burnet,  with  all  his  researches ;  nor  Weston,  with  all  his 
learning,  could  ever  find  out  the  useful  document.  So  that  Stephens,  a 
learned  Protestant  clergyman,  makes  the  following  observation  upon  the  cir- 
cumstance :  '  It  is  a  wonderful  thing  by  what  chance  or  providence  it  hap- 
pened, that  Barlowe's  consecration,  who  was  the  principal  actor  in  this, 
should  nowhere  appear,  nor  any  positive  proof  of  it  be  found,  in  more  than 
fourscore  j^ears  since  it  was  first  questioned,  by  all  the  search  that  could  be 
made  by  so  many  learned  and  industrious  and  curious  persons."* 

2.  The  fact  itself  of  Parker's  consecration  has  been  ques- 
tioned.    It  is  a  very  suspicious  circumstance,  that  no  con- 

His  statement  is  fully  confirmed  by  Hallam,  in  his  Constit.  History,  p.  76,  and 
by  Bishop  Short  (p.  123,  note  2.) 

"A  question  wa.s  afterwards  raised,  whether  the  new  metropolitan,  and 
the  prelates  confirmed  and  consecrated  by  him,  were  bishops  according  to 
law.  When  Home,  the  new  bishop  of  Winchester,  tendered  the  oath  to 
Bonner,  the  latter  i-efiised  to  admit  his  authority  :  he  was  not  a  bishop 
recognized  by  law,  because  he  had  been  consecrated  after  an  illegal  form,  and 
his  consecrator  had  been  consecrated  himself  in  defiance  of  the  statute  of 
the  25th  of  Henry  VIII.  The  question  was  argued  before  the  judges  of  the 
court  of  Exchequer,  who  were  unwilling,  or  forbidden  to  give  judgment ; 
and  to  remedy  every  defect,  it  was  enacted  by  the  statute  of  the  8th  of  Eli- 
zabeth, c.  1,  that  all  acts  and  things  previously  done  by  any  person  in  any 
consecration,  confirmation,  or  investing  of  bishops,  in  virtue  of  the  queen's 
'etters  patent  or  commission,  should  be  judged  good  and  perfect  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes  ;  and  that  all  persons  consecrated  after  the  form  in  the 
ordinal  of  Edward  VI.  should  be  had  to  have  been  validly  consecrated  ;  and 
that  the  same  ordinal  should  be  thenceforth  observed. — Strype,  i,  340,  493  ; 
Strype's  Parker,  61  ;  Statutes  of  Realm,  iv,  484." 

Lingard  repudiates  the  story  of  the  "  Nag's  Head  "  consecration  of  Parker, 
of  which  "he  could  find  no  trace  in  any  author  or  document  of  the  reign  of 
Ehzabeth." — Ibid.     Of  this  we  may  have  a  word  to  say  further  on. 

*  Great  Question.  Fletcher's  Comparative  View,  p.  227-8.  Dr.  Lingard, 
indeed,  says  that  Barlowe  was  consecrated  according  to  the  Catholic  pontifi- 
cal, but  he  giveg  no  reference,  and  furnishes  no  proof.  He  also  simply  states 
the  fact  of  Parker's  consecration. 


180  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION — ELIZABETH. 

temporary  Protestant  historian  relates  it,  and  that  not  even 
Stowe,  the  intimate  friend  of  Parker,  says  a  word  about  it  in 
liis  elaborate  history,  where  it  would  seem  the  important  fact 
should  have  found  place  had  it  really  occurred.  It  is  also 
not  a  little  curious,  that  the  Lambeth  Register,  upon  the 
authority  of  which  the  fact  chiefly,  if  not  entirely  rests, 
should  not  have  been  discovered  or  produced  for  more  than 
fifty  years  afterwards,  though  the  validity,  and  it  would  seem, 
even  the  fact  itself  of  the  consecration,  were  questioned,  at 
or  near  the  time,  by  such  able  Catholic  writers  as  Harding, 
Stapleton,  Allen,  Bristow,  and  Sanders.* 

Those  who  have  maturely  examined  the  question  in  all  its 
bearings  have,  moreover,  found  what  they  believed  to  con- 
stitute strong  evidences  of  forgery,  both  extrinsic  and  intrin- 
sic, in  the  Register  itself,  as  discovered  or  produced  for  the 
first  time  by  Mason,  early  in  the  seventeenth  century.  During 
the  sixteenth  century,  as  we  have  already  seen,  so  much   ira- 


*  Bishop  Short  (p.  123)  rejects  the  story  of  the  Nag's  Head  consecration, 
as  follows : 

"  The  story  is,  that  when  the  bishops  elect  met  at  a  tavern  which  bore 
that  sign,  and  that  Oglethorpe  (Kitchin  ?)  refused  to  consecrate  them,  Scorey 
laid  a  bible  on  each  of  their  heads,  and  bade  them  rise  up  bishops.  This 
tale  has  been  refuted  as  often  as  brought  forward,  and  bears  on  its  face  this 
difficulty  :  that  had  this  account  been  known  to  the  enemies  of  the  church 
of  England,  it  is  not  likely  that  any  delicacy  on  their  pai-t  should  have 
delayed  its  publication  for  so  long  a  period  " — forty  years. 

This  argument  is  merely  negative,  and  it  has  besides  two  edges,  the 
sharper  one  of  which  is  turned  towards  the  Anglican  champion.  Ir  we 
are  to  reject  the  account  of  the  Nag's  Head  consecration,  merely  on  the 
ground  that  we  have  no  published  account  of  it  dating  further  back  than 
forty  years  after  the  alleged  occurrence,  why  should  we  not,  a  fortiori,  reject 
the  fact  of  Parker's  consecration,  of  which  no  account  was  published  earlier 
than  Mason's — tihoutfifti/ -three  years  after  the  alleged  fact?  How  account 
for  this  singular  circumstance  ?  The  Catholics  were  persecuted  and  could 
not  publish  their  works  in  England  ;  not  so  the  Protestants  who  were  in 
power.  Strype,  whom  Short  quotes,  is  no  authority,  for  he  inerely  followed 
Mason.  See  Archbishop  Kenrick  on  Anglican  Ordinations,  for  more  on  this 
lubject. 


TESTIMONY    OF   MCCRIE    AND    HALLAM.  181 

portance  was  nt)t  attached  to  episcopal  consecratic  n  as  in  the 
following  period.  The  Protestant  bishops  were  then  regarded, 
and  in  fact  they  regarded  themselves,  merely  as  agents  and  a 
Bort  of  spiritual  bailiffs  of  the  crown,  upon  which  they 
depended  for  the  exercise  of  all  spiritual  power,  if  not  for  the 
ver}'-  fountain  of  the  power  itself.  Such  was  the  doctrine  of 
Cranmer,  and  probably  of  all,  or  nearly  all  the  leading  An- 
glican reformers  of  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.* 
3.  A  third,  and  even  stronger  objection  to  the  validity  of 
the  consecration,  even  supposing  it  to  have  really  taken  place, 
was  based  upon  the  form  used,  which  was  that  prescribed  in 
the  ordinal  adopted  in  the  latter  portion  of  the  reign  of 
Edward  VI.  It  was  said,  and  with  reason,  that  this  form, 
besides  being  clearly  illegal, f  was  not  only  incomplete,  but 

*  In  his  Life  of  Knox,  McCrie,  in  answer  to  the  claim  set  forth  by  many- 
hierarchical  writers  of  the  English  church  "  that  ordination  by  a  bishop  is 
"absolutely  necessary,"  says  : 

"  The  fiithers  of  the  English  Reformation  were  very  far  from  entertaining 
such  ridiculous  and  illiberal  sentiments.  Knox's  call  to  the  ministry  was 
never  questioned,  but  his  services  teadily  accepted  when  he  afterwards  went 
to  England.  Archbishop  Cranmer,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  YL,  and  all  the 
Kshops  in  tlifi  heginning  of  Mizal>eth's  reign,  corresponded  with  and  cheerfully 
owned  the  foreign  reformed  divines  as  brethren  and  fellow-laborers  in  the 
ministry  of  the  gospel.  In  the  year  1582,  Archbishop  Grindal,  by  a  formal 
deed,  declared  the  validity  of  the  orders  of  Mr.  John  Morrison,  who  had 
been  ordained  by  the  synod  of  Lothian,  'according  to  the  laudable  form  and 
rite  of  the  church  of  Scotland '  (says  the  instrument) — per  generalem  syno- 
dum  sive  congregationem  illius  comitatus  juxta  laudabilem  ecclesise  Scotise 
reformat?e  formam  ac  ritum  ad  sacros  ordines  et  sacro-sanctum  ministerium 
permanuum  impositionem  admissus  et  ordinatus.  Nos  igitur  formam  ordi- 
nationis  et  prasfectionis  tua3  hujusmodi  modo  prtemisso  flictam,  quantum  in 
nos  (sic)  est  et  jare  possumus,  approbantes  et  ratifieantes  etc.  (Strype's 
Life  of  Grindal,  Appendix,  etc.)  Whittingham,  dean  of  Durham,  was  ordained 
in  the  English  church  of  Geneva,  of  which  Knox  was  pastor ;  and  Traverse, 
the  opponent  of  Hooker,  was  oidained  by  a  presbytery  at  iVntwerp.  At- 
tempts were  made  by  some  high-flyers  to  invalidate  their  orders,  and  induce 
them  to  submit  to  re-ordination,  but  they  did  not  succeed." — Life  of  John 
Knox,  p.  42-3,  note  ;  edition,  New  York,  1813. 

f  Hallam  fuUj  admits  the  illegality  of  the  early  Anglican  consecrationg. 
43 


182  ANGLICAN   R INFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

radically  defective ;  that  in  its  most  important  part  it  did  not 
iDdicate  the  real  nature  of  the  office  for  which  the  incumbent 
was  consecrated ;  and  that  therefore  it  was  wanting  in  what 
is  clearly  essential  to  the  validity  of  the  ordination.  This  ob- 
jection is  still  further  strengthened  by  the  well  known  fact, 
that  the  form  alluded  to  was  afterwards  materially  modified 
and  amended,  in  this  very  particular^  by  the  Anglican 
church  itself.  But  the  amendment  could  not  certainly  be 
retrospective  in  its  operation,  so  as  to  heal  the  radical  defect 

Speaking  of  Horn's  attempt  "to  drive  Bonner  to  high  treason"  by  compel- 
ling him  to  take  the  oath  of  supremac}^,  and  of  Bonner's  successful  resist- 
ance he  says : 

"Bonner,  however,  instead  of  evading  the  attack,  intrepidly  denied  the 
other  (Horn)  to  l)e  a  lawful  bishop  ;  and  strange  as  it  may  seem,  not  only 
escaped  all  further  molestation,  but  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  his  adversa- 
ries reduced  to  pass  an  act  of  parliament,  declaring  the  present  bishops  to 
have  been  legally  consecrated.  This  statute,  and  especially  its  preamble, 
might  lead  a  hasty  reader  to  suspect,  that  the  celebrated  story  of  an  irregu- 
lar consecration  at  the  Nag's  Head  tavern  was  not  wholly  undeserving  of 
credit.  This  tale  has,  however,  been  satisfactorily  refuted  ;  the  only  irregu- 
larity which  gave  rise  to  this  statute  consisted  in  the  use  of  an  ordinal 
which  had  not  been  legally'  re-established." — Constit.  History,  p.  76. 

He  does  not  tell  us,  how  "  it  has  been  satisfactorily  refuted  ; "  he  gives  us 
no  authority  whatever,  for  what  must  therefore  rest  on  his  own  mere 
assertion.  It  is  apparent,  that  there  was  someting  sadly  out  of  joint  in 
Parker's  consecration,  which  required  for  its  remedy  the  healing  act  of  par- 
liament ;  and  that  this  was  something  more  than  a  mere  legal  technicality, 
may  be  suspected  from  the  fiict  recorded  by  Hallara,  on  the  authority  of 
Strype,  (note,  Ibid.,)  that  when  the  act  was  on  its  passage,  "eleven  peers 
dissented,  all  noted  Catholics  except  the  eail  of  Sussex." — Why  did  they 
dissent,  if  there  was  nothing  but  a  legal  flaw  to  heal  ? 

It  is  a  pity  that  there  is  not  more  satisfactory  information  contained  in 
the  documents  which  have  been  preserved,  in  reference  to  Parker's  consecra- 
tion. The  meagerness  and  unsatisfactory  nature  of  all  proceedings  extant 
on  this  subject,  is,  of  itself,  a  very  suspiciovis  circumstance,  and  we  are  left 
to  our  own  conjectures.  Have  the  original  documents  been  mutilated  or 
8uppre.ssed  ?  Why,  for  instance,  do  not  the  records  of  parliament  state  the 
preci.se  grounds  on  which  those  "eleven  peers  dissented?"  This  would 
Ihrnish  a  clue  to  unravel  the  whole  mystery  of  Paiker's  consecration. 


QUESTION    OF   JURISDICTION.  183 

in  the  consecration  of  Parker,  which  defect  it  seemed,  mure 
over,  virtually  to  admit.* 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  each  one  of  these  objections 
taken  separately,  they  are,  when  considered  collectively,  well 
calculated  to  raise  at  least  a  reasonable  doubt  on  a  subject, 
wnich  should  surely  admit  of  no  doubt  whatsoever ;  because 
it  is  vital  to  the  very  existence  of  the  Anglican  church  estab- 
lishment. With  so  much  uncertainty  thus  lying  at  its  very 
foundations,  how  can  any  reflecting  man  trust  in  it  as  the 
work  of  God?  How  can  any  Christian,  who  values  his 
eternal  salvation,  continue  to  cling  to  an  establishment,  which 
besides  being  evidently  of  merely  human  origin,  rests  for  its 
most  essential  element — the  ministry — on  the  most  human, 
the  most  fallible,  and  the  most  doubtful  basis  ? 

Even  admitting  the  validity  of  Parker's  consecration,  and 
that  of  the  subsequent  Anglican  ordinations,  it  does  not  at 
all  follow,  that  the  Anglican  clergy  have  lawful  jurisdiction. 
Jurisdiction  emanates  from  a  lawfully  constituted  govern- 
ment, which  has  power  to  impart  it,  and  which  actually  im- 
parts it  to  its  duly  appointed  and  accredited  agents  or  minis- 
ters. In  separating  from  the  Catholic  Church,  and  setting 
up  a  new  and  antagonistic  church  organization,  the  Anglican 
reformers  forfeited  all  claim  to  jurisdiction  from  the  Catholic 
Church  which  they  repudiated,  and  which  repudiated  them, 
as  a  schismatic  body.  Clearly  they  could  not  derive  their 
jurisdiction  from  the  Catholic  Church.  Whence,  then,  did 
they  derive  it  ?   From  Queen  Elizabeth  ? — But  who  gave  her 

*  For  an  elaborate,  learned,  and  modern  examination  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion, see  the  work  of  Archbishop  Kenrick  of  St.  Louis,  "  On  Anglican  Ordi- 
nations," second  edition,  to  be  had  in  any  of  our  Catholic  bookstores.  See 
also  note  B.  at  the  end  of  the  present  volume. 

In  the  last  London  edition  of  Dr.  Lingard's  History,  revised  by  himself, 
the  author,  in  a  note  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  enters  at  some  length  into 
the  discussion  of  the  form  of  ordination  as  prescribed  in  this  earlier  ordinal 
of  Edward  VI.,  showing  its  utter  deficiency,  and  proving  that  his  admission 
of  the  fact  of  Parker's  consecration  does  not  carry  with  it  the  belief  in  its 
validity. 


184  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION — ELIZABETH. 

the  power  to  impart  spiritual  jurisdiction?  From  the  parlia- 
ment?— But  who  made  the  British  parliament  the  fountain 
of  spiritual  power?  From  themselves? — But  how  could  they 
give  what  they  had  not  ?  From  Christ  ? — But  Christ  says : 
"  He  that  heareth  not  the  Church,  let  him  be  to  you,  as  a 
heathen  and  a  publican  •,"  and  addressing  His  first  body  of 
ministers,  "He  that  hears  you,  hears  me,  and  he  that  despises 
you,  despises  me,  and  he  that  despises  me,  despises  Him  that 
sent  me."  Christ  evidently  made  His  Church  His  only 
regular  organ  of  communication  with  the  world.  His  only 
channel  and  fountain  of  jurisdiction  for  the  work  of  the 
ministry.  He  never  promised  spiritual  power  or  jurisdiction 
to  any  who  were  separated  from  and  at  war  with  Him,  by 
separating  from  and  warring  with  His  spouse — the  Church. 
He  said:  "He  that  gathereth  not  with  me,  scattereth." 
Whence  then,  we  repeat,  did  the  Anglican  hierarchy  derive 
its  spiritual  jurisdiction? 

We  come  now  to  the  last  question  referred  to  above : 

IV.  Finally,  were  the  means  employed  for  establishing 
the  new  religious  order,  and  for  securing  conformity  with 
the  new  worship  and  obedience  to  the  new  organization,  such 
as  are  consistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  and  such  as 
we  would  naturally  look  for  in  a  change  for  the  better  ? 

This  question  has  been  already  in  part  answered.  We 
have  shown  that  it  was  not  the  lawfully  constituted  spiritual 
authorities  of  the  English  church,  acting  in  a  lawful  way— 
or  in  fact  in  any  other  way — but  the  temporal  power  alone 
acting  in  spite  of  the  spiritual,  which  forcibly  established  the 
new  church ;  and  that  it  was  not,  moreover,  by  spiritual  pen- 
alties, but  by  the  ruder  carnal  weapons  of  confiscation,  im- 
prisonment, and  death,  that  conformity  with  the  new  religious 
order  was  enforced.  Mens'  consciences  were  then  reputed  as 
nothing,  religious  freedom  tvas  wholly  disregarded,  spurned, 
and  trampled  upon  from  the  very  outset  of  Elizabeth's  reign. 


FOURTH    QUESTION    STATED AND    ANSWl.RED.  185 

She,  as  head  of  the  new  church,  and  her  parliament,  as  her 
servile  organ,  armed  with  its  terrible  code  of  pains  and  pen- 
alties, were  paramount  both  in  church  and  state ;  and  nc 
other  authority  dared  even  show  itself,  much  less  assert  its 
claims  to  be  heard.  The  reign  of  brute  force,  based  on  the 
consolidated  union  of  church  and  state,  was  now  at  hand ; 
and  it  trampled  in  the  dust  all  opposition.  We  supply  the 
following  additional  summary  of  facts  on  a  very  painful  sub- 
ject, which  the  pen  almost  shrinks  from  describing,  and  the 
bare  contemplation  of  which  causes  a  shudder,  even  after  the 

lapse  of  three  centuries.* 

. 1 — 

*  In  his  Constitutional  History  of  England,  where  he  professedly  discus- 
ses this  whole  subject  fi'om  the  legal  stand-point,  Mr.  Hallam  fully  confirms 
almost  every  important  statement  we  have  made  above,  with  regard  to  the 
manner  in  which  the  Anglican  establishment  was  firmly  fixed  on  the  necks 
of  the  reluctant  and  down-trodden  English  people.  He  furnishes  an  account 
of  the  famous  acts  of  supremacy  and  conformity,  passed  in  the  first  year  of 
Elizabeth,  and  he  says  of  them,  that  they  "  form  the  basis  of  that  restrictive 
code  "of  laws  deemed  by  some  the  fundamental  bulwark,  by  others  the 
reproach  of  our  constitution ;  which  pressed  so  heavily  for  more  than  two 
centuries  upon  the  adherents  of  the  Romish  (!)  Church."     (P.  72.) 

From  his  subsequent  remarks,  we  infer  that  he  himself  regards  them  as 
'a  reproach,"  though  his  censure  is  not  so  strong  as  it  should  have  been. 
He  furnishes  (Ibid,  note)  a  copy  of  the  Oath  of  Supremacy,  in  which  every 
one  was  required  to  swear,  that  "  the  queen's  highness  is  the  only  supreme 
Ijovernor  of  this  realm,  and  all  other  her  highness'  dominions  and  countries, 
us  well  in  all  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical  things  or  causes,  as  temporal."  This 
was  really  to  declare  her  not  only  an  absolute  monarch — as  she  really  was 
— but  a  popess,  in  the  fullest  meaning  of  the  term. 

The  qualifying  explanation,  made  in  the  injunctions  to  the  ecclesiastical 
^sitors  appointed  in  1559,  did  not  at  all  mend  the  matter,  so  far  at  least  as 
Catholics  were  concerned.  It  was  intended  to  soothe  not  them,  but  the 
lender  consciences  of  their  most  bitter  enemies,  the  dissenters.  It  declared, 
as  the  meaning  of  the  oath,  that  "her  majesty  neither  doth,  nor  ever  will 
challenge  any  other  authority,  than  that  which  was  challenged  and  lately 
u.<ied  by  the  said  noble  kings  of  famous  (!)  memor}',  King  Henry  VIII.  and 
K-ing  Edward  VI." — This  was  surely  enough  to  gratify  the  ambition  even  of 
Ei»zabeth.  The  explanation  that  the  supremacy  regarded  the  ^^ persons  either 
'•fl^esiastical  or  temporal"  of  her  realm,  rather  than  things,  was  a  mei-e 
VOL,   II, — 16 


186  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

1.    Ill  the  second  parliament  of  Elizabeth,  held  in  15C2-3 
the  obligation  of  taking  the  oath  of  supremacy  was  extended, 

quibble  well  worthy  the  tortuous  and  insincere  mind  of  the  queen  and  of 
the  wily  Cecil.  If  all  ecclesiastical  persons  were  entirely  subject  to  her 
headship  ;  and  if  she  could  appoint  and  displace  them  at  will — as  she  really 
did — it  was  surely  a  real  spiritual  supremacy  in  the  broadest  sense.  The 
spiritual  jurisdiction  of  the  Pontiff  was  expressly  excluded  in  the  explana- 
tion ;  wliich,  1  lallam  admits,  rendered  it  impossible  for  Catholics  to  take  it. 

Hallam  liimself  furnishes  us  with  some  curious  examples  of  the  manner 
in  which  she  exercised  her  spiritual  supremacy  over  the  persons  of  her  sub- 
jects— bishops  included.  He  says  :  "  Thus  Hatton  built  his  house  in  Hol- 
born  on  the  bishop  of  Ely's  garden.  Cox  (the  bishop)  on  making  resistance 
to  this  spoliation  received  a  sing-ular  epistle  from  the  queen.  This  bishop, 
in  con.sequence  of  such  vexations,  was  desirous  of  retiring  from  the  see  be- 
fore his  death.  After  that  event,  Elizabeth  kept  it  vacant  eighteen  years." 
He  also  says,  that  "  Cecil  surrounded  his  mansion  house  at  Burleigh  with 
estates  once  belonging  to  the  see  of  Peterborough." — (Const.  Hist.,p.  134.) 

In  a  note  he  gives  the  " singular  epistle"  from  the  queen  to  Bishop  Cox. 
Miss  Strickland  also  ftirnishes  a  copy  of  the  same,  which  we  republish,  with 
her  introductory  remarks :  "  Dr.  Cox  did  not  like  his  see  despoiled,  and 
resisted  this  encroachment,  though  backed  by  the  queen's  private  orders. 
This  refusal  produced  the  following  unique  epistle  from  her  maiden 
majesty  : — 
" ' Proud  Prelate  : 

" '  You  know  what  you  were  before  I  made  you  what  you  are  now.    If  you 
do  not  immediately  comply  with  my  request,  I  will  unfrock  you,  by  G — d. 
"  '  Elizabeth.'  " — Queens  of  England,  vi.  2.S4. 

Never,  since  the  world  began,  had  Roman  Pope  issued  such  a  bull  a.<« 
this ! 

The  Anglican  popess  had  also  another  habit,  happily  never  indulged  in 
by  the  Roman  Pontiflfs  whom  she  had  supplanted  in  England.  She  swore 
worse  than  her  father — which  is  saying  a  gi-eat  deal !  Miss  Strickland  tells 
us  as  much,  in  the  following  graceful  satire  on  a  fulsome  eulogy  of  the  queen 
delivered  or  written  by  the  crouching  lord  Bacon,  who  had,  among  other 
things,  extolled  her  piety  and  the  reverence  with  which  she  pronounced  the 
name  of  God  !  !  — 

"  This  observation  is  evidently  urged  in  contradistinction  to  Elizjibeth's 
well  known  habit  of  profiine  swearing,  in  which  she  outdid  her  father, 
bluff  King  Hal,  from  whom  she  probably  acquired  that  evil  propensity. 

"  Her  favorite  expletive  was,  however,  certainly  derived  from  her  first 


NEW    PENAL   LAWS HALLAM.  187 

"ist,  t(  the  members  of  the  house  of  commons,  to  school- 
masters, private  tutors,  and  attorneys ;  2d,  to  all  persons  who 
had  ever  held  office  in  the  church,  or  in  any  ecclesiastical 
court,  during  the  present  or  the  last  three  reigns,  or  who 
should  openly  disapprove  of  the  established  worship,  or  should 
celebrate,  or  hear  others  celebrate  any  private  Mass ;  that  is, 
in  one  word,  to  the  whole  Catholic  population  of  the  realm." 
The  penalties  for  refusal  were  those  of  praemunire  (confisca- 
tion of  property,  imprisonment,  etc.)  for  the  first  oflense,  and 
the  death  of  a  traitor  for  the  second !  Some  exceptions  were 
indeed  made,  but  they  did  not  regard  the  mass  of  the  Catho- 
lic population.  The  Catholic  lords  were  exempted,  and  those 
included  in  the  first  class  above  named  could  have  the  oath 
tendered  to  them  but  once. 

The  exemption  of  the  lords  was  secured  by  the  energetic 
resistance  which  the  bill  encountered  in  their  house.  The 
Viscount  Montague  asked,  in  bold  and  eloquent  language  : 

"Where  was  the  necessity  for  such  a  law  ?  'It  was  known  to  all  men 
that  Catholics  had  created  no  disturbance  in  the  realm.  They  disputed  not ; 
they  preached  not ;  they  disobeyed  not  the  queen  ;  they  brought  in  no  novelities 
in  doctrine  or  religion.'  Then,  could  there  be  conceived  a  greater  tyranny,  than 
to  compel  a  man,  under  the  penalty  of  death,  to  swear  to  that  as  true, 
which  in  his  conscience  he  believed  to  be  doubtful  ?  Now,  that  the  right  of 
the  queen  to  ecclesiastical  supremacy  must  appear  to  many  men  doubtful, 
was  evident  from  this,  that,  though  enforced  by  law  in  P]ngland,  it  was  con- 
tradicted by  the  practice  and  opinion  of  every  other  nation,  whether  reformed 
or  unreformed,  in  Christendom.  Let,  then,  their  lordships  beware,  how  they 
placed  men  under  the  necessity  of  forswearing  themselves,  or  of  suffering 
death,  lest  instead  of  submitting,  they  should  arm  in  their  own  defense ;  and 

lover,  the  lord  admiral,  with  whom  it  was  in  fearfully  familiar  use,  as  those 
who  have  read  the  state  papers  collected  by  Haynes,  and  also  by  Tytler, 
must  be  aware  ;  but  expressions  which  startle  us,  even  from  the  lips  of  a 
bad  man,  appear  to  the  last  degree  revolting  when  used  in  common  parlance 
by  a  female,  especially  a  princess  whose  virtue  is  still  a  favorite  theme  with 
many  writers.  In  illustration  of  Elizabeth's  inconsiderate  habit  in  this 
respect,  we  give  the  evidence  of  a  contemporary,  who  appears  neither 
fihocked  nor  surprised  at  the  coarsa  manners  of  the  maiden  monarch." 
Queens  of  England,  vi,  336. 


188  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

let  not  the  house  in  making  laws  permit  itself  to  be  led  bj  the  passions  an** 
rapacity  of  those  '  who  looked  to  wax  mighty  and  of  power  by  the  confiscsr 
tion,  spoil,  and  ruin  of  the  houses  of  noble  and  ancient  men.'  "* 

2,  If  this  sweeping  and  barbarous  law  had  been  fully 
carried  out,  it  would  have  drenched  the  land  in  Catholic 
blood.  That  it  was  not — at  least  immediately  and  to  the  full- 
est extent — was  not  owing  to  the  clemency,  but  to  the  policy 
of  Elizabeth  and  her  counselors.  It  was  solely  because  it 
was  simply  impossible  to  execute  such  a  law  against  the 
property  and  lives  of  the  great  majority  of  the  nation, 
which  was  still  Catholic.  "There  are  not," — exclaimed  Sad- 
ler, a  contemporary — "  in  all  this  country  ten  gentlemen  that 
do  favor  and  allow  of  her  majesty's  proceedings  in  the  cause 
of  religion."-f  Still,  the  awful  penalties  hung,  by  a  single 
thread,  over  the  devoted  heads  of  the  Catholic  population, 
who  were  thus  kept  in  a  state  of  constant  apprehension  and 
alarm ;  and  tliey  might  fall  on  and  crush  them  at  any  mo- 
ment ; — as  they  did,  in  fact,  a  little  later.J 


*  Strype,  i,  259-273.     Lingard,  ibid.,  p.  316-7. 

Hallam  gives  a  more  length}^  report  of  Montague's  speech  in  the  lords, 
and  he  also  refers  to  one  delivered  in  the  commons  by  Mr.  Atkinson,  quot- 
ing Foxe  as  his  authority.  In  his  account  of  the  penal  laws  passed  in  this 
parhament,  he  agrees  with  Lingard,  but  omits  "schoolmasters,  private 
tutors,  and  attorneys,"  as  well  as  those  "who  should  celebrate,  or  hear 
others  celebrate,  any  private  Mass"  fi-om  the  list  of  those  on  whom  the  oath 
was  made  obligatory.  This  omission  seems  culpable,  as  he  should  have 
given  the  whole  substance  of  the  act,  if  he  chose  to  refer  to  it  at  all.  It 
was  pas.sed  March  3,  1563 — not  in  1562,  as  he  would  seem  to  indicate  in 
the  margin.     (Constit.  History,  p.  75.) 

t  S&.  ler,  ii,  55,  quoted  ibid.,  viii,  46.  This  was  at  a  somewhat  later 
period,  during  the  northern  insurrection.  Sadler  was  Elizabeth's  envoy  in 
the  northern  counties  of  England. 

I  That  the  penal  acts  against  Catholics  passed  during  the  early  years  of 
Elizabeth,  including  that  of  this  parliament,  were  not  a  dead  letter,  is  fi'eely 
admitted  by  ILilhun,  who  gives  several  examples  of  their  vexatious  execu- 
tion. 

"  Thus  Sir  Edward  Waldgrave  and  his  lady  were  sent  to  the  tower  id 
1561,  for  hearing  Mass  and  having  a  priest  in  their  house.     Many  others. 


TERRIBLE    CODE.  189 

3.  After  the  suppression  of  the  formidable  iiisiirrectiou  in 
the  North,  headed  by  the  earls  of  Northumberland  and 
Westmoreland,  late  in  the  year  1569,  the  queen  and  her  par- 
liament waxed  still  fiercer  and  fiercer  in  their  thirst  for  Cath- 
olic blood.  Proclamation  followed  proclamation,  and  penal 
statute  followed  penal  statute,  each  one  stronger  and  more 
bloody  than  its  pi-edecessor.  The  insurgents  had  stated  in 
their  manifesto,  among  their  reasons  for  taking  up  arms,  that 
her  majesty  is  surrounded  "by  divers  newe  sett-upp  nobles, 
who  not  onlie  go  aboute  to  overthrow  and  put  downe  the 
ancient  nobilitie  of  the  realme,  but  also  have  misused  the 
queene's  majestie's  own 3  personne,  and  also  have  by  the  space 
of  twelve  yeares  nowe  paste  sett  upp  and  mayntayned  a  new- 
found religion  and  heresie  contrary  to  God's  worde,"*  The  in- 
surrection was  put  down  by  the  strong  arm ;  and  it  is  stated, 

about  the  same  time,  were  punished  for  the  like  offense.  Two  bishops,  one 
of  whom  I  regret  to  say  was  Grindal,  write  to  the  council  in  1562  co'ncern- 
ing  a  priest  apprehended  in  a  lady's  house,  that  neither  he  nor  the  servant 
would  be  sworn  in  answer  to  articles,  saying  they  could  not  accuse  them- 
selves ;  and  after  a  wise  remark  on  this,  saying  that  '  papistry  is  likely  to 
end  in  anabaptistry,'  proceed  to  hint  that  '  some  think  that  if  this  priest 
might  be  put  to  some  kind  of  torment,  and  so  driven  to  confess  what  he 
knoweth,  he  might  gain  the  queen's  majesty  a  good  mass  of  money  by  the 
Masses  that  he  hath  said ;  but  this  we  refer  to  your  lordship's  wisdom.' " 
— (Constit.  Hist.,  p.  74.) 

This  last  fact  speaks  volumes  for  the  mercenary  heartlessness  and  wanton 
cruelty  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  her  bishops. 

He  also  refutes,  by  unanswerable  evidence,  the  reckless  assertion  of  the 
court- writer  Camden,  that  Catholics  were  connived  at  and  scarcely  mo- 
lested during  the  first  fourteen  years  of  Elizabeth  ! 

"But  this  is  not  reconcilable  to  (with?)  many  passages  in  Strype's  col 
lections.  We  find  abundance  of  persons  harassed  for  recusancy,  that  is,  for 
not  attending  the  Protestant  church,  and  driven  to  insincere  promises  of  con- 
formity. Others  were  dragged  before  ecclesiastical  commissioners  for  harbor- 
ing priests,  or  for  sending  money  to  those  who  had  fled  beyond  sea."— 
(Ibid.,  p.  77.) 

Of  Strype,  another  court- writer,  he  says  elsewhere  :  "  Honest  old  Strype., 
who  thinks  church  and  state  neyer  in  the  wrong." — (P.  89.  note.) 

*  Ibid.,  viii,  46. 


190  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

that,  after  it  had  been  crushed,  no  less  than  eight  hundi«d 
Catholics  in  the  northern  counties  perished  on  the  scaffold.* 
4.  Then  followed  the  terrible  code  of  persecution,  surpassed 
only  by  the  still  more  dreadful  penalties  which  were  to  follow 
later  in  the  same  reign.  Our  limits  will  not  permit  us  to 
furnish  an  account  of  all  the  cruel  enactments  against  Cath- 
olics which  w^ere  passed  in  the  parliament  of  1571 ;  and  we 
must  be  content  with  giving  a  few  of  the  princij)al.  1.  The 
penalties  of  imprisonment  for  the  first  oflense,  and  of  praemu- 
nire for  the  second,  were  enacted  against  all  persons,  who 
should,  by  writing  or  printing,  say  that  any  particular  per- 
son is  the  heir  of  the  queen,  except  the  same  were  "the 
natural  issue  of  her  body."t  2.  Another  act  made  it  high 
treason  to  receive  or  use  any  bull  or  instrument  from  the 
bishop  of  Rome ;  and  annexed  the  penalties  of  praemunire  to 

*  Lingard,  ibid.,  p.  56.  The  insurgent  earls  did  not  agree  or  unhappily 
stand  to  their  colors,  like  brave  men,  but  quarrelled,  and  fled  before  the 
queen's  army. 

t  Camden,  241.     Digges,  208.     Ibid.,  p.  70. 

Hallam  (Ibid.,  p.  94,  note)  grows  indignant  against  those  who  would  put 
a  sinister  construction  on  this  expression  employed  by  the  parliament,  nc 
doubt  at  the  bidding  of  Elizabeth.  He  speaks  of  "papistical  libelers,"  and 
impeaches  the  candor  of  even  Dr.  Lingard,  who  was  "not  ashamed  to  in- 
sinuate the  same  suspicion."  Now,  Dr.  Lingard's  only  oflense  consisted  in 
quoting,  in  a  note,  the  very  words  of  Elizabeth's  flatterer,  Camden,  and  an 
extract  from  the  letter  of  Leicester  to  Walsingham,  as  given  by  Digges. 
One  would  think  that  such  authority  was  unexceptionable.  Ling-ard  does 
not  add  a  single  word  of  comment.  Camden  says  :  "  Incredibile  est  quos 
jocos  improbi  verborum  aucupes  sibi  fecerunt  ex  clausula  ilia,  prajter  natu- 
ralem  ex  ipsius  corpore  soboleni — It  is  incredible  what  jokes  the  wicked 
catchers  at  words  made  to  themselves  out  of  that  clause  the  natural  issue 
of  her  body."  Leicester  speaks  much  more  broadly,  and  he  surely  was  a 
ccmpetent  witness. 

Hallam's  explanation  is  this  :  "  This,  probably,  was  adopted  by  the  queen 
out  of  prudeiy,  PS  if  the  usual  term  implied  the  possibility  of  her  having 
unlawful  issue." — One  would  think  that  "  prudery  "  should  have  induced 
the  "virgin  queen"  to  adopt  a  different  phrase  altogether,  especially  as  she 
was  strongly  opposed  to  marriage,  and  still  was  notorious  for  her  intrigues 
iritb  a  succession  of  favorites. 


Elizabeth's  inquisition.  191 

the  crime  of  aiding  and  abetting  the  traitors  just  named,  oi 
of  introducing  or  receiving  beads,  crosses,  Agnus  Dei's,  o. 
pictures  blessed  by  the  Pope.  3.  A  third  act  enjoined  for- 
feiture of  all  their  property  to  the  queen  upon  all  persons 
who  had  left  England,  "  either  with  or  without  license,"  un- 
less they  returned  within  six  months.  4.  Finally,  another 
act  required,  under  heavy  penalties,  that  all  persons,  above  a 
certain  age,  should  attend  the  established  service.* 

6.  By  a  subsequent  statute,  passed  ten  years  later,  the  fine 
for  non-attendance  at  the  new  service  was  fixed  at  twenty 
pounds  per  month — an  enormous  sum,  equal  to  more  than 
twelve  hundred  dollars  of  our  present  money !  In  this  same 
parliament,  it  was  declared  high  treason  for  any  one  to  claim 
or  exercise  the  power  of  absolving  or  withdrawing  others 
from  the  established  religion,  or  to  be  so  withdrawn ;  which 
penalty  was  incurred  also  by  their  "procurers  and  counsel- 
ors." The  penalty  for  saying  Mass  was  increased  to  the 
payment  of  two  hundred  marks,  and  one  year's  imprisonment, 
and  that  of  simply  hearing  it  to  the  same  term  of  imprison- 
ment and  one  hundred  marks  fine.  Still  further,  to  prevent 
priests  being  concealed  in  houses,  as  tutors  or  schoolmasters, 
"  every  person  acting  in  such  capacity,  without  the  approba- 
tion of  the  ordinary  (Protestant  bishop)  should  be  liable  to  a 
year's  imprisonment,  and  the  person  who  employed  him  to  a 
fine  of  ten  pounds  per  month."t 

*  Statutes  of  Realm,  iv,  528.  Ibid.,  p.  70-1.  A  clause  requiring,  besides 
attendance,  communion  in  the  new  form,  wa.T  dropped  after  strong  remon- 
strance from  the  lords. 

t  Stat.  23  Elizabeth,  ch.  1.    Ibid.,  p.  143. 

Hallam  replies  as  follows  to  the  court  poet  Southey,  who  had  asserted 
that  the  English  church  was  not  fairly  chargeable  with  the  persecution  of 
Catholics  under  its  "  re-founder  "  Elizabeth  : 

"  '  That  chui-ch  and  the  queen  (Elizabeth,)  its  re-founder,  are  clear  of  per- 
secution, as  regards  the  Catholics.  No  church,  no  sect,  no  individual  even, 
had  yet  professed  the  principle  of  toleration.' — (Southey's  Book  of  the 
Church,  vol.  ii,  p.  285.)  If  the  second  of  these  sentences  is  intended  as  a 
proof  of  the  first,  I  must  say  it  is  little  to  ihe  purpose.     But  it  is  not  triw 


192  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

Finally,  in  order  to  execute  these  barbarous  statutes 
with  the  more  expedition  and  certainty,  the  queen  established 
the  famous — or  rather  infamous — ecclesiastical  court  of  High 
Commission,  before  which  the  Spanish  Inquisition  itself  loses 
its  terrors.  This  High  Court  of  Inquisition  was  armed  with 
the  most  ample  and  formidable  powers.  Its  members,  with 
Archbishop  Parker  at  their  head,  were  the  delegates,  and 
represented  the  dread  person,  of  the  queen,  "the  supreme 
governor  in  spirituals  and  temporals"  of  the  Anglican 
church.  "They  were  authorized  to  inquire,  on  the  oath  of 
the  person  accused,  and  on  the  oaths  of  witnesses,  of  all 
heretical,  erroneous,  and  dangerous  opinions;  of  absence 
from  the  established  service,  and  the  frequentation  of  private 
conventicles ;  of  seditious  books  and  libels  against  the 
queen,  her  magistrates  and  ministers ;  and  of  adulteries,  for- 
nications, and  all  other  offenses  cognizable  by  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal law ;  and  to  punish  the  offenders  by  spiritual  censures,  by 
fine,  imprisonment,  and  deprivation."* 

These  inquisitors  were  authorized  to  employ  the  rack,  and 
they  did  frequently  employ  it  in  a  most  wanton  manner,  to 

in  this  broad  way  of  assertion.  Not  to  mention  Sir  Thomas  More's  Eutopia, 
the  principle  of  toleration  had  been  avowed  by  the  chancellor  L'Hopital,  and 
many  others  in  France.  I  mention  him  as  on  the  strongest  side  ;  for,  in 
fact,  the  weaker  had  always  professed  the  general  principle,  and  could 
demand  toleration  from  those  of  different  sentiments  on  no  other  plea." — 
Constitutional  History,  p.  79,  note. 

Speaking  of  the  intolerant  spirit  exhibited  by  the  first  Anglican  archbishop 
of  Canterbur}',  Hallam  says  : 

"Even  Parker,  by  no  means  tainted  with  Puritan  bigotry,  and  who  had 
been  i-eckoned  moderate  in  his  proceedings  towards  Catholics,  complained 
of  what  he  called  the  'Machiavel  government;'  that  is  of  the  queen's 
(Elizabeth's)  lenity  in  not  absolutely  rooting  them  out." — Ibid.,  p.  89.  The 
same  Anglican  dignitary  was  among  the  loudest  and  most  ferocious  in  clam- 
oring for  the  blood  of  the  unhappy  Mary,  queen  of  Scots.  He  wrote  to 
Cecil :  "If  that  only  (one)  desperate  person  were  taken  away,  as  by  justice 
soon  it  might  be,  the  queen's  majesty's  good  subjects  would  be  in  better 
hope,  and  the  papists'  daily  expectation  vanquished." — Ibid.,  p.  88. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  72.     Rymer,  xvi,  291,  564. 


HER    **  PURSUIVANTS."  193 

extort  conftesionfe  from  their  victims,  especially  if  these  were 
supposed  to  be  priests. 

"  The  Catholic  prisoner  was  hardly  lodged  in  the  tower  before  he  was 
placed  on  the  rack  ;  and  if  he  was  supposed  to  be  a  priest  was  interrogated, 
why  he  had  come  to  England,  where  he  resided,  whom  he  had  reconciled; 
what  he  had  learned  from  the  confession  of  others,  and  in  what  places  his 
colleagues  were  concealed."* 

Wo  to  him,  if,  in  the  agony  of  torture,  he  let  a  word  slip 
by  which  he  might  be  himself  even  indirectly  incriminated; 
wo  to  his  friends  and  entertainers,  if  even  a  hint  was  dropped 
which  might  serve  as  a  clue  to  the  officials  of  this  inquisito- 
rial court  to  trace  out  their  abode!  Though  the  rack  was 
used  more  or  less  throughout  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
nowhere  was  it  brought  into  requisition  with  as  much 
frequency  or  as  wanton  barbarity,  as  in  England  under  Eliza- 
beth. Her  ingenuity  even  invented  new  and  exquisite  in- 
struments of  torture.f 

The  numerous  and  well  trained  officials,  oy  pursuivants^  of 
the  court  of  High  Commission  were  authorized  and  enabled 
to  penetrate  everywhere  in  the  kingdom,  wherever  "popery" 
was  even  suspected  to  lie  concealed,  and  they  were  allowed 
by  law  to  enter  any  house,  whether  by  day  or  by  night, 
wherein  they  suspected  a  priest  to  lie  hidden,  or  the  imple- 
ments of  Catholic  worship  to  be  kept ;  or  wherever  a  wealthy 
Catholic  suspected  of  recusancy, — that  is,  non-attendance  at 
the  new  worship — was  supposed  to  dwell,  wherever,  con- 
sequently, heavy  fines  could  be  levied.  Like  birds  of  prey, 
they  hovered  over  the  residences  of  the  Catholic  noblemen 
and  gentlemen  of  property,  ready  to  pounce  down  upon  their 
victims,  whenever  recusants  were  to  be  denounced,  or  booty 
was  to  be  secured.  These  merciless  minions  and  their  mas- 
ters, even  up  to  the  queen  herself,  actually  became  rich  on  the 
spoils  of  recusancy  reaped  so  abundantly  in  the  Court  of  High 

*  Bridgwater,  27,  197,  296,  quoted  Ibid.,  p.  145-6. 
f-  See  note  C.  at  the  end  of  this  volume,  for  a  fuller  account  of  these  in- 
Btniments  of  torture. 
VOL.  Ti. — 17 


194  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

Commission.     No  Catholic  was  safe  in  his  house,  no  mattei 
how  retired. 

The  Catholics  were  thus  impoverished,  the  Protestants  en- 
riched by  the  operation  of  this  cruel  law ;  the  ancient  houses 
were  brought  down,  and  the  new  houses  sprang  up  amidst 
their  ruins.  Scarcely  a  month  passed,  that  the  scaffolds  were 
not  crimsoned  with  Catholic  blood.*  The  prisons  were  kept 
almost  continually  filled  with  the  recusants ;  to  such  an  ex- 
tent, indeed,  that  the  counties  complained  often  and  bitterly, 
not  of  the  outrageous  laws,  but  of  the  heavy  expense  incurred 
for  their  maintenance ;  and  the  magistrates  were  subsequently 
authorized  to  discharge  them  from  prison  at  discretion.  They 
seldom  did  this,  however,  so  long  as  any  fines  were  to  be 
collected ;  but  when  the  poor  prisoners  could  no  longer  pay, 
they  were  turned  loose  on  the  country,  some  of  them,  how- 
ever, with  their  ears  bored  with  a  hot  iron,  others  after  hav- 
ing been  publicly  whipped.f 

At  length,  to  complete  the  horror,  the  number  of  persons 
thus  ruined  became  so  great,  that  an  act  was  passed,  that 
"all  recusants  not  possessing  twenty  marks  a  year,  should 
conform  within  three  months  after  conviction,  or  abjure  the 
realm,  under  the  penalty  of  felony  without  benefit  of  clergy,  if 
they  were  afterwards  found  at  large."J  The  very  atrocity  of 
this  act  rendered  its  execution  impracticable,  and  the  magis- 
trates contented  themselves  with  extracting  from  the  pour 
wretches  as  much  money  as  they  could,  in  the  shape  of  fines 
levied  on  whole  districts,  and  then  allowed  them  their  liberty  ! 

During  the  last  fourteen  years  only  of  Elizabeth's  reign, 
"sixty-one  clergymen,  forty-seven  laymen,  and  two  gentlewo- 
men suffered  capital  punishment  for  some  or  other  of  the  spirit- 
ual felonies  and  treasons  which  had  been  lately  created."   Dur- 


*  During  the  three  years  preceding  1585,  no  less  than  twenty-five  prom- 
inent  Catholics  had  so  suffered.     Challoner,  60,  163. — Ibid.,  p.  176. 
t  Bridgwater,  375  ;  Strype,  iii,  169.    Ibid.,  p.  297. 
V  Statutes  of  Realm,  iv,  844.     ibid. 


NUMBER    OF   VICTIMS.  195 

mg  her  entire  reign,  it  is  ascertained  from  contemporary  lists, 
that  one  riundred  and  twenty-four  clergymen  suffered  the 
cruel  death  of  traitors,  of  whom  one  hundred  and  fourteen 
were  secular  priests,  eight  Jesuits,  one  monk,  and  one  friar. 
"  Generally  the  court  dispensed  with  the  examination  of  wit- 
nesses. By  artful  and  ensnaring  questions  an  avowal  was 
drawn  from  the  prisoner,  that  he  had  been  reconciled,  or  had 
harbored  a  priest,  or  had  been  ordained  beyond  the  sea,  or 
that  he  admitted  the  ecclesiastical  supremacy  of  the  Pope,  or 
rejected  that  of  the  queen.  Any  one  of  these  crimes  was 
sufficient  to  consign  him  to  the  scaffold.  Life,  indeed,  was 
always  offered,  on  the  condition  of  conformity  to  the  estab- 
lished worship ;  but  the  offer  was  generally  refused ;  the  refu- 
sal was  followed  by  death  ;  and  the  butchery,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  was  performed  on  the  victim  while  he  was  yet  in 
the  perfect  possession  of  his  senses."* 

The  number  of  Catholic  noblemen  and  gentlemen  who 
were  ruined  by  this  iniquitous  system  of  high-handed  robbery 
in  the  name  of  religion,  cannot  be  estimated  ',  while  probably 
only  the  day  of  judgment  will  reveal  the  vast  number  of 
Catholics  who  lost  their  health  or  perished  in  the  crowded 
and  infected  prisons  during  the  long  reign  of  Elizabeth. 
They  no  doubt  amounted  to  thousands,  probably  to  tens  of 
thousands.f  "When  we  read  of  the  internal  prosperity  of 
England  under  Elizabeth,  it  is  to  be,  and  can  be  understood 

*  See  Lingard,  p.  295,  and  note  for  authorities. 

f  As  almost  every  jail  in  the  kingdom  was  often  filled  with  prisoners, 
many  of  whom  were  Catholic  recusants,  infectious  diseases  frequently  broke 
out  from  the  crowd  and  foul  air.  Thus,  as  we  learn  from  Bridgwater, 
(quoted  Ibid.,  p.  141,)  not  fewer  than  twenty  Catholics  of  family  and  fortune 
perished  on  one  single  occasion  in  the  castle  of  York.  A  similar  fate  befell 
the  Catholics  in  Newgate  in  July,  1.580,  fi'om  the  infectious  air  common  to 
the  prisons.     (Strype,  iii,  App.  141.) 

Some  idea  of  the  number  of  the  recusants  who  were  imprisoned  may  be 
formed  from  the  fact,  that  at  one  of  the  sessions  in  Hampshire  four  hundred, 
and  at  one  of  the  assises  in  Lancashire,  six  hundred  were  presented.  Strype, 
quoted  Ibid.,  299,  note. 


196  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

only  of  the  prosperity  of  the  new  houses  on  the  ruins  of  the 
old,  and  of  one  portion  of  England  at  the  expense,  and 
through  the  protracted  legal  robbery  of  the  other. 

The  greater  portion  of  these  barbarous  executions,  as  well 
as  of  the  cases  of  fines  and  imprisonment,  probably  occurred, 
indeed,  after  the  papal  bull  had  been  issued  in  1570,  excom- 
municating Elizabeth  and  declaring  that  she  had  forfeited  the 
crown.  But  many  of  them  took  place  long  before.  The 
laws  requiring  these  cruel  punishments  were  passed  as  early 
as  the  beginning  of  1563,  about  seven  years  before  the  issuing 
of  the  bull ;  and  the  germ  of  this  entire  code  of  penal  legis- 
lation had  existed  from  the  very  first  year  of  Elizabeth's 
reign.  This  has  been  already  sufficiently  shown  on  satisfac- 
tory evidence.  The  severe  and  perhaps  impolitic  act  of  the 
Pontiff  had  the  effect  of  hastening  more  severe  legislation ; 
thus  proving  highly  injurious,  instead  of  beneficial,  to  the 
English  Catholics  whom  it  was  no  doubt  honestly  meant  to 
serve.  Still,  from  the  American  stand-point,  we  cannot  view 
the  action  of  the  Pope  in  the  same  odious  light  in  which  it 
has  been  usually  regarded  by  English  monarchists.  The  blow 
aimed  at  Elizabeth,  whatever  else  we  may  think  or  say  of  it, 
was  certainly  a  blow  aimed  at  a  most  grinding  tyranny  both 
in  church  and  state,  and  one  struck  for  the  rights  of  an  op- 
pressed people,  the  cup  of  whose  wrongs,  religious  and  politi- 
cal, was  full  and  running  over.* 

Mr.  Hallam  fully  confirms  all  the  more  important  state- 
ments of  fact  which  we  have  heretofore  made.  Of  the  bloody 
Btatute  passed  after  the  suppression  of  the  Northern  insui-rec- 
tion,  he  says : 

"  This  statute  exposed  the  Catholic  priesthood,  and  in  great  measure  the 
laity,  to  the  continual  risk  of  martyrdom."f 

Again : 

*  Hallam  says  of  this  bull :  "  This  is,  perhaps,  with  the  exception  of  that 
Issued  by  Sixtus  V.  against  Henry  IV.  of  France,  the  latest  blast  of  ti.<i\ 
trumpet  which  thrilled  the  hearts  of  monarchs." — Constit.  Hist,  p.  86. 

T  Constitutional  History,  p.  87. 


HALLAMS    TESTIMONY THE   RACK.  197 

*'It  is  worthy  to  be  repeatedly  inculcated  on  the  reader,  since  so  false  a 
color  has  been  often  employed  to  disguise  the  ecclesiastical  tyranny  of  this 
reign,  that  the  most  clandestine  exercise  of  the  Romish  worship  was  severely 
punished.  Thus  we  read  in  the  life  of  Whitgift,  that  on  information  given,  that 
some  ladies  and  gentlemen  heard  Mass  in  the  house  of  one  Edwards  by 
night,  in  the  county  of  Denbigh,  he  being  then  bishop  of  Worcester  and 
vice-president  of  Wales,  was  directed  to  make  inquiry  into  the  facts ;  and 
finally  was  instiucted  to  commit  Edwards  to  close  prison  ;  and  as  for  an- 
other person  implicated,  named  Morice,  'if  he  remained  obstinate,  he  might 
cause  some  kind  of  torture  to  be  used  upon  him ;  and  the  like  order  they 
prayed  him  to  use  witli  the  others.'  But  this  is  one  of  many  instances,  tlie 
events  of  every  day,  forgotten  on  the  morrow,  and  of  which  no  general  his- 
torian takes  account.  Nothing  but  the  minute  and  patient  diligence  of  such 
a  compiler  as  Str3-pe,  who  thinks  no  fact  below  his  regard,  could  have  pre- 
served this  from  oblivion."* 

Speaking  of  the  parliament  of  1581,  he  says  : 

"Here  an  act  was  passed,  which,  after  repeating  the  former  provisions  that 
had  made  it  high  treason  to  reconcile  any  of  her  majestj^'s  subjects,  or  to  be 
reconciled  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  imposes  a  penalt}^  of  twenty  pounds  a 
month  on  all  persons  absenting  themselves  from  church,  unless  they  shall 
hear  the  English  service  at  home  :  such  as  could  not  pay  the  same  within 
three  months  after  judgment,  were  to  be  imprisoned  until  they  should  con- 
form. The  queen,  by  a  subsequent  act,  had  the  power  of  seizing  two-thirds 
of  the  party^ s  land,  and  all  his  goods,  for  default  of  payment.  These  grievous 
penalties  on  recusancy,  as  the  willful  absence  of  Catholics  fiom  church  came 
now  to  be  denominated,  were  doubtless  founded  on  the  extreme  difficulty  of 
proving  an  actual  celebration  of  their  own  rites.f     But  they  established  a 

*  Constit.  History,  p.  90-91.  The  dreadM  severity  with  which  the  priests 
were  hunted  down,  and  the  prohibition  of  all  ecclesiastical  education  in  England, 
compelled  the  founding  of  foreign  colleges  to  prevent  the  race  of  English 
Catholic  priests  from  becoming  extinct.  That  of  Pouay  was  established  in 
1568  or  1569.  Dissolved  by  Requesens,  it  was  revived  at  Rheims  in  1575, 
and  removed  back  to  Douay  in  1593.  Similar  colleges  were  founded  at 
Rome  in  1579,  Valladolid  in  1596,  and  at  Louvain  in  1606.  —  Ibid., 
p.  87,  note. 

f  We  have  no  doubt  that  filthy  lucre,  or  the  desire  to  rob  better  men  than 
themselves,  had  much  also  to  do  with  this  atrocious  legislation,  imposing 
enormous  fines  on  recusants.  We  have  seen  from  the  letter  of  Archbishop 
Grindal  and  another  bishop  to  the  queen's  council,  that  this  very  motive  was 
urged  as  likely  to  prove  most  weighty  with  the  queen. 
44 


198  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

persecution  which  fell  not  at  all  short  in  principle  of  that  for  which  the  In 
quisition  had  become  so  odious.  Nor  were  the  statutes  merely  designed  for 
terror's  sake,  to  keep  a  check  over  the  disaffected,  as  some  would  pretend ; 
they  were  executed  in  the  most  sweeping  and  indiscriminating  manner, 
unless  perhaps  a  few  fiimilies  of  high  rank  might  enjoy  a  connivance."* 

He  elsewhere  freely  admits  that  the  rack  was  constantly 
plied  to  extort  confessions  from  the  accused,  and  he  refers  to 
Lingard  for  an  account  of  the  difi'erent  instruments  of  torture, 
which  the  satanic  ingenuity  of  Elizabeth  and  Cecil  had  in- 
vented for  this  purpose: 

"  The  rack  seldom  stood  idle  in  the  tower  for  all  the  latter  part  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign.  To  those  who  remember  the  annals  of  their  country,  that  dark 
and  gloomy  pile  affords  associations  not  quite  so  numerous  and  I'ecent  as  the 

Bastile  once  did,  yet  enough  to  excite  our  hatred  and  horror Such 

excessive  severities,  under  the  pretext  of  treason,  but  sustained  by  very 
little  evidence  of  any  other  offense  than  the  exercise  of  the  Catholic  min- 
istry, excited  indignation  throughout  a  great  part  of  Europe."t 

The  public  indignation  of  Europe  swelled  to  such  dimen- 
sions, that  Cecil,  now  Lord  Burleigh,  found  it  necessary  to 
defend  himself  and  the  government  of  his  royal  mistress. 
Two  pamphlets,  ascribed  to  his  pen,  were  accordingly  issued, 
in  which  he  openly  defended  the  horrid  system  uf  persecu- 
tion, as  necessary  to  the  peace  and  security  of  the  kingdom ! 
He  boldly  advocated  the  employment  of  the  rack,  and  main- 
tained, in  mitigation,  that  it  was  used  with  as  much  gentle- 
ness as  the  case  admitted !     He  wrote: 

"  The  queen's  servants,  the  warders,  whose  office  it  is  to  handle  the  rack, 
were  ever  by  those  that  attended  the  examination,  specially  charged  to  use 
it  in  so  charitable  a  manner  as  such  a  thing  might  be." — Well  may  Hallam 
indignantly  exclaim  :  "  Such  miserable  excuses  serve  onlj^  to  mingle  con- 
tempt with  our  execration  :"  and  "Those  who  revere  the  memory  of  Lord 
Burleigh  must  blush  for  this  pitiful  apology."| 

Mr.  Hallam  has  the  candor  to  record  the  well  known  fact, 
that  the  great  body  of  the  Catholics  remained,  loyal  to  Eliza- 
beth,  notwithstanding   the   fiery  ordeal    througli  which   her 


Coustit.  History,  p.  91.  f  Ibid.,  p.  93.  t  ^bid.,  p.  94-5 


POPE   PAUL   IV. NOTHING   SOFTENS    ELIZABETH.  199 

wanton  cruelty  caused  tlicm  to  pass;  and  that  the  charge 
made  by  their  enemies,  with  Cecil  at  their  head,  that  they 
were  punished  as  traitors,  and  not  for  conscience'  sake,  was  a 
miserable  calumny  adding  insult  to  injury.  He  admits, 
moreover,  that  their  noble  loyalty  availed  them  nothing  with 
the  hard-hearted  queen,  for  whom  they  were  M'illing  to  lay 
down  their  lives,  and  that  the  penalties  against  them  were 
rather  increased  than  diminished  after  they  had  generously 
flocked  to  her  standard  to  aid  in  repelling  the  Spanish  Armada. 
He  writes : 

"  It  was  then  that  the  Catholics  in  every  country  repaired  to  the  standard 
of  the  lord-lieutenant,  imploring  that  they  might  not  be  suspected  of  barter- 
ing the  national  independence  for  their  religion  itself.  It  was  then  that  the 
venerable  Lord  Montague  brought  a  troop  of  horse  to  the  queen  at  Tilbury, 
commanded  by  himself,  his  son,  and  grand-son.  It  would  have  been  a  sign 
of  gratitude,  if  the  laws  depriving  them  of  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion 
had  been,  if  not  repealed,  yet  suftered  to  sleep,  after  these  proofs  of  loyalty. 
But  the  execution  of  priests,  and  of  other  Catholics,  became,  on  the  contrary, 
more  frequent,  and  the  fines  for  recusancy  were  exacted  as  rigorously  as 
before.  A  statute  was  passed,  restraining  popish  recusants,  a  distinctive 
name  now  first  imposed  by  law,  to  particular  places  of  residence,  and  sub- 
jecting them  to  other  vexatious .  provisions.  All  persons  were  forbidden  by 
proclamation  to  harbor  any  of  whose  conformity  they  were  not  assured."* 

*  Constit.  Hist.,  p.  101. 

Nothing  could  soften  the  steeled  heart  of  Elizabeth,  Thus,  early  in  hei 
reign — in  May,  1560 — Pope  Pius  IV.,  who  had  succeeded  Paul  IV.,  sent 
her  a  very  conciliatory  letter  by  a  special  nuncio  :  "  but  Elizabeth  had  taken 
her  line  as  to  the  court  of  Rome  ;  the  nuncio  received  a  message  at  Brussels 
that  he  must  not  enter  the  kingdom,  etc." — (Ibid.,  p.  7.5.)  According  to 
.Mackintosh,  the  Pontiff  tried  the  experiment  even  a  second  time. — (Histor}' 
of  England,  p.  316-7.)  Miss  Strickland  relates  this  circumstance  in  her 
own  graceful  way : 

"In  May,  1560,  the  new  Pope  Pius  IV.,  a  prince  of  the  house  of  Medici, 
made  an  attempt  to  win  back  England  through  her  queen,  to  the  obedience 
of  the  Roman  See,  by  sending  Parpaglia,  abbot  of  St.  Saviour,  to  the  queen, 
with  letters  written  in  the  conciliatory  style,  and  beginning,  '  dear  daughter 
in  Christ,'  inviting  her  '  to  return  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church,'  and "  pro- 
fessing his  readiness  to  do  all  things  needful  for  the  health  of  her  soul,  and 
the  firm  establishment  of  her  royal  dignity,  and  requesting  her  to  give  due 


200  ANGIJCAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

This  is  fully  confirmed  by  another  candid  Protestajit  writer 
Agnes  Strickland,  who  says  : 

"It  is  ever  to  be  lamented  that  Elizabeth  stained  the  glorious  year  of  the 
Armada  with  a  series  of  cruel  persecutions  on  the  score  of  religion.  January 
14th,  1588,  a  wretched  deist,  named  Francis  Wright,  alias  1^1  of  Wymond 
ham,  was  burned  alive,  in  the  castle  ditch  at  Norwich.  He  was  the  fourth 
who  had  suifered,  in  the  same  place,  within  the  last  five  years,  for  promul- 
gating erroneous  opinions.  The  same  year,  six  Catholic  priests  were  hanged, 
drawn,  and  quartered  ;  four  laymen,  who  had  embraced  Protestantism,  for 
returning  to  their  old  belief;  four  others,  and  a  gentlewoman  of  the  name  of 
Ward,  for  concealing  Catholic  priests,  besides  fifteen  of  their  companions, 
who  were  arraigned  for  no  other  offense  than  their  theological  opinions. 
Very  heavy  and  repeated  fines  were  levied  on  those  whom  it  was  not  con- 
sidered expedient  to  put  to  death.  The  fines  of  recusants  formed  a 
considerable  item  in  the  crown  revenues  of  that  period,  and  they  were,  of 
course,  hunted  out  with  keen  rapacity  by  an  odious  swarm  of  informers,  who 

attention  to  the  matters  which  would  be  communicated  by  his  dear  son 
Vincent  Parpaglia.  What  the  papal  concessions  were,  on  which  this  spirit 
ual  treaty  was  to  be  based,  can  only  be  matter  of  conjecture,  for  Elizabeth 
decUned  receiving  the  nuncio,  and  the  separation  became  final  and  com- 
plete."— Queens  of  England,  vi,  144.     She  quotes  Camden's  Annals. 

Thus  again,  moved  with  sympathy  at  the  sufferings  of  the  English  Cath- 
olics, the  emperor  Ferdinand  of  Austria, — whom  Mr.  Hallam  himself  rep 
resents  as  a  most  just  and  liberal  prince — wrote  two  letters  to  Elizabeth, 
begging  her  to  show  some  indulgence  to  her  Catholic  subjects  ;  "suggesting 
that  it  might  be  reasonable  to  allow  them  the  use  of  one  church  in  every 
city;"  and  concluding  "with  an  expression,  which  might  possibly  be  de 
signed  to  intimate  that  his  own  conduct  towards  the  Protestants  in  his  own 
dominions  would  be  influenced  by  her  concurrence  in  his  request." — All  ir 
vain  ;  Elizabeth's  resolution  was  taken  and  she  would  not  swerve  fi-om  it 
one  iota,  to  save  all  the  Protestants  and  Catholics  in  the  world. 

"In  her  answer  to  Ferdinand,  the  queen  declares  that  she  can  not  grant 
churches  to  those  who  disagree  fi'om  her  religion,  being  against  the  laws  of 
her  parliament,  and  highly  dangerous  to  the  state  of  her  kingdom  ;  as  it 
would  sow  various  opinions  in  the  nation  to  distract  the  minds  of  honest 
men,  and  would  cherish  parties  and  factions  that  might  disturb  the  present 
tranquillity  of  the  commonwealth." — (Constit.  History,  p.  77.) — This,  too, 
occm-red  long  before  the  issuing  of  the  bull  of  Pope  Pius  V.  upon  which 
some  Anglican  writers  pretend  to  ground  all  the  persecutions  of  her  reign. 
Of  course,  she  had  sown  no  "various  opinions  to  distract  the  minds  of 
honest  men!" 


TilE    HUNTED    PRIESTS CAMPUN.  20] 

earned  a  base  living  by  augmenting  the  miseries  of  their  unfortunate  fellow 
creatures."* 

Nero  himself  raged  not  more  cruelly  against  the  Roman 
Christians  of  the  first  century,  than  did  the  English  JezabeJ 
jigainst  the  English  Catholics  of  the  sixteenth !  Of  the  num 
ber  of  Catholic  martyrs,  Hallam  writes  as  follows : 

"  The  Catholic  martyrs  under  Elizabeth  amounted  to  no  inconsiderable 
number.  Dodd  reckons  them  at  one  hundred  and  ninety-one  ;  Milner  has 
raised  the  list  to  two  hundred  and  four.f  Fifteen  of  them,  according  to  him, 
suffered  for  denying  the  queen's  supremacy,  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  for 
exercising  their  ministry,  and  the  rest  for  being  reconciled  to  the  Piomish 
Church.  Many  others  died  of  hardships  in  prison,  and  many  were  deprived 
of  their  property.  J 

Even  long  before  the  issuing  of  the  papal  bull,  and  before 
Catholics  had  given  any  pretext  whatsoever  for  the  persecu- 
tion, their  priests  were  hunted  down  like  wolves ;  and  they 
had  to  conceal  themselves,  as  best  they  might,  in  order  to  be 
able  privately  to  minister  to  their  flocks,  and  escape  the  awful 
penalty  of  high  treason  therefor.  Referring  to  the  period 
which  followed  the  second  parliament  of  Elizabeth  in  1562-3, 
Hallam  says : 

"  Priests  therefore  traveled  the  country  in  various  disguises,  to  keep  alive 
the  flame  which  the  practice  of  outward  conformity  was  likely  to  extinguish. 
There  was  not  a  countjf  throughout  England,  says  a  Catholic  historian,  ^ 
where  several  of  Mary's  clergy  did  not  reside,  and  were  commonly  called 
the  old  priests.  By  stealth,  at  the  dead  of  night,  in  private  chambers,  in 
the  secret  lurking-places  of  an  ill-peopled  country,  with  all  the  mystery  that 
subdues  the  imagination,  with  all  the  mutual  trust  that  invigorates  con- 
stancy, these  proscribed  ecclesiastics  celebrated  their  solemn   rites,  more 

*  Queens  of  England,  vii,  100-101.  She  quotes  Bloomfield's  Norwich, 
Stowe,  and  Lingard. 

f  Challoner  and  others  have  shown  that  nearly  two  hundred  priests 
alone  were  executed  during  this  barbarous  reign.  Many  probably  also 
perished  of  whom  no  record  has  been  preserved.  J  Ibid. 

5  He  refers  to  Dodd's  Church  History,  vol.  ii,  p.  8,  No  doubt  the  num  • 
ber  of  those  who  conformed  externally,  in  order  to  escape  the  ruinous  fines 
and  other  penalties,  was  considerable  ;  yet  not  so  great  probably  as  Hallam 
Rupposes. 


202  ANGLICAN   REFORMATION  -  ELIZABETH. 

impressive   in  such  concealment   than  if  surrounded  by  all  their  ibrmei 
splendor."* 

All  honor  to  the  heroic  "old  priests"  of  Mary,  who  thus 
braved  death  in  its  most  terrible  forms  in  order  to  discharge 
their  duty,  and  succor  their  afflicted  brethren.  Again,  are 
we  forcibly  reminded  of  the  sufferings  of  the  early  Christians, 
and  of  the  sacred  mysteries  performed  amidst  the  solemn 
silence  and  impressive  gloom  of  the  Roman  catacombs !  All 
honor  to  Dr.  Allen  for  the  happy  thought  of  establishing  for- 

*  Dodd's  Church  History,  vol.  ii,  p.  78.  Among  the  zealous  priests  who 
were  hunted  down  to  death,  especially  during  the  latter  part  of  Elizabeth''^ 
reign,  "the  most  eminent  was  Gampian,  formerly  a  Protestant,  but  long  tiie 
boast  of  Douay  for  his  learning  and  virtues.  (Strype's  Parker,  373.)  This 
man,  so  justly  respected,  was  put  to  the  rack,  and  revealed  through  torture 
the  names  of  some  Catholic  gentlemen  with  whom  he  had  conversed. 
(Strype's  Annals,  ii,  644.)  He  appears  to  have  been  indicted  along  with 
several  other  priests,  not  on  the  recent  statutes,  but  on  that  of  25th  Edward 
III.,  for  compassing  and  imagining  the  queen's  death.  Nothing  that  I  have 
read  affords  the  slightest  proof  of  Campian's  concern  in  treasonable  practices, 
though  his  connections,  and  profession  as  a  Jesuit,  render  it  by  no  means 
unlikely."  (Such  is  modern  historic  justice  !  No  proof  is  brought,  but  a 
man  is  considered  to  be  "not  unlikely,"  to  be  guilty,  merely  because  he  hap- 
pens to  be  a  Jesuit !)  "  If  we  may  confide  in  the  published  trial,  the  prose- 
cution was  as  unfairly  conducted,  and  supported  by  as  slender  evidence,  as 
any,  perhaps,  which  can  be  found  in  our  books."  (State  Trials,  i,  1050 ; 
from  the  Phoenix  Britannicus.) — Hallam,  Constit.  History,  p.  92. 

Of  Edmund  Campian,  who  excited  the  interest  of  even  the  steel-hearted 
Elizabeth,  Miss  Strickland  writes  as  follows  :  "  Edmund  Campian  was  the 
first  great  scholar  produced  by  Christ's  Church  Hospital  as  a  Protestant 
foundation.  At  thirteen,  he  pronounced  a  Latin  oration  to  Queen  Mavy  on 
her  accession.  He  became  Master  of  Arts  at  Oxford,  in  1564,  where  his 
beautiful  Latin  address  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  when  she  visited  that  city,  was 
never  forgotten.  He  went  to  Ireland,  to  convert  the  Irish  to  the  doctrines 
of  the  church  of  England,  and  wrote  an  excellent  history  of  that  country. 
Revolted  and  disgusted  with  the  horrors  exercised  in  Ireland  by  the  govern- 
ment of  his  roj'al  mistress,  he  became  an  ardent  proselyte  to  the  Church  of 
Rome.  He  was  admitted  into  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits  in  1573,  returned 
to  England  as  a  zealous  missionary,  and  was  executed,  August,1581."— 
Quecms  of  England,  vi,  p.  346,  note. 


RETRIBUTION   OF   SACRILEGE.  203 

eign  colleges,  to  keep  up  the  supply  of  such  lieroes  of  the 
cross ! 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  see,  on  the  authority  of 
Hallam,  how  Hatton,  one  of  Elizabeth's  favorites,  at  the  insti- 
gation of  his  mistress,  robbed  Dr.  Cox,  Anglican  bishop  of 
Ely,  of  his  garden ;  and  how  her  prime  minister  Cecil  seized 
on  certain  estates  of  the  bishop  of  Peterborough.  These  are 
but  specimens  of  that  mania  for  church  spoliation  which  had 
seized  on  the  hungry  minions  of  the  court  ever  since  the  days 
of  Henry  VIII.  Not  content  with  the  wholesale  confiscation 
of  Catholic  church  property,  and  the  general  robbery  of  the 
Catholics,  these  men  robbed  the  new  Anglican  bishops,  who 
sought,  but  could  not  obtain  redress  from  the  royal  head  of 
their  church.     Says  Hallam  : 

"  The  prelates  of  the  English  church,  while  they  inflicted  so  many  severi- 
ties on  others,  had  not  always  cause  to  exult  in  their  own  condition.  From 
the  time  when  Henry  taught  his  courtiers  to  revel  in  the  spoil  of  monaster- 
ies, there  had  been  a  perpetual  appetite  for  ecclesiastical  possessions."* 

Bishop  Short,  however  much  he  seeks  to  palliate  the  atro- 
cious persecution  of  Catholics  under  Elizabeth,  takes  no  pains 
to  conceal  his  indignation  at  her  rapacity  and  tyranny.  We 
can  make  room  for  only  a  few  extracts. 

"  The  ravage  which  was  committed  by  Henry  was  the  wasteful  prodigality 
of  a  tyrant ;  .  .  .  under  Edward,  the  monarch  was  too  weak  to  resist  the 
avarice  of  those  who  governed  ;  and  Mary  rather  enriclml  than  robbed  the 
establishment ;  but  Elizabeth  laid  her  hands  on  all  that  she  could  grasp, 
though,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  up  appearances,  she  restored  some  small 
portion  in  foundations  connected  with  education."! — "  The  poverty  of  the 
church,  in  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  was  excessive  ;  not  only 
among  the  higher  clergy,  who  were  exposed  to  these  attacks  from  the  court ; 
but  among  the  lower  and  laborious  individuals  who  possess  no  dignified  sta- 
tion, and  have  no  further  worldly  prospect  than  to  provide  bread  for  them- 
selves and  their  familiis."]: 

It  is  rather  amusing  to  hear  the  Anglican  bishop  lamenting 
over  the  poverty  of  the  church  of  England,  and  consoling 

*  Dodd's  Church  History,  ii,  p.  134.      Ibid. 

i  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  137  I  Ibid.,  p.  138 


204  ANGLICAN    REFORMATION ELIZABETH. 

himself  with  the  Scriptural  declaration,  "  how  hardly  shall  a 
rich  man  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven !  "*  One  is  almost 
reminded  of  another  passage  of  the  New  Testament :  "  My 
house  is  the  house  of  prayer,  but  ye  have  made  it  a  den  ol 
thieves." — In  effect,  under  Elizabeth,  the  Anglican  church 
was,  if  not  a  den  of  thieves,  at  least  a  stock-jobbing  estab- 
lishment, in  which  every  one  grasped  whatever  he  could  ; 
the  queen  and  the  nobles,  however,  coming  in  for  the  lion's 
share  of  the  sacrilegious  spoils.  This  Bishop  Short  himself 
substantially  admits. 

Speaking  of  the  unjust  proceedings  against  the  Catholics, 
he  consoles  them  by  stating  that  they  were  as  well  treated  as 
others,  as  there  was  no  justice  for  any  under  Elizabeth's 
reign!  "The  unjust  method  in  which  the  trials  of  Roman 
Catholics  were  conducted  is  sometimes  brought  forward  as  a 
charge  against  Elizabeth  by  those  who  advocate  their  cause ; 
but  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  that  justice  was  never  substan- 
tially administered  during  this  reign.  The  influence  of  the 
powerful  was  frequently  exercised  against  all  right ;  and  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered,  if  the  Roman  Catholics  in  this  respect 
were  not  more  fortunate  than  their  Protestant  neighbors."! — 
"  There  are  some  persons  so  ignorant  as  to  wish  for  the  good 
days  of  Queen  Bess  !  "J 

He  states  that  many  evils  have  resulted  from  the  union  of 
church  and  state,  so  firmly  established  by  Elizabeth: 

"  All  the  power  which  was  exercised  in  ecclesiastical  matters  during  this 
and  the  following  reigns,  was  in  reality  a  civil  power,  and  was  often  exerted 
unfortunately  for  civil  purposes.  So  that  the  church  frequently  formed  a 
rallying  point  in  political  differences ;  and  as  the  spirit  of  civil  liberty  hy 
degrees  emancipated  the  church  from  the  tyranny  to  which  it  had  been 
reduced,  it  left  us  without  effectual  ecclesiastical  discipline."  5 

Avarice,  indeed,  seemed  to  be  the  besetting  sin  of  England 
during  the  sixteenth  century ;  and  it  appeared  to  possess  a 
special  and  almost  witching  fascination  when  seasoned  with 


*  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  127. 

+  Ibid,  p.  148.  X  Ibid.,  note.  \  Ibid.,  p.  127. 


OTHER    PROTESTANT    WITNESSES.  205 

the  condiment  of  sacrilege.  It  became  a  real  mania ; — but 
the  malediction  of  heaven  fell  heavily  on  the  sacrilegious 
spoilers,  and  on  their  children  !*  The  principal  actors  in  this 
great  work  of  English  sacrilege — Cromwell,  Somerset,  Cran- 
mer,  and  Northumberland — all  perished  by  violent  deaths  ; 
while  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  both  died  miserably,  and 
Edward  was  cut  off  in  the  first  bloom  of  boyhood.  All  of 
Henry's  children  were  childless,  and  with  them  ceased  for- 
ever the  royal  line  of  him  who  had  sacrificed  the  faith  of 
England  to  procure  a  male  heir  to  his  throne !  Thus  are 
God's  awful  judgments,  tardily  it  may  be,  but  none  the  less 
surely  executed  on  his  enemies,  even  in  this  world. — "The 
desire  of  sinners  shall  perish — Desiderium  peccatorum  per- 
ibit!" 

We  conclude  our  quotations  from  Hallam  with  his  own 
closing  remarks  on  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  in  its  relation  to 
the  treatment  of  her  Catholic  subjects.  After  having  referred 
to  several  grades  of  persecution,  which  he  ranges  in  the 
following  ascending  scale ;  of  a  test  of  religious  conformity 
for  holding  civil  oflices,  of  restraining  the  free  promulgation 
of  opinions  especially  through  the  press,  of  prohibiting  the 
open  exercise  of  worship,  of  forbidding  all  acts  of  even 
private  devotions  and  all  expressions  of  even  private  opinion, 
and  finally,  of  enforcing  conformity  to  an  established  church 
and  the  abjuration  of  heterodox  tenets  by  pains  and  penalties ; 
ne  adds : 

"  The  statutes  of  Elizabeth's  reign  comprehend  every  one  of  these  pro- 
gressive degrees  of  restraint  and  persecution.  And  it  is  much  to  be  regretted, 
that  any  writers  vrorthy  of  respect  should,  either  through  undue  prejudice 
against  an  adverse  religion,  or  through  timid  acquiescence  in  whatever  has 
been  enacted,  have  offered  for  this  odious  code  the  false  pretext  of  political 
necessity.  The  necessity,  I  am  persuaded,  can  never  be  made  out ;  the 
statutes  were,  in  many  instances,  absolutely  unjust ;  in  others,  not  demanded 
by  circumstances  ;  in  almost  all,  prompted  by  religious  bigotry,  by  excessive 

*  For  the  terrible  retribution  which  overtook,  even  in  this  life,  many  of 
the  church  spoilers,  according  to  that  honest  Protestant  Sir  Henry  Spelman, 
see  note  D.  at  the  end  of  the  present  volume. 


206  AMGLICAN   REFORMATION — ELIZABETH. 

apprehension,  or  by  the  arbitrary  spirit  with  which  our  government  was  ad 
ministered  under  Elizabeth."* 

"We  add  to  the  testimony  of  Hallam  on  Elizabeth's  perse- 
cutions,  that  of  three  other  Protestant  historians :  Miss  Strick- 
land, Macaulay,  and  Prescott.  Miss  Strickland  testifies  as 
follows : 

"  It  would  not  only  be  a  painful  task,  but  incompatible  with  the  plan  of 
this  work,  to  enter  into  the  details  of  the  persecutions  on  the  score  of  non- 
conformity, which  stain  the  annals  of  this  period  of  Elizabeth's  life  and 
reign.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  unsparing  use  of  the  rack,  the  gibbet,  and 
the  quartering  knife,  failed  either  to  silence  the  zeal  of  the  Puritans,  or  to 
deter  the  seminary  priests  from  performing  their  perilous  missions  as  teach- 
ers of  their  proscribed  doctrines."f 

Says  Macaulay : 

"Elizabeth,  it  is  true,  often  spoke  to  her  parliament  in  language  as 
haughty  and  imperious  as  that  which  the  Great  Turk  would  use  to  his 
divan.  She  punished  with  great  severity  members  of  the  house  of  com- 
mons, who,  in  her  opinion,  carried  the  freedom  of  debate  too  far.  She 
assumed  the  power  of  legislating  by  means  of  proclamation.  She  imprisoned 
her  subjects  without  bringing  them  to  a  legal  trial.  Torture  was  often  em- 
ployed, in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  England,  for  the  purpose  of  extorting 
confessions  from  those  who  were  shut  up  in  her  dungeons.  The  authority 
of  the  Star  Chamber  and  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  was  at  its  highest 
point.  Severe  restraints  were  imposed  on  political  and  religious  discussion. 
The  number  of  presses  was  at  one  time  limited.  No  man  could  print  with- 
out a  license ;  and  every  work  had  to  undergo  the  scrutiny  of  the  primate 
or  the  bishop  of  London.  Persons  whose  writings  were  displeasing  to  the 
court  were  cruelly  mutilated  like  Stubbs,  or  put  to  death,  like  Penry.  Non- 
conformity was  severely  punished.  The  queen  prescribed  the  exact  rule  of 
religious  faith  and  discipline ;  and  whoever  departed  from  that  rule,  either 
to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  was  in  danger  of  severe  penalties."! 

Our  own  Prescott  writes  as  follows :  § 

"  Her  conduct  was  certainly  not  controlled  by  religious  principle ;  and, 
though  the  bulwark  of  the  Protestant  faith,  it  might  be  difficult  to  say 
whether  she  were  at  heart  most  a  Protestant  or  a  Catholic.     She  viewed 

*  Constit.  History,  p.  104.  f  Queens  of  England,  vi,  346. 

J  Review  of  Nares'  Memoirs  of  Lord  Burghley. — His  name  was  written 
hoth  Burghley  and  Burleigh.  {  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  ii,  202. 


THE   VERDICT.  207 

religion  in  its  connection  with  the  state,  in  other  words,  with  herself;  and 
she  took  measures  for  enforcing  conformity  to  her  own  views,  not  a  wLit 
less  despotic,  and  scarcely  less  sanguinary,  than  those  countenanced  for  con- 
science' sake  by  her  more  bigoted  rival."* 

But  we  sicken  of  all  these,  alas !  too  well  attested  atrocities, 
and  we  must  conclude  our  remarks  on  this  disagreeable  sub- 
ject. Need  we  ask  any  candid  man  who  has  read  this  brief 
and  imperfect  summary  of  facts,  resting  for  their  evidence  on 
acts  of  parliament  and  the  statements  of  accredited  historians, 
both  Protestant  and  Catholic,  whether  the  means  employed 
to  establish  the  Anglican  church  were  conformable  with  the 
letter  and  spirit  of  the  gospel,  or  whether  they  were  such  as 
to  indicate  a  change  for  the  better,  or  a  reformation  properly 
80  called  ?  We  leave  the  answer  to  the  calm  judgment  and 
upright  conscience  of  our  readers.  We  will  confidently  abide 
by  their  verdict. 

*  This  is  very  unjust  to  the  famous  Isabella  of  Spain,  with  whom  he  is 
comparing  Elizabeth.  In  a  note,  he  thus  humorously  answers  one  of  Ehza- 
beth's  hypocritical  declarations  : 

"Queen  Elizabeth,  indeed,  in  a  declaration  to  her  people,  proclaims,  'We 
know  not,  nor  have  any  meaning  to  allow,  that  any  of  our  subjects  should 
be  molested,  either  by  examination  or  inquisition,  in  any  matter  of  faith,  as 
long  as  they  shall  profess  the  Christian  faith.' — (Turner's  Elizabeth,  vol.  ii, 
p.  241,  note.)  One  is  reminded  of  Parson  Thwackum's  definition  in  Tom 
Jones,  *  When  I  mention  religion,  I  mean  the  Christian  religion ;  and  not 
only  the  Christian  religion,  but  the  Protestant  religion ;  and  not  only  the 
Protestant  religion,  but  the  church  of  England.'  It  would  be  diflficult  tc 
say  which  fared  worst,  Puritans  or  Catholics,  under  this  system  of  tolera- 
tion." 


EEFORMATION  IN  ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

MARY    AND    ELIZABETH    COMPARED. 

^lative  length  of  their  reigns— Their  respect  for  their  mothers — Their 
reUgious  feehngs  and  conscience — Plautus  in  the  church  on  Sunday^ 
Their  respective  relations  to  the  Church — Their  comparative  moral  char- 
acter —  Their  disinterestedness  and  selfishness  —  Hallam  on  Lingard's 
authorities  —  The  one  merciful,  the  other  cruel  —  The  one  liberal  in 
government,  the  other  a  tyrant — Testimony  of  Miss  Strickland  and  of 
Macaulay — Their  restoring  and  crushing  English  liberty — Their  foreign 
policy — That  of  Mary  single  and  honest — That  of  Elizabeth  tortuous  and 
insincere — Her  motto,  "Divide  and  conquer" — The  success  of  Elizabeth 
the  chief  element  of  her  popularity — But  no  evidence  of  the  Divine  ap- 
proval— Her  ministers  compared  with  those  of  Mary,  and  particularly 
Gardiner — Their  respective  persecutions  compared — Hallam  answered — 
Macaulay's  statement — Their  deaths — Awful  death  of  Elizabeth,  the 
real  foundress  of  modern  Anglicanism. 

This  comparison  need  not  detain  us  long.  Mary  reigned 
but  a  little  over  five  years — from  July,  1553,  to  November, 
1558  ;  Elizabeth  over  forty-four — from  November,  1558,  to 
March,  1603.  Of  course,  the  former  had,  comparatively,  but 
a  short  time  in  which  to  display  her  character  or  to  work  out 
ner  policy.  Still  she  did  enough  in  those  few  years,  to  enable 
us  to  form  an  enlightened  opinion  of  her  reign  ;  and  to  serve, 
at  the  same  time,  as  the  basis  of  a  comparison  between  her 
and  her  more  fortunate  sister. 

1.  As  we  have  already  intimated,  Mary  copied  more  after 
her  mother,  Elizabeth  more  after  her  father.  The  former 
always  looked  up  with  afiection  and  reverence  to  that  vener- 
ated and  noble  mother,  whose  sufferings  and  disgrace  she  had 
shared,  whose  memory  she  warmly  cherished,  and  whose 
virtues  she  sought  to  imitate ;  the  latter  seldom  spoke,  or 
(.208) 


RESPECT   FOR    THEIR    MOTHERS.  2 OS 

seemed  even  to  think,  of  her  mother,  but  she  always  loved  to 
proclaim  herself  the  daughter  of  her  father.  One  of  the  first 
cares  of  Mary,  on  ascending  the  throne,  was  to  have  blotted 
out  from  the  statute  book  the  bills  divorcing  her  mother  and 
stigmatizing  her  own  birth  ;  and  she  could  not  rest  tranquil, 
while  even  a  shadow,  which  she  could  remove,  j'es ted  on  the 
fair  character  of  Catharine  ;*  Elizabeth,  on  the  contrary, 
contented  herself,  in  her  first  parliament,  with  having  herself 
declared  the  sovereign  by  hereditary  right,  and  she  sufiered 
the  attainder  of  her  mother,  Anne  Boleyn,  together  with  the 
bills  proclaiming  her  divorced  from  Henry,  and  guilty  of 
incest  and  adulterrj — though  declared  at  the  same  time  never 
to  have  been  validly  mart-ied  to  him — and  herself  conse- 
quently illegitimate,  to  remain  unrepealed  on  the  statute 
book,  to  the  very  hour  of  her  death  !f  What  motive  could 
have  induced  her  to  adopt  this  strange  line  of  conduct,  unless 
she  felt  heartily  ashamed  of  her  mother,  and  could  not  bear, 
or  did  not  think  it  prudent,  to  have  even  her  name  recalled, 
we  are  at  a  loss  to  understand :  but  the  fact  itself,  however 
explained,  is  little  creditable  to  her  feelings  as  a  daughter,  or 
to  her  delicacy  and  self-respect  as  a  woman. 

2.  Mary  was  deeply  religious  and  scrupulously  conscien- 
tious ;  she  valued  her  salvation  more  than  ''•  ten  such  crowns 
as  that  of  England ; "  she  adhered  firmly  to  her  faith  in  spite 
of  obloquy,  annoyance,  and  persecution  under  her  father's, 
and  especially  under  her  brother's  reign  ;J  she  did  this,  too, 
when  her  religious  firmness  seemed  likely  to  deprive  her  of 
all  hopes  of  ever  ascending  the  throne;  and  she  never  once 
wavered  in  the  faith  of  her  venerated  mother,  and  that  of 

*  This  was  done  in  her  first  parhament. 

f  An  act  was,  indeed,  passed  in  her  first  parliament  restoring  Elizabeth 
in  blood  notwithstanding  the  attainder  of  her  mother,  and  inheritable  to  her 
mother's  property  ;  but  the  attainder  itself  was  not  repealed,  nor  the  act 
declaring  her  mother's  marriage  with  Henry  void  from  the  beginning. — See 
Statutes,  as  quoted  by  Lingard ;  vii,  259. 

I  All  this  we  have  shown,  in  the  previous  chapters. 
VOL.  II. 18 


210  MARY    AND    ELIZABETH    COMPARED. 

her  ancestors,  from  the  first  dawn  of  reason  to  the  last 
moment  of  her  life.  Elizabeth,  on  the  contrary,  had  little 
religion  and  less  conscience;*  her  conscience  was  so  elastic 
as  to  bend  with  every  change  of  circumstances,  and  to  induce 
her  to  conform  backwards  and  forwards  according  to  the 
times  and  the  promptings  of  her  own  interest  or  policy.  She 
was  of  her  father's  faith  during  his  lifetime ;  she  adopted 
that  of  her  youthful  brother  after  her  father's  death;  she 
became  a  zealous  Catholic  under  her  sister ;  and  immediately 
after  Mary's  death,  she  became  again  a  zealous  Protestant! 
At  her  coronation,  she  solemnly  swore  to  maintain  the  Cath- 
olic religion ;  within  a  month  thereafter,  if  not  at  or  even 
before  her  coronation,  she  firmly  Tietermined  to  destroy  it  in 

*  Our  modern  Puritans  will  be  shocked  to  know  that  Elizabeth  went  tc 
the  theatre  on  Sunday ;  and  all  true  Christians  will  be  grievously  scandal- 
ized to  find,  that  she  had  one  of  the  not  very  moral  or  even  very  decent 
pagan  plays  of  Plautus  performed  in  her  presence  in  a  Christian  Church  on 
a  Sunday  at  Cambridge !  Miss  Strickland  furnishes  a  lengthy  account  of 
this  scandalous  aifair,  from  which  we  extract  the  following; — we  doubt 
much,  whether  it  was  ever  a  practice,  as  she  intimates,  in  Catliolic  times  or 
countries,  to  begin  the  Sunday  celebration  on  Saturday  evening  : 

"  She  went  to  see  one  of  Plautus'  plays — the  '  Aulularia ' — for  the  hear- 
ing and  playing  of  which,  at  her  expense  a  vast  platform  was  erected  in 
King's  College  church.  The  performance  of  a  pagan  play  in  a  Christian 
church,  on  the  Sunday  evening,  was  no  great  improvement  on  the  ancient 
moralities  and  mysteries,  which  in  retrospective  review,  are  so  revolting  to 
modern  taste.  Those  who  glance  over  the  Mysteries  must  feel  displeased 
at  finding  that  sacred  subjects  could  be  so  absurdly  dramatized,  yet  these 
Mysteries  were  listened  to  with  reverential  awe  by  a  demi-savage  people, 
who  saw  nothing  ridiculous  or  profiine  in  the  manner  of  showing  the  Crea- 
tion, the  history  of  Noah,  or  of  Joseph,  the  intention  being  to  make  them 
comprehensible  to  the  eye,  when  the^  untaught  ear  refused  to  follow  the 
thread  of  sacred  history.  But  Elizabeth  and  Cambridge  had  more  knowl- 
edge, if  not  more  wisdom,  and  ought  to  have  banished  their  pagan  play  from 
the  walls  of  a  Christian  temple." — Queens  of  England,  iii,  164:.  She  adds, 
in  a  note : 

"  The  stage  was  first  erected  in  King's  College  Hall,  but  was  not  con- 
sidered large  enough,  and  therefore  taken  down,  and  erected  in  the  church 
by  the  queen's  orders.' 


THEIR    RELIGION     iND    MORALS.  211 

England;  and  her  entire  life  was  afterwards  devoted  to  cai- 
rying  out  this  stern  and  cruel  purpose. 

3.  Mary  willingly  and .  promptly  resigned  the  ambitious 
title  and  immense  patronage  of  head  of  the  church  in  Eng- 
land, bequeathed  to  her  by  her  father  and  brother ;  Elizabeth 
immediately  resumed  the  title,  stretched  its  prerogatives  and 
powers  to  the  very  utmost  limits,  and  waxed  strong  on  its 
patronage.  Mary,  against  the  advice  of  her  council,  restored 
the  property  of  the  Church,  which  her  father  and  brother 
had  seized  on  and  annexed  to  the  crown ;  Elizabeth,  immedi- 
ately after  her  accession,  took  it  all  back,  and  she  continued 
to  pursue,  almost  to  outdo,  the  sacrilegious  policy  of  church 
spoliation,  which  had  been  'inaugurated  by  Henry  and  Ed- 
ward.* 

4.  Mary's  moral  character  was  so  pure  and  unsullied,  that 
not  even  her  most  bitter  enemies  seem  ever  to  have  breathed 
a  word  casting  a  shadow  of  taint  on  her  chastity. f  On  the 
contrary,  Elizabeth  was  notorious  for  her  dissoluteness,  which 

*  In  her  very  first  parliament,  two  acts  were  passed  :  the  first  re-annex- 
ing to  the  crown  the  church  property  restored  by  Mary ;  the  second  author- 
izing the  queen,  on  the  vacancy  of  any  bishopric,  to  seize  on  the  lands  be- 
longing to  it,  "  with  the  exception  of  the  chief  mansion-house  and  domain, 
on  condition  that  she  gave  in  return  an  equivalent  in  tithes  and  parsonages 
appropriate."  In  vain  did  the  new  bishops  protest  against  a  measure,  the 
true  drift  of  which  they  clearly  saw  ;  it  was  passed  in  spite  of  them.  See 
Lingard,  vii,  264. 

f  The  ancient  Protestant  historians  speak  strongly  in  favor  of  Mary's 
moral  character.  Camden  says  of  her :  "  Princeps  apud  omnes  ob  mores 
sanctissimos,  pictatem  in  pauperes,  liberalitatem  in  noliiles  atque  ecclesiasti- 
cos  nunquam  satis  laudata — A  princess  never  sufficiently  to  be  praised 
among  all,  for  her  most  holy  morals,  her  mercy  to  the  poor,  and  her  liberal- 
ity to  nobles  and  ecclesiastics." — (In  apparat,  23.)  And  Godwin  :  "Mulier 
sane  pia,  clemens,  moribusque  castissimis,  et  usque  quaque  laudanda,  si  reli- 
gionis  errorem  non  spectes — A  woman  truly  pious,  merciful,  and  of  most 
chaste  morals,  and  every  way  worth}'  of  praise,  if  you  look  not  at  her  reli- 
gion."— P.  123.  Ibid.,  vii,  243,  note.  The  vile  anonymous  libels  and 
caricatures  of  her,  referred  to  in  a  previous  chapter,  are  simpl}'^  beneath  con- 
tempt. 


212  MARY    AND    ELIZABETH    COxAIPAREU. 

survived  her  youth,  and  even  her  advanced  age.  Besidea 
Dudley,  earl  of  Leicester,  her  first  principal  lover,  Halton 
and  Raleigh,  Oxford  and  Blount,  Simier  and  Anjou,  were 
numbered  among  her  successive  favorites.  The  two  courts 
imitated  the  examples  of  their  respective  mistresses.  That 
of  Mary  was  decorous  and  proper ;  that  of  Elizabeth,  accord- 
ing to  Faunt,  Walsingham's  secretary,  was,  on  the  contrary, 
a  place,  "where  all  enormities  were  practiced,  where  sin 
reigned  in  the  highest  degree  ;  "*  and  where,  says  Harrington, 
another  Protestant  contemporary,  "  the  only  discontent  I 
have,  is  to  live  where  there  is  so  little  godliness  and  exercise 
of  religion,  so  dissolute  manners  and  corrupt  conversation 
generally,  which  I  find  to  be  worse  than  when  I  knew  the 
place  first."f 

5.  Mary  has  been  styled  "the  bloody;"  Elizabeth  has  been 
viewed  as  the  stern,  indeed,  and  imperious,  but  not  cruel 
woman  or  tyrannical  sovereign.  How  little  either  deserves 
the  character  which  the  prejudice  or  partiality  of  English 
history  assigns  her,  we  think  we  have  already  suflSciently 

*  August  6,  1583.  Birch,  i,  39.  See  also  MS.  life  of  the  duchess  of 
Feria,  quoted  ibid.  Hallam,  in  his  Constit.  History,  (p.  94,  note)  sneers  at 
Dr.  Lingard  for  saying  that  her  court  was  dissolute,  "on  the  authority  of 
one  Faunt,  an  austere  Puritan." — A  sneer  is  no  argument.  Faunt  was  a 
Protestant,  and  secretary  of  Walsingham,  one  of  her  principal  ministers ; 
and  he  was  surely  a  competent  witness.  Hallam  forgot  to  mention  Harring- 
ton and  the  duchess  of  Feria,  other  contemporaries,  who  say  the  same 
thing.  He  admits  that  Elizabeth  "  certainly  went  strange  lengths  of  indeli- 
cacy." He  adds  :  "  But  if  she  might  sacrifice  herself  to  the  queen  of  Cnidus 
and  Paphos,  she  was  unmercifully  severe  to  those  about  her,  of  both  sexes, 
who  showed  any  inclination  to  that  worship,  though  under  the  escort  of 
Hymen.  Miss  Aikin,  in  her  well- written  and  interesting  Memoirs  of  the 
court  of  Elizabeth,  has  collected  several  instances  from  Harrington  and 
Birch." — Was  it  candid  in  him  to  mention  only  Faunt,  as  Lingard's  author- 
ity, when  he  himself  refers  to  Birch  and  Harrington,  both  of  whom  Lingard 
quotes  ? 

f  August  1,  1582.  Birch,  i,  25.  Ibid.,  viii,  467,  note.  Harrington  says 
also,  that  at  this  court  "  there  was  no  love  but  that  "f  the  lusty  god  of  gal- 
lantry— Asmodeus.    NugjB  aniqute,  161.    Hiid. 


MERCY  AND    CRUELTY LOVB    OF    LIBERTY.  2]o 

shown.  In  regard  to  Mury  we  need  add  nuH)ing;  of  Eliza- 
beth's natural  jealousy  and  wanton  cruelty,  we  will  quote  the 
following  additional  specimens,  from  her  life  by  Miss  Strick- 
land ;  who,  in  the  first  of  them  at  least,  is  fully  confirmed  by 
Mackintosh  and  Hallam.  Her  merciless  treatment  of  Cath- 
arine and  Mary  Gray,  sisters  of  the  late  unfortunate  Lady 
Jane  Gray,  is  in  strong  contrast  with  that  of  Mary,  whose 
feelings  would  naturally  have  been  more  strongly  enlisted 
against  them ;  they  b5ing  sisters  of  her  first  rival,  and  not 
far  removed  from  the  line  of  succession  to  her  throne,  which 
their  sister  had  sought  to  grasp.  Yet  Mary  was  merciful, 
Elizabeth  relentless.     Says  Miss  Strickland  : 

"  Elizabeth  was  obdurate  in  her  resentment  to  her  unfortunate  cousin, 
Lady  Katharine  Gray  ;  and,  disregarding  all  her  pathetic  letters  for  pardon 
and  pitj^,  kept  her  in  durance  apart  ft'om  her  husband  and  children,  till  she 
was  released  by  death,  after  seven  years  of  doleful  captivity.  Her  real 
crime  was  being  the  sister  of  Lady  Jane  Gray,  which  Queen  Mary  had 
overlooked,  but  Elizabeth  could  not ;  yet  Lady  Katharine  v/^as  a  Protestant."* 

Again : 

"Both  the  meek  inoifensive  sisters  of  Lady  Jane  Gray  were  thus  torn 
from  their  husbands,  and  doomed  to  life-long  imprisonment  by  the  inexor- 
able queen.  Their  piteous  appeals  to  her  compassion,  may  be  seen  in  Ellis's 
Royal  Letters.  Can  an}'  one  suppose,  that  she  would  have  scrupled  to  shed 
the  blood  of  either  or  both  of  these  broken-hearted  victims,  if  their  names 
had  been  used  to  excite  an  insurrection  in  her  metropolis  ?  "  f 

Of  her  wanton  cruelty  to  Archbishop  Heath,  our  fair 
authoress  speaks  as  follows: 

"A  few  of  the  less  pleasing  traits  of  Elizabeth's  character  developed 
themselves  this  year,  among  which  may  be  reckoned  her  unkind  treatment 
of  the  venerable  Dr.  Heath,  the  non-juring  archbishop  of  York,  and  formerly 
lord  chancellor.  It  has  been  shown  that  he  performed  good  and  loyal 
service  for  Elizabeth,  whose  doubtful  title  was  established  beyond  dispute, 
by  his  making  her  first  proclamation  a  solemn  act  of  both  houses  of  parlia* 
ment.  Subsequently,  in  1560,  he  was  ordered  into  confinement  in  the 
tower,  because  he  would  not  acknowledge  Elizabeth's  supremacy  over  the 

*  Queens  of  England,  vi,  151.     She  quotes  Ellis,  Camden,  and  Mackin- 
tosh.    See  Am.  Edit,  of  Mackintosh,  p.  319.  ,   Ibid,  p.  175. 
45 


214  MARY    AND    ELIZABETH    COMPARED. 

church.  He  remaineJ  there  till  he  was  sent  into  a  sort  of  prison  restraint 
at  one  of  the  houses  belonging  to  his  see  in  Yorkshire. 

"His  mode  of  imprisonment  permitted  him  to  take  walks  for  exercise. 
These  rambles  could  not  have  been  very  far,  for  he  was  turned  of  eighty. 
They  were  regarded  with  jealousy,  and  the  following  order  of  council  ex- 
ists, in  answer  to  a  letter  from  Lord  Scrope,  relative  to  the  examination  by 
him  to  be  taken  of  Nicholas  Heath,  with  whom  his  lordship  is  required  to 
proceed  somewhat  sharply  withal  '  to  the  end,  that  he  should  declare  the 
full  truth  why  he  wandereth  abroad  ;  and  if  he  will  not  be  plain,  to  use 
some  kind  of  torture  to  him,  so  as  to  be  without  any  great  bodily  hurt,  and 
to  advertise  his  (Lord  Scrope's)  goings  herein.' 

"The  old  man  had  been  on  terms  of  friendship  with  the  queen,  had  done 
her  worthy  service,  he  had  been  considered  an  opponent  of  persecution ;  yet 
could  Elizabeth,  then  little  turned  of  thirty,  sit  in  her  conclave,  and  order  the 
imfortunate  prisoner  to  be  pinched  with  the  torture,  to  reveal  some  vague  and 
indefinite  crime,  which,  perhaps,  only  existed  in  the  suspicions  of  his  enemies."* 

6.  As  we  have  also  seen,  Mary,  so  far  as  her  short  reign 
permitted  her  to  carry  out  her  policy,  exhibited  a  disposition 
to  restore  the  legitimate  rights  of  parliament,  and  the  ancient 
Catholic  liberties  guarantied  by  the  British  Constitution ;  nor 
could  she  be  induced,  like  her  father  and  sister,  to  trample 
them  under  foot,  and  to  make  royal  prerogative  paramount. 
The  very  first  act  of  her  first  parliament  was  the  abolition  of 
all  the  treasons  and  felonies  of  Henry  VIII. f  Not  so  Elizabeth. 
She  again  crushed  out  the  constitutional  liberties  of  England, 
and  made  her  ov^^n  will  the  law  of  the  land.  Nothing  can  be 
more  certain  than  this  fact,  singular  as  it  may  appear  to 
some  readers. 

We  have  already  seen  from  Macaulay  how  Elizabeth  had 
"assumed  the  power  of  legislating  by  means  of  proclama- 
tion," and  with  what  severity  she  punished  those  members  of 
lier  parliaments  who  dared  to  express  opinions  opposed  to  her 
own.     The  same  writer  says  : 

"  The  immediate  effect  of  the  Reformation  in  Englan  i  was  by  no  means 
avorable  to  political  liberty.     The  authority  which  had  been  exercised  by 

*  Queens  of  England,  vi,  180.     She  quotes  Council  Register, 
t  Mackintosh,  History  of  England,  p^  279,  American  Edit.,  Philadelphi«i, 
1834.     See  also  p.  286,  ibid. 


the;r  state  folicy.  215 

the  Popes  was  transferred  almost  entire  to  the  king,  Two  formidable 
powers  which  had  often  served  to  check  eacli  other,  were  united  in  a  single 
despot.  If  the  system  on  which  the  founders  of  the  church  of  England 
acted  could  have  been  permanent,  the  Reformation  would  have  been,  in  a 
political  sense,  the  greatest  curse  that  ever  fell  on  our  country.  But  that 
system  carried  within  it  the  seeds  of  its  own  death.  It  was  possible  to 
transfer  the  name  of  head  of  the  church  from  Clement  to  Henry ;  but  it 
was  impossible  to  transfer  to  the  new  establishment  the  veneration  which 
the  old  establishment  had  inspired.  Mankind  had  not  broken  one  yoke  in 
pieces  only  to  put  on  another.  The  supremacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  had 
been  for  ages  considered  as  a  fiindamental  principle  of  Christianity.  It  had 
for  it  every  thing  that  could  make  a  prejudice  deep  and  strong — venerable 
antiquity,  high  authority,  general  consent.  It  had  been  taught  in  the  first 
lessons  of  the  nurse.  It  was  taken  for  granted  in  all  the  exhortations  of  the 
priest.  To  remove  it  was  to  break  innumerable  associations,  and  to  give  a 
great  and  perilous  shock  to  the  mind-  Yet  this  prejudice,  strong  as  it  was, 
could  not  stand  in  the  great  day  of  che  deliverance  of  the  human  reason. 
And  as  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  public  mind,  just  after  freeing  it- 
selfj  by  an  unexampled  eifort,  from  a  bondage  which  it  had  endured  for  ages 
would  patiently  submit  to  a  tyranny  which  could  plead  no  ancient  title. 
Rome  had  at  least  prescription  on  its  side.  But  Protestant  intolerance, 
despotism  in  an  upstart  sect,  infallibility  claimed  by  guides  who  acknowl- 
edged that  they  had  passed  the  greater  part  of  their  lives  in  error,  restraints 
imposed  on  the  liberty  of  private  judgment  by  rulers  who  could  vindicate 
their  own  proceedings  only  by  asserting  the  liberty  of  private  judgment — 
these  things  could  not  long  be  borne.  Those  who  had  pulled  down  the 
crucifix  could  not  long  continue  to  persecute  for  the  surplice.  It  required 
no  great  sagacity  to  perceive  the  inconsistency  and  dishonesty  of  men  who, 
dissenting  from  almost  all  Christendom,  would  suifer  none  to  dissent  from 
themselves  ;  who  demanded  freedom  of  conscience,  yet  refused  to  grant  it ; 
who  execrated  persecution,  yet  persecuted ;  who  urged  reason  against  the 
authority  of  one  opponent,  and  authority  against  the  reasons  of  another. 
Bonner  at  least  acted  in  accordance  with  his  own  principles.  Cranmer  could 
vindicate  himself  from  the  charge  of  being  a  heretic,  only  by  arguments 
which  made  him  out  to  be  a  murderer."* 

T.  Mary's  foreign  policy  was  straight-forward,  truth-lovi.ig, 
and  honest;  Elizabeth's  was  tortuous,  deceitful,  and  dis- 
honest, whenever    and   wherever    her   interest    prompted.f 

*  Review  of  Lord  Nugent's  Memorials  of  Hampden,  Miscetlan'os.  A.ner- 
ican  Edit,  p.  15.3-4. 

•*  Witness,  for  instance,  her  high-handed  seizure  of  the  Spanish  treasures 


216  M.VRY    AND    ILIZABETH    COMPARED. 

Mary  never  had  one  language  for  foreign  governnients,  and 
another  quite  contradictory  for  their  disafi'ected  or  insurgent 
subjects ;  and  she  was  never  at  peace  and  war  with  the  same 
nation  or  kingdom  at  the  same  time:  the  contrary  policy 
precisely,  was  that  so  constantly  pursued  by  Elizabeth,  as  to 
be  quite  characteristic  of  her  government.  Tliroughout  her 
long  reign,  she  persisted  in  playing  oif  this  double  and  un- 
principled policy  in  Scotland,  in  France,  and  in  the  Neth- 
erlands, in  spite  of  all  remonstrance,  of  all  threats,  and  of 
actual  wars.*  Her  maxim,  or  that  of  her  advisers,  seems  to 
have  been,  "  Divide  and  conquer ; "  and  though  honesty  is 
said  to  be  the  best  policy,  and  dishonesty  the  worst,  the 
maxim  did  not  appear  to  hold  good — in  her  particular  case. 
She  both  divided  and  conquered.  Her  dishonest  policy 
proved  apparently  successful  for  the  time  being.  She  weak- 
ened her  enemies  by  divisions  sown  by  the  encouragment, 
through  her  activ^  agents,  of  disaffection  and  rebellion  in 
their  dominions ;  and  she  thus  gave  temporarily  to  England 
a  commanding  influence  among  the  European  nations. 

But  we  must  not  forget,  that  if  the  commercial  and  naval 
prosperity  of  England  were  greatly  developed  during  her 
long  reign,  the  first  impulses  towards  the  development  were 
given,  and  the  foundations  of  both  were  laid  in  that  of  Mary ; 
and  the  shortness  of  her  reign  prevented  her  from  fully  car- 
rying out  her  great  design  for  the  advancement  of  England ; 
whose  temporal  and  political  prospects,  supposing  that  Mary 
would  be  blessed  with  an  heir,  had,  in  fact,  never  at  any 
previous  period  been  brighter  than  they  became,  when  her 
escutcheon  was  blazoned  with  that  of  the  heir  apparent  to 
the  most  powerful  dynasty  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

8.  If  Elizabeth  was  more  able  and  adroit  as  a  politician, 
and  more  winning  in  her  manners  as  a  woman,  Mary  was 
more  sincere  and  more  honest,  even  if  less  popular  and  less 

going  to  the  Netherlands,  when  she  was  nominally  at  peace  with  Spain ! 
It  was  little  better  than  highway  robbery  or  piracy. 

*  This;  we  will  have  occasion  to  show  more  fiilly  in  the  following  chapters 


THEIR    PERSECUTIONS.  217 

Biiccessfu].  Much  of  Elizabeth's  s.iccess  in  government  and  in 
foreign  negotiation  is  due  to  the  consummate  cunning  and 
signal  talent  of  her  ministers,  who  were  as  able  as  they  were 
unscrupulous,  and  as  untiring  as  thej  were  skillful.  Few  of 
the  continental  politicians  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  a 
match  for  Cecil  and  Walsingham ;  the  former  of  whom  may 
be  called  the  Talleyrand  of  that  century, — if  the  comparison 
do  not  involve  injustice  to  the  character  of  the  more  modern 
diplomatist.  So  long,  indeed,  as  Gardiner  lived,  Mary  was 
not  at  a  loss  for  an  able  manager  of  state  affairs  ;  but  Gardi- 
ner was  already  aged,  and  Gardiner  soon  left  her  to  less  skill- 
ful guidance.  His  state  paper,  containing  the  agreement  for 
the  Spanish  marriage,  was  a  master-piece,  which  Elizabeth 
herself  adopted  in  substance,  when  she  contemplated  a  for 
eign  matrimonial  alliance. 

9.  Both  Mary  and  Elizabeth  persecuted,  and  both  of  them 
did  so  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  from  motives  of  state  policy. 
But  there  are  important  differences  in  the  two  cases.  Mary 
persecuted  during  less  than  four  years,  Elizabeth  for  more 
than  forty-four.  Mary's  persecution  originated  in  a  treason- 
able conspiracy,  concocted  at  the  instigation  of  the  leaders  of 
the  reformed  party,  to  exclude  her  from  the  throne ;  Eliza- 
beth's was  commenced  without  any  such  provocation,  in  fact, 
without  any  provocation  whatever,  on  the  part  of  her  Catho- 
lic subjects.  Mary  was  urged  by  her  counselors  to  persecute, 
through  strong  motives  of  state  policy  connected  with  the 
security  of  her  throne ;  and  she  began  the  persecution  reluct- 
antly, and  only  after  a  delay  of  more  than  a  year,  notwith- 
standing reiterated  provocations  and  two  rebellions:  Elizabeth 
needed  no  urging  on  the  subject,  and  she  entered  at  once  and 
with  seeming  alacrity  on  her  bloody  work.*     Mary  perse- 

*  Macaulay,  in  his  Review  of  Hallam's  Constitutional  History,  fully  con- 
firms this  statement.     He  writes  : 

"  In  the  first  place,  the  arguments  which  are  urged  in  favor  of  Elizabeth 
apply  with  much  greater  force  tc  the  case  of  her  sister  Mary.  The  Catho- 
lics did  not,  at  the  time  of  Elizabeth's  accession,  rise  in  arms  to  seat  a  Pre- 
VOL.    II, — 19 


218  MARY    AND    ELIZABETH    COMPARED. 

cuted  a  small  minority  of  her  subjects,  who  sought  violently 
to  upset  the  ancient  order  of  things  both  in  Church  and  Stute, 
and  to  rob,  or  continue  to  rob,  both  the  Church  and  the  an- 
cient families  of  the  kingdom,  of  the  property  and  religious 
rights  which  had  been  secured  to  them,  with  slight  interrup- 
tion, by  a  peacable  tenure  of  nearly  a  thousand  years  ;  Eliza- 
beth persecuted  the  vast  majority  of  her  subjects,*  with  a 
view  to  force  them  to  give  up  those  cherished  rights,  and  by  fine 
and  confiscation  to  rob  many  of  them  of  property  so  long  and 
80  peacefully  held.  Mary's  persecution  was,  it  may  be,  more 
sharp  and  bloody  in  the  same  space  of  time ;  Elizabeth's,  be- 
sides being  tenfold  longer,  was  far  more  inquisitorial,  search- 
ing, and  general.  It  aimed  even  more  at  the  liberties  and 
property  than  at  the  lives  of  her  subjects ;  it  was  as  torturing 
to  both  body  and  soul,  as  it  was  destructive  to  personal  free- 
dom and  to  the  rights  of  property.f      It  contemplated  and 

tender  on  her  throne.  But  before  Mary  had  given,  or  could  give  provocation, 
the  most  distinguished  Protestants  attempted  to  set  aside  her  rights  in  favoi 
of  the  Lady  Jane.  That  attempt  and  the  subsequent  insurrection  of  Wyat 
furnished  at  least  as  good  a  plea  for  the  burning  of  Protestants,  as  the  con- 
spiracies against  Elizabeth  furnish  for  the  hanging  and  embowelling  of 
Papists." — Miscellan.  American  Ed.,  p.  69. 

*  Towards  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  after  all  her  bloody  persecutions 
had  done  their  work  of  destruction,  the  number  of  Catholics  was  estimated 
to  be  at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  Protestants ;  while  Cardinal  Allen,  who 
was  a  good  judge,  constantly  asserted  that  it  was  fully  two  thirds  of  the 
entire  population. 

f  Bishop  Short,  whose  testimony  will  scarcely  be  impeached,  freely  ad- 
mits the  total  unsettledness  of  property  during  Elizabeth's  reign  ;  and  he 
moreover  traces  it  to  its  right  cause,  the  wholesale  system  of  confiscation 
inaugurated  by  Henry  VIII.     He  says  : 

"  The  wholesale  alienation  of  church  property  which  had  taken  place  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  had  un.settled  the  minds  of  the  nation  with  regard 
to  all  tenures  ;  might  had  legally  been  converted  into  right,  and  all  men  were 
ready  to  take  advantage  of  the  change.  The  court  invaded  the  wealtli  of 
the  higher  clergy  ;  and  they  in  their  turn  were  often  little  careful  of  the  in- 
terests of  their  successors,  and  sometimes  raised  a  revenue  by  appropriating 
to  themselves  the  income  which  was  originally  granted  for  the  oflTiciating 
uicumbent." — History  of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  138. 


macaulay's  testimony.  219 

carried  out  a  wholesale  system  of  confiscation  and  imprison- 
ment. The  pestilent  and  crowded  prisons,  and  the  enormous 
fines  for  recusancy  induced  more  wide-spread  torture  and 
ruin,  than  even  the  sharper  pangs  of  the  rack  and  the  "  Scav- 
enger's daughter,"  which  she  kept  almost  constantly  plying ; 
while  the  horrible  butchery  for  treason  was  even  worse  than 
the  death  by  fire  at  the  stake.  Both  persecutions  were  lam- 
entable enough ;  but  all  candid  men  must  allow  that  that  of 
Elizabeth  as  far  exceeded  in  atrocity,  as  it  did  in  duration, 
that  of  Mary,  and  that  the  the  former  had  fur  less  to  palliats 
or  excuse  it  than  the  latter.* 

We  must  again  quote  Macaulay  if 

"That  which  is,  as  we  have  said,  the  great  stain  on  the  character  of 
Burghley,  is  also  the  great  stain  on  the  character  of  Elizabeth.  Being  her- 
self an  Adiaphorist,  having  no  scruple  about  conforming  to  the  Romish 
Church,  when  conformity  was  necessary  to  her  own  safety,  retaining  to  the 
last  moment  of  her  life  a  fondness  for  much  of  the  doctrine  and  much  of 
the  ceremonial  of  that  Church,  she  yet  subjected  that  Church  to  a  persecu- 
tion even  more  odious  than  the  persecution  with  which  her  sister  had  har- 
assed the  Protestants.  We  say  more  odious.  For  Mary  had  at  least  the 
plea  of  fiinaticism.     She  did  nothing  for  her  religion  which  she  was  not  pre- 

*  In  answer  to  Hallam,  Waterworth  has  the  following  : 
" '  No  woman,'  says  Hallam,  '  was  put  to  death  under  the  penal  code,  so 
fer  as  I  remember  ;  which  of  itself  distinguishes  the  persecution  from  that 
of  Mary,  and  of  the  house  of  Austria  in  Spain  and  the  Netherlands.'  (Con- 
stit.  History.)  The  fact  is,  that  besides  the  one  mentioned,  who  suffered  in 
1586,  Mrs.  Ward  was  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered,  for  assisting  a  Catholic 
priest  to  escape  ;  Mrs.  Lyne  suffered  the  same  punishment  in  1601,  for  the 
same  offense  ;  and  Mrs.  Wells  received  sentence  of  death  in  1591,  and  died 
in  prison."  The  "  one  mentioned  above  "  was  "  a  lady  of  good  family  named 
Cithero.  Her  crime  was  relieving  and  harboring  priests ;  her  death  was 
barbarous  indeed.  The  worse  than  savages  stripped  her ;  two  sergeants 
parted  her  hands  and  bound  them  to  two  posts  in  the  ground,  and  in  the 
game  manner  her  feet ;  a  sharp  stone  was  put  under  her  back ;  upon  her 
were  laid  a  dooi  and  huge  weights,  which,  breaking  her  ribs,  caused  them 
to  burst  through  the  hkio  " — Lectures  on  the  Reformation,  p.  401  and  note. 
f  Review  of  Nares'  Memoirs  of  Lord  Burghley  ;  Miscell.,  p.  179,  Am.  Ed. 
Mackintosh  announces  similar  views. — History  of  England,  p.  215-^ 
American  Edition. 


220  MARY    AND    ELIZABETH    COMPARED. 

pared  to  suffer  for  it.  She  had  held  it  firmly  under  perseculion.  She  iullj 
believed  it  to  be  essential  to  salvation.  If  she  burned  the  bodies  of  her  sub 
jects,  it  was  in  order  to  rescue  their  souls.  Elizabeth  had  no  such  pretext. 
In  opinion,  she  was  little  more  than  half  a  Protestant.  She  had  professed, 
when  it  suited  her,  to  be  wholly  a  Catholic.  There  is  an  excuse,  a  wretched 
excuse,  for  the  massacre  of  Piedmont  and  the  autos-da-fe  of  Spain.  But 
what  can  be  said  iu  defense  of  a  ruler  who  is  at  once  indifferent  and 
intolerant  ? 

"If  the  great  queen,  whose  memory  is  still  held  in  just  veneration  by 
Englishmen,  had  possessed  sufficient  virtue  and  sufficient  enlargement  of 
mind  to  adopt  those  principles  which  More,  wiser  in  speculation  than  in  ac- 
tion, had  avowed  in  the  preceding  generation,  and  by  which  the  excellent 
I'Hospital  regulated  his  conduct  in  her  own  time,  how  different  would  be 
the  color  of  the  whole  history  of  the  la.st  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  !  She 
had  the  happiest  opportunity  ever  vouchsafed  to  any  sovereign,  of  establish- 
ing perfect  freedom  of  conscience  throughout  her  dominions,  without  danger 
to  her  government,  or  scandal  to  any  large  party  among  her  subjects.  The 
nation,  as  it  was  clearly  ready  to  profess  either  religion,  would,  beyond  all 
doubt,  have  been  ready  to  tolerate  both.  Unhappily  for  her  own  glory  and 
for  the  public  peace,  she  adopted  a  policy,  from  the  effects  of  which  the  em- 
pire is  still  suffering.  The  yoke  of  the  Established  church  was  pressed 
down  on  the  people  till  they  would  bear  it  no  longer.  Then  a  reaction 
came.  Another  reaction  followed.  To  the  tyranny  of  the  establishment 
succeeded  the  tumultuous  conflict  of  sects,  infuriated  by  manifold  wrongs, 
and  drunk  with  unwonted  freedom.  To  the  conflict  of  sects  succeeded 
again  the  cruel  domination  of  one  persecuting  church.  At  length  oppression 
put  off  its  most  horrible  form,  and  took  a  milder  aspect.  The  penal  laws 
against  dissenters  were  abolished.  But  exclusions  and  disabilities  still  re- 
mained. These  exclusions  and  disabilities,  after  having  generated  the  most 
fearful  discontents,  after  having  rendered  all  government  in  one  part  of  the 
kingdom  impossible,  after  having  brought  the  state  to  the  very  brink  of  ruin, 
have,  in  our  times,  been  removed ;  but,  though  removed,  have  left  behind 
them  a  rankling  which  may  last  for  many  years.  It  is  mt^lancholy  to  think 
with  what  ease  Elizabeth  might  have  united  all  the  conflicting  sects  under 
the  shelter  of  the  same  impartial  laws  and  the  same  paternal  throne  ;  and 
thus  have  placed  the  nation  in  the  same  situation,  as  far  as  the  rights  of  con- 
science are  concerned,  in  which  we  at  length  stand,  after  all  the  heart-burn- 
mgs,  the  persecutions,  the  conspiracies,  the  seditions,  the  revolutions,  the 
judicial  murders,  the  civil  wars,  of  ten  generations." 

10  The  fact  that  Mary's  reign  was  short,  disturbed  by 
civil   commotions,  and  clouded  with  personal  illness,  while 


PROSPERITY    AND    ADVERSITY aVfUL   DEATH.  221 

that  ol  Elizabeth  was  long,  less  troubled  by  conspiracy,  and 
more  prosperous,  presents  no  valid  argument  against  the  for- 
mer nor  in  favor  of  the  latter.  Much  less  can  this  circum- 
stance be  alleged  as  a  divine  indication  in  favor  of  the  new 
religion,  which  was  forcibly  introduced  by  Elizabeth.  Tem- 
poral prosperity  is  surely  no  evidence  of  divine  truth,  but 
often  the  contrary ;  else  the  pagan  Romans,  prosperous  and 
wealthy,  would  have  triumphed  through  this  very  argument 
— which  they  were  in  the  habit  of  constantly  alleging — 
against  the  religion  of  the  Christians ;  because,  as  the  former 
argued,  this  religion  did  not  render  the  material  condition 
of  the  latter  more  prosperous,  but  seemingly  the  reverse. 
Yet  the  Roman  pagans  with  all  their  wealth  were  clearly  in 
the  wrong,  and  their  victims,  the  poor,  down-trodden,  perse- 
cuted Christians,  were  as  clearly  in  the  right — as  all  Chris- 
tians freely  admit. 

The  way  of  truth  and  virtue  is  often  beset  by  trials  and 
strewn  with  thorns ;  while  that  of  vice  is  not  unfrequently 
rendered  attractive  by  worldly  comforts  and  temporal  advan- 
tages. With  nations,  as  with  individuals,  God  often  rewards 
merely  temporal  virtues  with  merely  temporal  rewards  ;  while 
He  disciplines  with  tribulations  and  chastens  with  the  cross 
those  favorite  ones  who  look  much  higher  than  this  world  for 
their  reward ;  and  the  most  terrible  punishment  which  He 
can  inflict  on  a  nation,  as  on  an  individual,  is  that  which  His 
Son  referred  to,  when  He  said  of  the  pharisees :  They  have 
received  their  reward! 

The  "Invincible  Armada"  was  but  the  expression  of  indig 
nant  Europe  at  the  enormous  tyranny  and  oppression  with 
which  Elizabeth  ground  down  a  very  large  portion  of  her  sub- 
jects. God  permitted  the  Armada  to  be  scattered ;  and  Eliz- 
abeth was  jubilant  in  her  triumph.  This  result  was  highly 
gratifying  to  English  patriotism ;  it  was  certainly  no  evidence 
that  Elizabeth  was  right  in  introducing  a  new  religion. 

Finally,  their  deaths  were  as  unlike  as  had  been  their  lives. 
Mary  died  full  of  patriotic  feeling,  with  the  lost  Calais  graven 


222  MARY    AND   ELIZABETH    COMPARED. 

on  lier  heart ;  Elizabeth  died,  selfishly  and  sullenly  refusing 
to  the  very  last  moment  to  name  her  successor, — if  she  did 
it  even  then.*  Mary's  last  agony  was  soothed  with  the  con  so 
lations  of  religion  ;  Elizabeth  positively  refused  to  avail  her 
self  of  the  comforts  which  religion  brings  to  the  dying  hour ! 
Mary  died  tranquilly  and  in  hope  of  a  blessed  immortality ; 
Elizabeth  in  sullen  agony  and  moody  despair.  Says  Miss 
Strickland : 

"It  is  almost  a  fearful  task  to  trace  the  passage  of  the  mighty  Elizabeth 
through  the  '  dark  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.'  Many  have  been  dazzled 
with  the  splendor  of  her  life,  but  few,  even  of  her  most  ardent  admirers, 
would  wish  their  last  end  might  be  hke  hers." 

Again,  quoting  Lady  Southwell : 

'"The  queen  kept  her  bed  fifteen  days,'  continues  Lady  Southwell,  'be- 
sides the  three  days  she  sat  upon  a  stool  ;  and  one  day,  when,  being  pulled 
up  by  force,  she  obstinately  stood  on  her  feet  for  fifteen  hours.  When  she 
was  near  her  end,  the  council  sent  to  her  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury  and 
other  prelates,  at  the  sight  of  whom  she  was  much  offended,  cholerickly 
rating  them,  bidding  them  'be  packing,'  saying  'she  was  no  atheist,  but  she 
knew  foil  well  they  were  but  hedge-priests.'  "f 

So  passed  away  from  earth  the  spirit  of  the  great  Elizabeth, 
the  mighty  bulwark  and  consolidator,  if  she  may  not  even  be 
viewed  as  the  real  foundress,  of  the  Anglican  church  as 
established  by  law ! 

*  That  she  said  any  thing  definite  even  then  seems  rather  doubtful. 
Cecil  and  her  other  ministers  so  understood  her,  or  professed  to  have  so  un- 
derstood her  through  motives  of  self-interest  or  state-policy.  At  any  rate, 
she  delayed  the  important  declaration  to  the  very  last  moment,  and  even 
then  seems  to  have  made  it  as  obscurely  as  she  did  it  reluctantly. 

For  some  additional  testimony  on  the  Anglican  Reformation  from  the 
work  of  the  contemporary  Sanders  on  the  English  Schism,  see  Note  E.  at 
tlie  end  of  this  volume. 

•f  Queens  of  England,  vii,  p.  218-223. 


mSTOIlY  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REFORMATION. 


CHAPTER    V. 

REFORMATION    IN    SC  0  TL  A  ND— JO  HN    KNOX. 

Distinctive  characteristic  of  the  Scottish  Reformation,  compared  with  that  of 
England — It  works  its  way  from  low  to  high — Condition  of  the  Cathohc 
Church  in  Scotland  in  the  sixteenth  century — Abuse  of  patronage — McCrie'a 
statement  reviewed — Exaggeration — The  real  secret  of  the  degeneracy — 
John  Knox — His  motto — Compared  with  Calvin — His  life  sketched — The 
fearful  struggle — Ancient  Catholic  glories  scattered — What  we  propose  to 
prove — The  Scottish  Reformation  the  work  of  violence — Assassination  of 
Cardinal  Beatoun — Previous  negotiations  with  Henry  VIII. — The  Scottish 
proto-martyr  Wishart  concerned — Knox  approves  the  deed — His  horrible 
"vein  of  humor" — The  Scottish  nobles  seek  plunder — The  "Lords  of  the 
Congregation  " — Two  Solemn  Leagues  and  Covenants — Knox's  ideas  of 
reUgious  liberty  and  toleration — Conciliation  thrown  away — Burning  and 
destructive  zeal — Reformation  at  Perth — At  St.  Andrew's — And  else- 
where— Horrible  destruction  and  desolation — McCrie  defends  it  all,  as 
removing  the  monuments  of  idolatry — The  queen  regent  offers  religious 
liberty — Her  offer  spurned — Knox's  idea  of  religious  liberty — Two  armies 
in  the  field — Elizabeth  of  England  meddling — The  queen  regent  deposed 
— Treaty  of  peace — How  the  Kirk  was  established  by  law — Mary  of 
Scots  arrives — Her  reception  and  treatment — John  Knox  her  relentless 
enemy — He  clamoi-s  for  her  blood — She  is  imprisoned  at  Lochleven — 
Glance  at  her  subsequent  history  and  death — How  she  was  treated  in 
Scotland — Her  first  reception — Miss  Strickland  and  Mackintosh — She  is 
hated  by  Knox — Her  marriage  with  Darnley — Sermon  of  ICnox — Who 
approves  of  the  assassination  of  Rizzio — He  flies  from  Edinburgh — Mary 
innocent — A  cluster  of  wicked  men — Murray  the  worst — Ma(;kintosh  re- 
viewed— "  The  end  justifies  the  means  " — Forgery — Whitaker  on  Knox  and 
Buchanan — Moral  Character  of  Knox — His  death — Quotations  fi-om  Miss 
Strickland  confirmatory  of  the  above  narrative  of  facts — Mary's  reception 
in  Edinburgh — The  "Rebels  of  the  Crafts" — Tumult  on  her  first  attend- 
ance at  Mass — Her  chaplain  narrowly  escapes  death — Mary's  firmness  in 
her  faith — Knox  abhors  her  music  and  joyousity — Malignant  intolerance 
— Gruel  hard-heartedness  of  the  Scottish  nobles — Who  will  not  weai 

(223) 


224  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION KNOX. 

mourning  on  the  anniversary  of  the  death  of  Mary's  Imsband — ClitLrch 
property — Greediness  of  lay  Protestant  impropriators — Knox's  "hamor- 
ous  "  lament  over  the  destitution  of  the  ministers — The  queen  dam.mg — 
Sermon  of  Knox  thereupon — His  interview  with  the  queen — Another 
interview — Still  fiercer  intolerance — Another  interview  of  Knox  with  the 
queen — He  opposes  her  marriage — Still  another  interview — Knox's  ac- 
count— He  mocks  at  the  queen's  tears — Signs  and  wonders  against  her— 
She  is  blamed  for  the  weather  ! — Knox  calls  her  a  slave  of  Satan — Is  ar 
raigned  before  the  Kirk  assembly — His  answer  and  behaviour — Protests 
again  against  Mary's  freedom  of  conscience — Tumult  at  her  marriage — 
Mary  promises  and  asks  for  freedom  of  conscience  —  Her  eloqueut 
speech — Darnley— Horrid  plot— Butchery. 

The  Reformation  in  Scotland  presents  a  marked  contrast 
with  that  in  England.  While  the  latter  worked  from  high  to 
low,  the  former  w^orked  from  low  to  high.  The  English  llcf- 
ormation,  as  we  have  seen,  was  an  atliiir  of  state  policy  and 
of  state  coercion,  from  its  first  inception  under  Henry  VIII. 
to  its  firm  establishment  under  Elizabeth ;  the  state  was 
throughout  its  main  stay,  its  very  life  and  soul ;  and  hence, 
very  appropriately,  the  head  of  the  state  was  likewise  the 
head  of  the  new  church.  In  Scotland,  the  Reformation 
worked  its  way  up  from  the  people,  through  the  aid  of  the 
nobles,  through  political  combinations  and  civil  commotions, 
to  the  foot  o^  the  throne  itself;  and  after  having  gained  the 
supreme  civil  power,  and  deposed  first  the  queen  regent  and 
then  the  queen  herself,  it  dictated  its  own  terms  to  the  new 
regents  and  the  new  sovereign :  and  thus,  by  the  strong  arm, 
it  firmly  established  itself  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  religion  of 
the  country.  All  this,  we  believe,  will  clearly  appear  from 
the  sequel  of  this  chapter. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Catholiff 
Church  in  Scotland  seems  to  have  been  in  a  most  unhappy 
condition.  The  same  sad  causes, which  had  elsewhere  con- 
tributed to  the  relaxation  of  discipline  and  the  multiplication 
of  abuses,  had  operated  here  w^ith  still  greater  force.  The 
freedom  of  ecclesiastical  elections  had  been  violated,  the 
rights  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs  had  been  wantonly  tramj)led 


ORIGIN    OF   ABUSES.  225 

upon,  and  the  kings  had  often  arrogated  to  themselves  the 
power  to  thrust  their  own  creatures  into  the  vacant  bishoprics 
and  benefices.  Thus,  King  James  V.  had  provided  for 
his  illegitimate  children  by  making  them  abbots  and  priors 
of  Holyrood  House,  Kelso,  Melrose,  Coldingham,  and  St. 
Andrew's.*  The  lives  of  men,  who  were  thus  intruded  by 
the  civil  power  into  the  high  places  of  the  Church,  were  often 
openly  scandalous  ;  and  though  the  picture  drawn  by  McCrie 
of  clerical  morals  in  Scotland  at  this  period  is  no  doubt 
greatly  exaggerated  by  his  zeal  as  a  violent  partisan  of  the 
Reformation,  yet  the  statement  which  the  sober  truth  of  his- 
tory requires  us  to  make  renders  it  still  dark  enough.  McCrie 
says :  "  The  lives  of  the  clergy,  exempted  from  secular  juris- 
diction, and  corrupted  by  wealth  and  idleness,  were  become 
a  scandal  on  religion,  and  an  outrage  on  decency ."f 

It  was  certainly  not  on  account  of  the  clergy  being  "  ex- 
empted from  secular  jurisdiction,"  but  precisely  because  they 
were  not^  that  their  morals  degenerated.  Had  they  not  been 
wholly  dependent  for  their  appointment  on  the  secular  power, 
how  could  the  latter  have  succeeded  in  thrusting  its  own  crea- 
tures into  the  highest  church  dignities,  and  maintaining  them 
therein,  in  spite  of  the  sacred  canons  of  the  Church  ?     But 

*  They  received  the  incomes  of  benejRces,  committing  the  duties  of  their 
charge  to  others ;  and  though  they  seldom  took  orders,  they  ranked  as 
clergymen,  and  by  their  vices  brought  disgrace  upon  the  clerical  body.  See 
Lingard,  History  of  England,  vii,  p.  269,  note. 

f  Life  of  John  Knox,  containing  illustrations  of  the  history  of  the  Refor  • 
mation  in  Scotland,  etc.  By  Thomas  McCrie,  minister  of  the  gospel,  Edin- 
burgh :  in  one  volume,  8vo  pp.  582.  New  York,  1813.  Page  16.  As  we 
shall  have  occasion  frequently  to  refer  to  this  work,  in  fact  to  review  its 
statements,  in  the  course  of  the  present  chapter,  we  may  remark,  that  he  is 
a  standard  author  of  the  Scottish  Kirk,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  man  of 
nmch  learning  and  considerable  accutenesn,  but  a  thorough  partisan,  who 
defends  Knox  and  the  Kirk  throughout ;  whose  testimony,  therefore,  when 
stating  facts  which  may  be  construed  as  favorable  to  the  Catholic  side  is 
wholly  unexceptionable.  We  were  fortunate  in  procuring  an  old  American 
edition  of  this  work,  which  probably  truly  reflects  the  original. 


226  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION j£NOX. 

for  this  usuq)ation,  how,  for  instance,  could  scenes  like  the 
following — related  by  McCrie  himself  on  the  authority  of 
Buchanan — have  been  enacted  ? — "  During  the  nainority  of 
James  V.,  the  celebrated  Gawin  Douglas  was  recommended 
by  the  queen  to  the  archbishopric  of  St.  Andrew's ;  but  John 
Hepburn,  prior  of  the  regular  canons,  opposed  the  nomination, 
and  took  the  archiepiscopal  palace  by  storm.  Douglas  after- 
wards laid  siege  to  the  cathedral  of  Dunkeld,  and  carried  it, 
more  by  the  thunder  of  his  cannon,  than  the  dread  of  the 
excommunication  which  he  threatened  to  fulminate  against 
his  antagonist."*  How  else  could  the  state  of  things  de- 
scribed by  him  in  the  following  passage  have  been  even  pos- 
sible?— "Bishops  and  abbots  rivaled  the  first  nobility  in 
magnificence  and  preceded  them  in  honors ;  they  were  privy 
counselors  and  lords  of  session,  as  well  as  of  parliament,  and 
had  long  engrossed  the  principal  offices  of  state.  A  vacant 
bishopric  or  abbacy  called  forth  powerful  competitors,  who 
contended  for  it,  as  for  a  principality  or  petty  kingdom ;  it 
was  obtained  by  similar  arts,  and  not  unfrequently  taken  pos- 
session of  by  the  same  weapons.  Inferior  benefices  were 
openly  put  up  to  sale,  or  bestowed  on  the  illiterate  and  un- 
worthy minions  of  courtiers,  etc."f 

Such  being  the  open  contempt  for  the  canonical  freedom 
of  election  displayed  in  Scotland  during  the  period  in  ques- 
tion, and  such  being  the  flagitious  character  of  the  men  thus 
sacrilegiously  thrust  by  the  hand  of  the  civil  power  or  by 
open  violence  into  the  high  places  of  the  Church,  we  can  no 
longer  wonder  at  the  sad  degeneracy  of  clerical  morals ;  and 
we  are  rather  surprised  that  some  of  the  clergy  were  not  even 
worse  than  they  really  were.  Perhaps,  the  real  secret  of  the 
matter  is  unconsciously  disclosed  by  the  biographer  of  Knox 
in  the  following  passage :  "  Scotland,  from  her  local  situation, 
had  been  less  exposed  to  disturbance  from  the  encroaching 
ambition,  vexatious  exactions,  and  fulminating  anathemas  of 

♦  McCrie,  p.  14,  note.  t  Ibid.,  p.  14-6. 


THE   REAL   SECRET MOTTO   OF   KNOX.  227 

the  Vatican  court  (!),  than,  the  countries  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  Rome."*  This  is,  no  doubt,  the  key  to  the  mora^ 
darkness  which  then  partially  overspread  Scotland.  In  all 
our  readings  of  mediaeval  history,  we  have  been  able  to  find 
few,  if  any  exceptions  to.  the  general  rule  :  that  nations  have 
become  corrupt,  precisely  in  proportion  to  their  alienation 
from  or  opposition  to  the  Holy  See.  The  usual  se^piel  to  this 
alienation  was  precisely  that  which  occurred  in  Scotland :  a 
gradual  neglect  growing  into  an  open  violation  of  the  wise 
provisions  of  the  canon  law,  which  secure  freedom  of  election 
to  benefices  and  bishoprics,  and  forbid  the  undue  influence 
tlierein  of  secular  princes.  This,  we  think,  has  been  sufii- 
ciently  shown  in  our  Introductory  Essays  to  these  volumes. 

The  vices  of  the  higher  Scottish  clergy,  originating  chiefly 
in  this  fruitful  source,  greatly  facilitated  the  success  of  the 
Reformation.  The  new  gospelers  had  a  never  foiling  popular 
theme  for  invective  in  the  scandalous  lives,  ostentatious  pomp, 
and  occasional  exactions  of  the  unworthy  men  who  had  been 
thus  unlawfully  foisted  into  the  bishoprics  and  abbeys.  Ridi- 
cule of  the  clergy  proved  a  far  more  powerful  weapon  with 
the  masses,  than  sober  argument  against  their  religious  doc- 
trines.— "  Poetry  contributed  her  powerful  aid  to  the  opposers 
of  ignorance  and  superstition  (!),  and  contributed  greatly  to 
the  advancement  of  the  Reformation,  in  this  as  well  as  in 
other  countries.  Sir  David  Lindsay  of  the  Mount,  a  favorite 
of  James  V.  and  an  excellent  poet,  lashed  the  vices  of  the 
clergy,  and  exposed  to  ridicule  many  of  the  absurdities  and 
superstitions  of  popery  (!),  in  the  most  popular  and  poignant 
satires."! — Just  so.  It  was  by  such  weapons  precisely,  but 
more  highly  polished,  that  Voltaire  succeeded  so  fatally,  two 
and  a  half  centuries  later,  in  striking  so  deadly  a  blow  at  Chris- 
tianity itself !  He,  too,  ridiculed,  "•  in  popular  and  poignant 
satires,  the  absurdities  and  superstitions  of  popery;" — with 

*  McCrie,   p.  18.  f  Ibid.,  p.  27 


228  SCOTTISH    REFOriMATION KJJOX. 

what  results,  the  Christian  world  has  seen  and  felt  with  a 
shudder  !* 

Before  we  proceed  to  state  the  principal  facts  in  the  history 
of  the  Scottish  Reformation,  it  may  be  well  to  furnish  a  biief 
outline  sketch  of  the  life  and  character  of  the  principal  actor 
therein — John  Knox.  He  was  the  very  life  and  soul  oi  the 
entire  movement,  which,  without  his  untiring  energy,  adroit 
management,  and  coarse,  but  popular  eloquence,  might  have 
utterly  failed  of  success.  It  received  the  impression  of  his 
own  character,  and  was,  in  fact,  moulded  to  his  own  likeness. 

The  motto  which  he  wore  on  his  standard — ^^Spare  no  ar- 
rows^^'\ — is  the  key  to  his  character,  and  marks  every  move- 
ment and  phase  of  his  restless  and  imbittered  career.  He 
"  spared  no  arrows  "  against  his  enemies,  nor  even  against  his 
own  friends,  if  these  were  unfortunate  enough  to  provoke  his 
wrath.  He  was  a  Calvinist  of  the  very  straitest  sect.  An 
intimate  friend  and  disciple  of  John  Calvin,  he  caught  the 
vindictive  spirit,  while  he  adopted  the  predestinarian  doc- 
trines of  his  master.  Less  polished  and  more  coarse  than 
Calvin,  he  possessed  even  more  restless  energy  of  character ; 
and  what  he  wanted  in  the  learning  of  the  latter,  he  made 
up  in  greatly  superior  boldness  and  effectiveness  as  a  popular 
declaimer.  The  ignorant  masses  hung  on  his  lips,  and  he 
wielded  them  almost  at  will. 

John  Knox  was  born  in  Scotland  in  1505.  He  studied  for 
the  priesthood  in  the  university  of  St.  Andrew's,  under  the 
famous  professor  John  Mair — or  Major, — and  he  was  ordained 
priest  before  the  year  1530.J  ■  He  received  the  new  gospel 
light  as  early  as  1535,  but  he  did  not  openly  profess  himself 

*  There  is  scarcely  a  modern  sarcasm,  or  argument  against  "popery," 
which  Voltaire  did  not  employ,  and  much  better,  too,  than  his  imitators  in 
more  recent  times.  f  McGrie,  p.  66. 

I  Ibid.,  p.  12.  McCrie  proves,  in  a  note,  that  Knox  \yas  really  a  priest. 
Among  other  evidence,  he  alleges  a  stanza  fi-om  what  he  calls  a  "  scurriloui 
poem"  printed  at  the  end  of  Nichol  Burne's  "Disputation  concerning  the 

controversit  Headdis  of  Tleligion"  :  " That  fals  apostat  priest,  Enemie 

to  Christ  and  mannis  salvatioun,  Your  Maist  n  Knox." 


HIS   LIFE   SKETCHED.  229 

a  Protestant  until  seven  years  after — in  154:'2.*  A  few  yeara 
afterwards — in  154:9  or  1550, — in  spite  of  his  solemn  vows 
taken  at  the  foot  of  the  holy  altar,  he  was  solemnly  betrothed, 
or  married,  at  Berwick  on  the  Scottish  borders,  to  Miss  Mar- 
jory Bowes. t  A  year  after  the  assassination  of  Cardinal 
Beatoun  in  1546 — of  which  we  will  speak  presently — he  was 
taken  prisoner  by  the  French  who  stormed  the  castle  of  St. 
Andrew's,  and  was  carried  into  France,  where  he  was  de- 
tained for  nearly  two  years.  J  After  a  brief  stay  in  Scotland, 
not  coveting  the  crown  of  martyrdom,  he  fled  to  England, 
where  he  remained  for  several  years,  as  traveling  missionary 
and  chaplain  of  Edward  VI.  The  Anglican  authorities  and 
bishops  of  that  period  openly  fraternized  with  him,  employed 
him  in  important  ofiices  of  trust,  even  consulting  with  him  in 
regard  to  doctrine  and  the  new  Prayer  Book ;  and  this  not- 
withstanding his  undisguised  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of 
episcopacy,  § 

To  judge  from  multiplied  examples  of  the  fact,  John  Knox 
seems  to  have  made  it  a  general  rule,  to  fly  whenever  danger 
threatened  his  person.  If  naturally  courageous,  he  was  cer- 
tainly boldest  where  there  was  least  peril.  Thus,  he  fled  from 
England  in  1554,  some  months  after  the  accession  of  Mary. 
Geneva  was  his  more  usual  place  of  retreat,  while  abroad; 
though  he  dwelled  for  a  time  at  Frankfort  on  the  Maine  in 
Germany,  where,  with  characteristic  restlessness,  he  warmly 
participated  in  the  schism  which  had  there  sprung  up  between 
the  Episcopal  and  Calvinistic  sections  of  the  church  recently 
established  in  that  city  by  the  English  Protestant  refugees.  || 

*  McCrie,  p.  13. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  70,  and  note,  where  the  testimony  of  Knox  is  given. 

J  He  was  hberated  in  February,  1549.     Ibid.,  p.  59. 

5  This  is  fully  proved  by  McCrie,  p.  61,  seqq.;  also  in  a  learned  note,  p. 
42-3,  where  he  accumulates  evidence  to  show  that  Arch])ishops  Cranmer 
and  Grindal,  and  the  other  " fathers  of  the  English  Reformation"  fully 
recognized  the  ordination  of  Knox  and  other  foreign  Calvinistic  preachers. 
We  have  already  given  this  note  in  our  chapter  on  Elizalxsth  of  Englajid. 

II  Ibid.,  p.  109,  seqq.  McCrie  gives  a  long  account  of  this  singular  schism 
46 


230  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION KNOX. 

After  an  absence  of  "nearly  two  years"  on  the  continent, 
Knox,  "in  his  anxiety  to  see  his  wife,"  returned  to  Berwick 
m  1555,  and  then  penetrated  secretly  into  Scotland,*  where 
ne  remained  for  nearly  a  year,  preaching  in  private  houses 
and  encouraging  his  co-religionists  not  only  to  relinquish,  but 
to  pull  down  the  synagogue  of  Satan — by  which  polite  name 
he  designated  the  Catholic  Church;  until  at  length  waxing 
bolder  and  bolder,  danger  again  threatened  his  person,  and 
he  again  fled  to  Geneva — in  July,  1556.  He  remained  here 
for  about  three  years,  by  his  frequent  letters  encouraging  his 
disciples  in  Scotland;  whither  he  finally  returned  in  1559, 
when  the  lords  of  the  congregation  were  ready  to  take  up 
arms,  and  all  things  were  reported  ripe  for  setting  up  and 
establishing  the  new  kirk.f 

Now  began  in  earnest  the  fearful  struggle,  which  terminated 
In  the  complete  success  of  the  Scottish  Reformation,  and  in 
the  building  up  of  the  Scottish  kirk  with  the  spoils  and  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Catholic  Church,  to  whose  ministrations 
Scotland  had  been  indebted  for  her  conversion  from  pagan- 
ism, and  for  all  the  consequent  blessings  of  Christian  civiliza- 
tion which  she  had  enjoyed  for  ten  centuries.  All  these 
memories  of  benefits  received  were  now  forgotten,  and  all 
her  ancient  Catholic  glories,  in  which  the  patriotic  names  of 
Wallace  and  Bruce,  together  with  those  of  her  canonized 
saints,  had  so  gloriously  figured,  were  scattered  to  the  winds, 
or  obscured  by  partial  oblivion,  in  a  few  short  years. 

It  is  very  interesting  and  useful  to  inquire  how  this  revo- 
kition  was  accomplished,  and  in  so  short  a  time.  Of  course, 
different  persons  will  look  upon  it  from  difi'oi-ent  points  of 
view,  according  to  their  preconceived  opinions  ;  but  we  think 
that  few  sober-minded  men  will  deny,  that  the  facts,  even  as 


and  quarrel  among  the  English  Protestant  refugees  ;  in  which  Knox  soems 
to  have  got  the  worst  of  it.  Dr.  Cox,  his  opponent,  remained  in  posses- 
sion of  the  field,  and  Knox  retired  to  Geneva.  *  McCrie,  p.  128-9. 

t  Ibid.,  p.   178,  seqq.     See   also  Lingard,  vii,  270-1.     We   will  see  his 
other  flights  a  little  further  on. 


ASSASSINATION    OF   CARDINAL   BEATOUN.  231 

they  are  stated  or  virtually  admitted  by  the  learned  but 
partial  biographer  of  Knox,  all  point  in  one  direction :  namely, 
to  prove  that  the  revolution  was  commenced  and  continued 
with  the  carnal  weapons  of  violence,  treachery,  and  spolia- 
tion ;  and  that  it  was  consummated  by  openly  avowed  intoh 
erance  and  downright  persecution  for  conscience'  sake  of  all 
opponents  of  every  grade.  This  we  are  prepared  to  show  by 
facts,  which  can  not  be  gainsaid,  and  which  will  scarcely  be 
even  denied  by  the  friends  of  the  Scottish  Keformation.  But 
we  must  go  back  to  the  year  1546,  the  date  of  the  horrible 
assassination  of  Cardinal  Beatoun. 

1.  This  barbarous  assassination  was  concocted  two  years 
before  in  England  by  the  brutal  Henry  VIIL,  who  was  en- 
raged with  the  cardinal  for  having  foiled  him  in  his  attempt 
to  get  possession  of  the  person  of  Mary  Stuart,  the  infant 
queen  of  the  Scots.  The  famous  reformed  Scottish  preacher 
and  martyr,  George  Wishart — the  religious  teacher  of  Knox 
— came  to  England  the  bearer  of  a  proposition  from  certain 
Scottish  lords  "  to  apprehend  and  slee  the  cardinal."  Henry 
would  not  directly  commit  himself,  but  probably  answered, 
as  he  did  a  year  later  to  a  similar  proposal,*  that  the  parties 
had  better  do  the  deed  and  trust  to  his  gratitude  for  the 

*  This  proposal  was  by  the  earl  of  Cassilis  to  Sadler,  Henry's  Scottish 
ambassador,  after  the  return  of  the  former  from  a  visit  to  the  king  in  Eng- 
land. It  was,  that  he  and  his  friends  would  engage  to  assassinate  the 
cardinal  "for  a  reward  proportioned  to  their  services."  Whether  the  pre- 
vious offer  from  Kirkaldy  and  John  Charteris,  of  which  the  Scottish  proto- 
martyr  George  Wishart  was  the  bearer,  was  likewise  a  business-transaction 
based  on  a  pecuniary  consideration,  we  are  not  informed ;  but  this  was 
certainly  the  case  with  the  one  made  subsequently  by  Crighton,  laird  of 
Brunston,  and  money  seems  to  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  the  entire  nego- 
tiation with  Henry  on  the  subject :  though  it  would  appear,  that  the  bluff 
old  king  and  the  shrewd  Scots  could  not  strike  a  satisfactory  bargain  !  Lin- 
gard  says,  that  the  bearer  of  the  first  proposition  was  perhaps  George 
Wishart,  the  great  Scottish  proto-martyr.  We  have  no  doubt  of  it,  from 
the  remarkable  confirmation  of  the  fact  furnished  by  McCrie  himself,  quoted 
infra. 


232  SCOTTISH   REFORMATION — KNOX. 

reward.*  The  "deed"  was  done  on  the  29th  of  May,  1546 
by  assassins  who,  according  to  Foxe,  "  were  stirred  up  by  the 
Lord."t  The  government  of  Edward  VI.  approved  of  it, 
and  entered  into  a  regular  treaty  with  the  assassins.  Two 
months  previously,  "VYishart,  who  had  been  the  bearer  of  the 
infamous  message  to  Henry,  and'  who  had  stirred  up  riots 
and  seditions  wherever  he  preached,  had  unfortunately  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  cardinal,  and  had  been  first  hanged  for 
sedition,  and  then  burned  for  heresy. J 

What  part  did  Knox  and  the  reformers  take  in  this  treach- 
erous and  bloody  deed,  with  which  the  Scottish  Reformation 
was  inaugurated  ?  The  answer  is  easily  given.  They  openly 
approved  of  it,  if  they  were  not  even  accessory  to  it  before 
the  fact!  Knox,  to  mark  his  approbation  of  "the  godly 
deed,"  immediately  threw  one  hundred  and  forty  of  his  fol- 
lowers into  the  castle  of  St.  Andrew's,  to  aid  the  assassins ; 
and  they  all  resolved  together  to  resist  the  Scottish  authorities 
to  the  last  extremity,  and  to  throw  themselves  on  the  protec- 
tion of  England !  Here  is  what  McCrie  writes  on  the  sub- 
ject: 

"Writers  unfriendly  to  our  reformer  have  endeavored  to  fix  an  accusation 
upon  him,  respecting  the  assassination  of  Cardinal  Beatoun.  Some  have 
ignorantly  asserted  that  he  was  one  of  the  conspirators.  Others  better  in- 
formed have  argvied  that  he  made  himself  accessory  to  the  crime,  by  taking 
shelter  among  them.  With  more  plausibility,  others  have  appealed  to  his 
writings,  as  a  proof  that  he  vindicated  the  deed  of  the  conspirators  as  laud- 
able, or  at  least  innocent."  ^ 

*  Lingard,  vii,  12.  He  quotes  Keith  and  Tytler.  McCrie  impliedly  ad 
mits,  that  the  George  Wishart  who  bore  the  infamous  message  to  Henry, 
was  the  famous  preacher  whom  he  so  much  extols.  He  says  that  he  re- 
turned from  England  in  1544,  with  the  commissioners  "  who  had  been  sent 
to  negotiate  a  treaty  with  Henry  YIII.  of  England." — P.  32.  And  such  a 
treatij! 

f  McCrie,  12.  Foxe,  526.  The  cardinal  was  assassinated  in  his  owd 
bed-chamber.  \  Ibid. 

\  Ibid.,  p.  36-7.  He  enters  into  an  elalx>rate  defense  of  Knox,  chiefly  on 
the  ground  that  Beatoun  was  a  persecutor  ! 


KNOX   SANCTIONS   THE    DEED.  233 

Knox  not  only  defended  the  "  godly  deed,"  but  he  Bpoke  of 
it  in  a  tone  of  levity  and  even  of  mockery,  which  betokened 
great  hardness  of  heart — to  use  the  sc  'test  expression.  J  [is 
biographer,  indeed,  endeavors  to  excuse  him  for  this,  on  tlie 
ground  that  he  was  not  able  to  restrain  "  his  vein  of  humor ;" 
though  he  admits  that  "  the  pleasantry  which  Knox  mingles 
with  his  narrative  of  his  (Beatoun's)  death  and  burial  is  un- 
seasonable and  unbecoming."*  Knox  evidently  thought  that 
this  assassination — as  some  of  his  friends  said  afterwards  of 
his  own  famous  sermon  to  prove  that  the  Pope  was  antichrist 
— was  going  at  once  to  the  very  root  of  the  matter !  f 

2.  That  the  Scottish  nobles  who  joined  the  Reformation 
were  impelled  to  do  so  by  the  hope  of  plunder,  and  that  they 
were  instigated  and  aided  to  achieve  their  ends  by  the  En- 
glish government,  there  can  be  little  doubt.  Some  of  them, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  had  been  intruded  into  the  richest 
and  most  influential  benefices  of  the  Church ;  others  hoped 
to  build  up  their  fortunes  in  a  similar  way.  The  former 
joined  the  reformers  in  order  to  secure  to  themselves  and 
their  posterity  their  ill-gotten  goods  ;  the  latter  with  the  well- 
grounded  hope  to  better  their  condition  in  the  new  order  of 
things  which  was  to  arise  on  the  ruins  of  the  old.  McCrie 
himself  admits  this  in  regard  to  the  later  movements  of  the 
Scottish  Reformation,  that  is,  when  the  struggle  really  began 
in  earnest.  Speaking  of  what  occurred  about  the  year  1540, 
he  says  :J 

*  McCrie,  note  H.,  p.  417,  in  which  he  tries  to  answer  Hume  who  had 
written  :  "It  is  very  horrid,  but  at  the  same  time  somewhat  amusing,  to  con- 
sider the  joy,  alacrity,  and  pleasure,  which  that  historian  (Knox)  discovers 
in  his  narrative  of  this  assassination." — A  very  humorous  man  surely  was 
John  Knox !  Almost  as  humorous  as  his  master,  John  Calvin,  who  smiled 
while  Sei"vetus  was  writhing  in  the  flames ! 

f  "Sum  said,  utheris  hued  the  branches  of  papistry,  bot  he  (Knox) 
straiketh  at  the  rute." — Knox,  Historie,  etc.,  p.  70.  Apud  McCrie,  p.  47, 
note. 

;  Ibid.,  p.  28.     His  argument  to  show  that  this  was  not  the  case  at  an 
earlier  period  is  very  ffteble  and  unsatisfactory. 
VOL.  II  — 20 


234  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION KNOX. 

"It  has  often  been  alleged,  that  the  desire  of  sharing  in  the  rich  spoils  ol 
the  popish  Church,  together  with  the  intrigues  of  the  court  of  England,  en- 
gaged the  Scottish  nobles  on  the  side  of  the  Reformation.  It  is  reasonable 
to  think  that,  at  a  later  period,  this  was  so  far  true."* 

3.  While  Knox  was  in  Scotland  in  1555,  the  chief  among 
the  reformers  met,  on  his  suggestion,  at  Mearns,  and  there 
entered  into  the  first  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  by  which 
they  bound  themselves  to  renounce  forever  the  communion 
of  the  old  Church,  and  to  defend  to  the  last  the  doctrines  of 
the  new  gospel. f  When  the  "  lords  of  the  congregation  " — 
as  the  reformed  nobles  were  thenceforth  called — learned  of 
the  marriage  of  their  young  queen  Mary  to  Francis,  dauphin 
of  France,  they  met  again,  and  entered  into  another  covenant 
still  more  solemn  and  more  stringent  in  its  obligation  than 
the  first,  by  which  they  bound  themselves  to  renounce  forever 
"the  synagogue  of  Satan," — the  Catholic  Church — and  de- 
clared themselves  sworn  enemies  to  "  its  abominations  and  its 
idolatry."  This  occurred  in  December,  15574  What  this 
covenant  really  meant,  we  shall  hereafter  see  more  in  detail ; 
when  it  became  known,  it  was  regarded  by  the  Catholic  party 
as  a  declaration  of  war.§ 

*  Mackintosh,  a  very  prejudiced  witness,  cautiously  admits  this,  even  in 
regard  to  the  Highland  chiefs,  whom  we  would  suppose  least  accessible  to 
motives  so  sordid  and  so  foreign  to  their  usually  generous  and  chivalrous 
character  :  "  They  (the  Highlanders)  without  difficulty  followed  the  fashion 
of  their  chiefs,  who  were  themselves  partly  tempted  to  assume  the  name  of 
Protestants  by  the  lure  of  a  share  in  the  spoils  of  the  Church,  and  were 
possibly  also  influenced  by  the  example  of  the  southern  barons,  from  whom 
the  greater  part  of  the  Highland  chiefs  professed  to  derive  their  pedigree.'* 
—History  of  P^ngland,  p.  323,  Amer.  Edit. 

f  McCrie  says  that  "this  seems  to  have  teen  the  first  of  those  religious 
bonds  or  covenants,  by  which  the  confederation  of  the  Protestants  in  Scot- 
'and  wa.s  so  frequently  ratified." — P.  130.    He  quotes  Knox,  Historie,  p.  92. 

t  See  Knox,  Historie,  98-100,  apud  Lingard,  vii,  272 ;  and  also  McOrie 
in  loco. 

5  The  new  archbishop  of  St.  Andrew's  urged  stringent  measures  against 
the  new  religionists,  and  called  for  the  execution  of  the  laws  which  harl 
been  revived  under  the  late  regency  of  his  brother.     Walter  Milne,  an 


RELIGIOUS   TOLERATION BURNING   ZEAL.  '      235 

The  dowager  queen  mother  had  returned  from  France  in 
1551,  and  she  was  now  regent  of  the  kingdom  for  her  daugh 
ter  Mary.  Finding  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  parties 
arrayed  against  each  other  in  deadly  hostility,  she  interposed 
her  authority,  and  endeavored,  but  ineffectually,  to  conciliate 
them.  By  her  direction,  the  archbishop  of  St.  Andrew's 
convened  a  council,  in  which  the  canons  lately  made  for  the 
reformation  of  abuses  were  confirmed,  and  those  doctrines  of 
the  Catholic  Church  which  had  been  most  grievously  mis- 
represented by  the  reformers  were  correctly  but  temperately 
stated.  But  conciliation  was  wholly  thrown  away  upon  the 
fiery  Knox  and  his  associates.  ISTot  only  religious  toleration, 
but  the  fullest  religious  liberty  was  promised  them,  over  and 
over  again;  still  they  spoke  in  bitter  mockery  of  the  "syren 
song  of  toleration,"*  and  by  religious  liberty  they  meant  the 
right  to  pull  down  the  Catholic  Church,  to  banish  it  forever 
from  the  kingdom,  and  to  establish  Calvinism,  as  the  only 
form  of  religion  which  should  be  even  tolerated  in  Scotland ! 
The  following  facts  will  place  it  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt, 
that  the  Scottish  reformers  did  not  want  religious  liberty,  but 
the  privilege  of  religious  domination  ;  that  they  wanted  either 
all  or  nothing ! 

5.  Rejecting  all  conciliation,  and  not  even  waiting  for  the 
result  of  the  council,  the  lords  of  the  congregation,  led  on  by 
Knox,  established  the  Reformation  at  Perth  on  the  11th  of 
May,  1559.     How  they  did  it,  McCrie  shall  inform  us : 

"  Knox,  who  remained  at  Perth,  preached  a  sermon  in  which  he  exposed 
the  idolatry  of  the  Mass,  and  of  image-worship.  Sermon  being  ended,  the 
audience  quietly  dismissed  ;  a  few  idle  persons  only  loitered  in  the  church  : 
when  an  imprudent  priest,  wishing  either  to  try  the  disposition  of  the 
people,  or  to  show  his  contempt  of  the  doctrine  which  had  been  just 
dehvered,  uncovered  a  rich  altar  piece  decorated  with  images,  and  prepared 
to  -Aslebrate  Mass.  A  boy  having  uttered  some  expressions  of  disapproba- 
tion was  struck  by  the  priest.  He  retaliated  by  throwing  a  stone  at  the 
aggressor,  which  falling  on  the  altar  broke  one  of  the  images.    This  operated 

apostate  friar,  was  thereupon  seized  and  executed  for  heresy.     This  was  LS 
unfortunate  as  it  was  lamentable.  *  See  McCrie,  p.  235. 


236  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION KNOX. 

like  a  signal  upon  the  people  present,  who  had  taken  part  with  the  boy ;  ami 
in  the  course  of  a  few  minutes  the  altar,  images,  and  all  the  ornaments  of 
the  church  were  torn  down,  and  trampled  under  foot.  The  noise  soon  col- 
lected a  mob,  who  finding  no  employment  in  the  church,  by  a  sudden  and 
irresistible  (!)  impulse,  flew  upon  the  monasteries;  nor  could  they  be  re- 
strained by  the  authority  of  the  magistrates  and  the  persuasions  of  the 
preachers  (!),  (who  assembled  as  soon  as  they  heard  of  the  riot,)  until  the 
houses  of  the  grey  and  black  friars,  with  the  costly  edifice  of  the  Carthusian 
monks,  were  laid  in  ruins.  None  of  the  gentlemen  or  sober  part  of  the 
congregation  wei  e  concerned  in  this  unpremeditated  tumult ;  it  was  wholly 
confined  to  the  baser  inhabitants,  or  (as  Knox  designs  them)  'the  rascall 
multitude.'  "* 

This  was  not  the  first,  as  it  did  not  prove  to  be  the  last, 
of  those  wonderful  exhibitions,  by  which  the  Scottish  re- 
formers signalized  their  hurning  zeal.  Before  the  wanton 
riot  and  destruction  of  property  at  Perth,  and  before  Knox 
had  returned  from  Geneva,  many  such  scenes  had  been  en- 
acted.f  Now,  these  acts  of  violence  and  sacrilegious  destruc- 
tion of  all  that  had  been  held  most  sacred  were  of  almost 
daily  occurrence.  "With  the  gospel  in  one  hand,  and  the 
firebrand  in  the  other,"  Knox  and  his  brother  preachers 
marched  through  Scotland,  everywhere  establishing  the  Ref- 
ormation  in  the  light  of  burning  churches  and  monasteries, 
with  the  noble  monuments  of  art  and  learning  which  they 
contained.  It  will  not  do  for  McCrie  to  attempt  to  palliate 
the  atrocious  conduct  of  the  mob  at  Perth  and  to  excuse 
Knox.  Who  but  he  raised  the  siorm,  which,  it  is  said^  the 
preachers  and  magistrates  could  not  calm?  Who  but  he 
aroused  "the  rascall  multitude"  to  do  their  sacrilegious  work? 
Were  they  not  doing  his  own  work,  and  complying  with  the 
solemn  injunction  of  the  Calvinistic  creed — still  retained  in 
the  Presbyterian  confession  of  faith — by  forcibly  "removing 
all  false  worship  and  all  monuments  of  idolatry?" 

*  M^Crie,  p.  182. 

t  The  burning  and  pillage  of  churches  and  monasteries  is  complained  of 
in  the  acts  of  the  Council  of  Edinburgh,  which  was  dissolved  before  Knox'a 
return  to  Scotlani.  See  Wilkins,  Cone,  iv,  208,  seqq.,  apud  Lingard,  vii, 
271. 


M^CRIE   DEFENDING   ENOX  237 

According  to  his  biographer,  the  following  is  the  method 
adopted  by  Knox  and  his  coadjutors  for  reforming  the  Church 
at  St.  Andrew's,  and  in  other  places ; — Knox  had  been  dis- 
suaded by  his  friends  from  preaching  in  the  Cathedral  of  St. 
Andrew's  against  the  solemn  prohibition  of  the  archbishop, 
but  he  had  persisted  in  his  purpose  in  spite  of  all  advice : — 

"  This  intrepid  reply  silenced  all  further  remonstrance ;  and  next  day 
Knox  appeared  in  the  pulpit  and  preached  to  a  numerous  assembly,  without 
meeting  with  the  slightest  opposition  or  interruption.  He  discoursed  on  the 
subject  of  our  Saviour's  ejecting  the  profane  traflBckers  from  the  temple  of 
Jerusalem  ;  from  which  he  took  occasion  to  expose  the  enormous  corruptions 
which  had  been  introduced  into  the  Church  under  the  Papacy,  and  to  point 
out  what  was  incumbent  upon  Christians,  in  their  different  spheres,  for  re- 
moving them.  On  the  three  following  days,  he  preached  in  the  same  jjlace  " 
(St.  Andrew's);  and  such  was  the  influence  of  his  doctrine,  that  the  provost, 
baillies,  and  inhabitants  harmoniously  agreed  to  set  up  the  reformed  wor- 
ship in  the  town  :  the  church  was  stripped  of  images  and  pictures,  and  the 
monasteries  pulled  down.  The  example  of  St.  Andrew's  was  quickly  fol- 
lowed in  other  parts  of  the  kingdom  ;  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks,  at 
Crail,  at  Cupar,  at  Lindores,  at  Stirling,  at  Linlithgow,  and  at  Edinburgh, 
the  houses  of  the  monks  were  overthrown,  and  all  the  instruments,  which 
had  been  employed  to  foster  idolatry  and  image-worship,  were  destroyed."* 

6.  In  thus  defacing  or  wholly  destroying  churches,  and  in 
razing  to  the  ground  the  venerable  monastic  structures,  with 
all  their  rich  contents  of  paintings,  and  libraries,  and  archi- 
tectural ornaments,  the  Scottish  reformers  did  an  irreparable 
injury  to  the  country,  whose  noblest  ancient  monuments  they 
thus  left  masses  of  smoking  ruins,  and  to  mediaeval  art  and 
learning,  whose  invaluable  productions  they  demolished,  or 
ruthlessly  consigned  to  the  flames.  The  monasteries  were, 
at  the  same  time,  the  great  public  libraries  of  Scotland,  as 
they  were  everywhere  also  in  Europe.  And  yet, — would  it 
be  believed  ? — the  biographer  of  Knox,  true  to  the  spirit  of 
Vis  hero  and  of  early  Calvinism,  not  only  defends  this  hor- 
rible Vandalism,  but  he  seems  even  to  rejoice  and  triumph 

*  McCrie,  p.  188.  He  quotes  Knox,  Historic,  and  a  letter  of  the  reformer 
written  from  St.  Andrew's,  June  23,  1559.  The  demolition  began  there  on 
the  14:th  of  June. 


238  SCOTTISH    REFOAMATION KNOX. 

over  the  ruins  with  which  Scotland  was  strewn  oy  Knox  and 
his  ruthless  myrmidons!    He  says: 

"I  will  go  further,  and  say  that  I  look  upon  the  destructioi;  cf  these 
monuments  as  a  piece  of  good  policy,  wliich  contributed  materially  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  and  the  prevention  of  its  re-es- 
tablishment. It  was  chiefly  by  the  magnificence  of  temples,  and  tho 
splendid  apparatus  of  its  worship,  that  the  Popish  (Church  fascinated  tha 
senses  and  imaginations  of  the  people.  There  could  not,  therefore,  have 
been  a  more  successful  method  of  attacking  it  than  the  demolition  of  these. 
There  is  more  wisdom  than  many  seem  to  perceive  in  the  maxim,  which 
Knox  is  said  to  have  inculcated,  '  that  the  best  way  to  keep  the  rooks  from 
returning,  was  to  pull  down  their  nests.'  "* 

It  may  have  been  good  "policy"  and  it  was  "successful;" 
but  was  it  rigJitf  On  the  same  principle,  it  would  be  right 
for  a  robber  to  slay  his  victim,  lest  he  should  return  after- 
wards and  slay  him!  Does  "the  end  justify  the  means?" 
Catholics  are  falsely  charged  with  adopting  this  abominable 
maxim ;  the  early  Protestants  certainly  acted  upon  it ;  and 
McCrie  defends  their  action  !     Again  he  says : 

"  Scarcely  any  thing  in  the  progress  of  the  Scottish  Reformation  has  been 
more  frequently  or  more  loudly  condemned  than  the  demolition  of  those 
edifices  upon  which  superstition  (!)  had  lavished  all  the  ornaments  of  the 
chisel  and  pencil.  To  the  Roman  Catholics,  who  anathematized  all  who 
were  engaged  in  this  work  of  inexpiable  sacrilege,  and  represented  it  as  in- 
volving the  overthrow  of  all  religion,  have  succeeded  another  race  of  writers 
(Protestant),  who,  although  they  do  not,  in  general,  make  high  pretensions 
to  devotion,  have  not  scrupled  at  times  to  borrow  the  language  of  their  pre- 
decessors, and  have  bewailed  the  wreck  of  so  many  precious  monuments,  in 
as  bitter  strains  as  ever  idolater  did  the  loss  of  his  gods.  These  are  the 
warm  admirers  of  Gothic  architecture,  and  other  reliques  of  ancient  art ; 
some  of  whom,  if  we  may  judge  from  their  language,  would  welcome  back 
the  reign  of  superstition,  with  all  its  ignorance  and  bigotry,  if  they  could 
recover  the  objects  of  their  adoration. f 

Among  these  Protestant  writers,  he  mentions  in  a  note 
Hutchinson,  whose  energetic  language  on  the  subject  he 
quotes,  as  one  out  of  many  of  a  similar  kind,  though  not  the 
strongest: — "This   abbey  (Kelso)   was   demolished  1569,  in 


*  McCrie,  p.  193.  t  Ibid.,  p.  190. 


TWO    ARMIES    IN   THE    FIELD.  239 

consequence  of  the  enthusiastic  Reformation,  which  in  its 
violence  was  a  greater  disgrace  to  religion  than  all  the  errors 
it  was  intended  to  subvert.  Reformation  has  hitherto  always 
appeared  in  the  form  of  a  zealot,  full  of  fanatic  fuiy,  with 
violence  subduing,  but  through  madness  creating  almost  as 
many  mischiefs  in  its  oversights,  as  it  overthrows  errors  in  its 
pursuits.  Religion  has  received  a  greater  shock  from  the 
present  struggle  to  suppress  some  formularies  and  save  some 
scruples,  than  it  ever  did  by  the  growth  of  superstition."* 

7.  The  queen  regent  complained,  and  most  justly,  of  all  these 
sacrilegious  outrages,  so  destructive  to  the  rights  of  the  great 
majority  of  the  nation  who  were  still  Catholics.  She  as- 
sembled the  nobility,  and  laid  before  them  the  sad  state  of 
afiairs.  "To  the  Catholics  she  dwelt  upon  the  sacrilegious 
overthrow  of  those  venerable  structures  which  their  ancestors 
had  dedicated  to  the  service  of  God.  To  the  Protestants, 
who  had  not  joined  those  at  Perth,  she  complained  of  the 
destruction  of  the  royal  foundation  of  the  Charter  House, 
protested  that  she  had  no  intention  to  offer  violence  to  their 
Gonseiences,  and  promised  her  protection,  provided  they  as- 
sisted her  in  the  punishment  of  those  who  had  been  guilty  of 
this  violation  of  public  oi-der.  Having  inflamed  the  minds 
of  all  against  them,  she  advanced  to  Perth  with  an  army, 
threatening  to  lay  waste  the  town  by  fire  and  sword,  and  to 
inflict  the  most  exemplary  vengeance  on  those  who  had  been 
instrumental  in  producing  the  riot."'!' 

The  lords  of  the  congregation  armed  also  on  their  side, 
and  then  began,  first  before  the  walls  of  Perth,  and  subse- 
quently in  other  places,  a  series  of  skirmishes,  manceuvrings, 
truces,  parleys,  reconciliations,  and  ruptures,  the  details  of 
which  are  much  too  long  for  our  limits.J  The  party  of  the 
regent  again  repeatedly  promised  to  the  Protestants  entire 

*  Hutchinson,  History  of  Northumberland,  etc.,  i,  265.    Quoted  ibid,  p.l90. 
t  McCrie,  p.  183.  ' 

\  Those  who  wish  to  read  a  clear  and  succinct  statement  of  the  %cts  are 
referred  to  Lingard,  vii,  273,  seqq. 


240  SCOTTISH   RKFORMATION KNOX. 

freedom  of  religion,  and  these  as  often  rejected  the  offer, 
and  demanded  that  they  should  have,  in  addition,  the  right  to 
remove  "false  worship  and  the  monuments  of  idolatry" 
What  kind  of  religious  liberty  Knox  demanded  at  this  pre 
cise  juncture — as  well  as  before  and  afterwards — is  apparent 
from  a  letter  which  he  then  addressed  to  Mrs.  Anne  Locke: 

"  At  length  they  (the  regent's  party)  were  content  to  take  assurance  for 
eight  days,  permitting  unto  us  freedom  of  religion  in  the  mean  time.  In 
the  whilk  (which)  the  abbey  of  Lindores,  a  place  of  black  monkes,  distant 
from  St.  Andrew's  twelve  miles,  we  reformed:  their  altars  overthrew  we, 
their  idols,  vestments  of  idolatrie,  and  mass-books  we  burnt  in  their  presence, 
and  commanded  them  to  cast  away  their  monkish  habits."* 

8.  The  result  of  the  eventful  struggle  betwen  the  two 
parties  was,  that  after  the  lords  of  the  congregation  had 
quailed  more  than  once  before  the  "  synagogue  of  Satan," 
and  "  the  uncircumcised  Philistines,"  and  had  been  driven  in 
disgrace  from  Edinbui'gh,  England  came  to  their  aid ;  while 
the  queen  regent  in  her  turn  received  re-inforcements  from 
France.  Though  Elizabeth  had  entered  into  a  solemn  treaty 
of  peace  with  Mary,  queen  of  Scots,  who  was  still  in  France, 
she  did  not  scruple  to  aid  the  Scottish  insurgents  with  both 
encouragement  and  money.  She  sent  two  agents — Sadler 
and  Croft — into  Scotland  to  keep  up  their  hopes  of  aid  from 
England ;  and  she  subsequently  despatched  an  English  army 
and  fleet  to  the  Scottish  borders  and  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Frith.  To  the  remonstrances  of  the  French  ambassador, 
Nouailles,  Elizabeth  "assured  him  of  her  determination  to 
maintain  the  peace  of  Cateau,  and  as  a  proof  of  her  sincerity, 
wished  that  the  curse  of  heaven  might  light  on  the  head  of 
that  prince  who  should  be  the  first  to  violate  it!"t — It  must 

*  Quoted  from  McCrie  by  Lingard,  vii,  274,  note.  The  letter  was  written 
June  23,  1559  ;  it  is  given  in  full,  with  this  passage,  by  McCrie  from  Calder- 
wood's  Collection,  in  the  Appendix,  p.  544.  The  passage,  however,  which 
we  have  already  quoted  above,  concerning  the  reforming  process  at  St.  Andrew's 
and  in  its  vicinity,  contains  in  substance  all  that  Knox  declares  in  this  letter. 

f  See  Lingard,  vii,  284-5,  and  his  authorities.  In  this  peace,  which 
settled  the  affairs  of  Europe,  England  and  Scotland  were  included. 


KIRK   ESTABLISHED.  241 

be  remembered  that  the  lords  of  the  congregation,  urged  on 
by  Knox,  had  already  deposed  the  queen  regent  (Oct.  22, 
1559),  and  were  now  in  open  rebellion.  The  assistance  of 
England  gave  the  superiority  to  the  lords  of  the  congregation, 
and  they  were  thus  enabled  fully  to  carry  out  their  purpose 
for  establishing  the  Reformation  in  Scotland.  Mr.  McCrie 
tells  the  final  issue  of  the  struggle  as  follows : 

"  The  disaster  which  caused  the  Protestant  army  to  leave  Edinburgh, 
turned  out  to  the  advantage  of  their  cause.  It  obliged  the  English  court  to 
abandon  the  line  of  cautious  policy  which  they  had  hitherto  pursued.  On 
the  27th  of  February,  1560,  they  concluded  a  formal  treaty  with  the  lords 
of  the  congregation ;  and  in  the  beginning  of  April  the  English  army  entered 
Scotland.  The  French  troops  retired  within  the  fortifications  of  Leith,  and 
were  invested  by  sea  and  land  ;  the  queen  regent  died  in  the  castle  of  Edin- 
burgh during  the  siege  ;  and  the  ambassadors  of  France  were  forced  to 
agree  to  a  treaty,  by  which  it  was  provided  that  the  French  troops  should 
be  removed  from  Scotland,  an  amnesty  granted  to  all  who  had  been  engaged 
in  the  late  resistance  to  the  measures  of  the  regent,  their  principal  grievances 
redressed,  and  a  fi-ee  parliament  called  to  settle  the  other  afiairs  of  the 
Icingdom."* 

A  little  further  on,  he  says : 

"  The  treaty,!  which  put  an  end  to  hostilities,  made  no  settlement  respecting 

*  McCrie,  p.  218. 

f  Mackintosh  tells  us  that,  among  the  stipulations  of  this  treaty,  one  was, 
that  "the  most  Christian  king  and  queen,  Francis  and  Mary,  should  fulfill 
all  they  had  promised  to  the  Scottish  nation,  so  long  as  the  nobles  and  peo- 
ple of  Scotland  fulfilled  the  terms  to  which  they  on  their  parts  had  agreed." 
(Mackintosh,  Ibid.,  p.  324.) 

The  cardinal  of  Lorraine,  the  French  prime  minister,  often  accused  the 
Scots  of  not  having  observed  their  part  of  the  treaty,  being  instigated  to 
break  it  by  the  influence  of  Elizabeth.  He  said  openly  to  Throckmorton, 
the  English  minister  :  "  The  Scots,  I  will  tell  you  fi-ankly,  perform  no  part 
of  their  duties  ;  the  king  and  the  queen  have  the  name  of  their  sovereigns 
and  your  mistress  (Elizabeth)  hath  the  obedience.  They  would  bring  the 
realm  to  a  republic.  Though  you  say  your  mistress  has  in  all  things  per- 
formed the  treaty ;  we  say  the  Scots,  by  her  countenance,  perform  no  part 
of  the  treaty." — Mackintosh,  Ibid.,  p.  325. 

The  continual  intermeddling  of  Elizabeth  in  the  affiiirs  of  Scotland  was  a 
constant  source  of  annoyance  and  anguish  to  poor  Mary,  after  her  arrival  in 
VOL.   If. — 21 


242  SCOTTISH   REFORMATION — KNOX. 

religious  differences  ;  but  on  that  very  account  it  was  fatal  to  popery.     The 

power  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Protestants The  parliament,  when  it 

met,  had  little  to  do  but  to  sanction  what  the  nation  had  previously 
adopted."* 

9.  How  neatly  and  how  delicately  told !  The  regent  had 
repeatedly  oflered  them  not  only  toleration,  but  religious 
liberty ;  they  had  spurned  her  offer  with  scorn.  How  the 
nation  had  been  previously  led  to  "adopt"  the  Reformation, 
we  have  already  seen.  And  now  these  men  of  violence  and 
blood,  whose  principal  grievances  had  been  already  redressed, 
coolly  meet  in  parliament,  without  waiting  for  a  legal  com- 
mission from  their  sovereign,  and  having  secured  a  majority 
by  previous  dextrous  management  and  manoeuvring,  establish 
hy  law  the  new  religion  on  the  destruction  of  the  old,  the 
profession  or  exercise  of  which  they  undertake  boldly  to  pro- 
hibit !  They  thus  proved  to  all  the  world  that  they  had  not 
been  seeking  after  religious  freedom,  but  rather  religious 
domination  and  ascendency.  The  proceedings  of  this  famous 
assembly  may  be  summed  up  as  follows : 

"1.  An  act  was  passed  to  abolish  the  papal  jurisdiction  in  Scotland,  and  to 
provide  punishment  for  any  man  who  should  presume  to  act  under  it.f 

the  country,  which  the  English  queen  really  ruled  much  more  than  she  her- 
self. Thus,  to  select  one  out  of  many  examples  of  the  kind,  the  English 
envoy  "  Thornworth  was  also  instructed  to  expostulate  with  Mary  on  her 
displeasure  against  the  earl  of  Moray':  (more  commonly  written  Murray) ; 
which  was  answered  by  a  desire  that  there  might  be  no  meddling  in  the 
internal  afEiirs  of  Scotland."     (Mackintosh,  Ibid.,  p.  335.) 

*  McCrie,  p.  220. 

f  Mackintosh,  a  very  prejudiced  and  therefore  unexceptionable  witness, 
sa3'^s  in  substance  as  much,  though  he  was  too  cautious  to  enter  into  details  : 
"A  statute  was  passed  to  abolish  the  papal  authority  in  Scotland."  (P.  325.) 
This  parliament  was  convened  on  the  first  of  August,  1560.  "  The  session 
began  with  a  debate  on  the  legality  of  the  assembly,  which  was  questioned 
on  the  account  of  the  absence  of  any  representative  of  the  sovereigns,  and 
of  any  commission  from  them.  The  express  words  of  the  commission  justi- 
fied the  majority  in  overruling  the  objection."  (Ibid.) — If  the  sovereigns 
had  issued  no  commission,  how  could  "its  express  words"  justify  the  ma- 
jority ?     It  would  appear  that  the  alleged  promise  of  Monluc,  the  French 


INTOLERANT   ACTS.  243 

"2.  The  administration  of  baptism  after  the  Catholic  rite,  and  the  cele- 
bration of  Mass  in  public  or  in  private,  were  prohibited  under  the  penalty, 
both  to  the  minister  who  should  officiate,  and  to  the  persons  who  should  be 
present,  of  forfeiture  for  the  first  offense,  of  banishment  for  the  second,  and 
of  death  for  the  third. 

"3.  A  confession  of  faith,  framed  by  Knox  and  his  associates  after  the 
Geneva  model,  was  approved,  and  every  existing  law  incompatible  with  the 
profession  of  it  was  repealed. 

"4.  Every  member  of  the  convention  who  refused  to  subscribe  to  the  new 
creed,  was  instant! tj  expelled:  an  ingenious  device  to  refuse  justice  to  those 
Catholics,  who  under  the  late  pacification  claimed  compensation  for  their 
losses  during  the  war.  After  the  exclusion,  the  names  of  the  complainants 
were  twice  called ;  neither  the}'^  nor  their  attorne3^s  were  present  to  support 
their  claims  ;  and  it  was  declaimed  that  '  the  lordis  and  nobilitie  had  don 
thair  duetie  conform  to  the  articles  of  the  peax  (peace).' 

"5.  The  earls  of  Morton  and  Glencairn  with  Secretary  Lethington,  were 
commissioned  to  wait  on  the  English  queen,  and  to  propose  to  her,  in  the 
name  of  the  estates,  a  marriage  with  the  earl  of  Arran,  son  to  the  presump- 
tive heir  to  the  Scottish  crown."* 

That  this  was  substantially  the  action  of  the  parliament  of 
1560,  is  apparent  from  the  proceedings  of  that  convened  in 
1567,  seven  years  later,  according  to  McCrie's  own  account: 

"  On  the  15th  of  December,  Knox  preached  at  the  opening  of  the  parlia- 
ment, and  exhorted  them  to  begin  with  the  affairs  of  religion,  in  which  case 
they  would  find  better  success  in  their  other  business.  The  parliament 
ratified  all  the  acts  which  had  been  passed  in  1560,  in  favor  of  the  Protestant 

ambassador  at  the  treaty,  is  here  referred  to ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that 
the  sovereigns  had  ratified  this  promise,  if  it  was  really  given.  The  legality 
of  the  assembly  was  often  questioned  in  the  sequel.  The  abolition  of  the 
papal  authority  carried  with  it  the  utter  prohibition  of  the  Catholic  religion, 
and  the  forcible  establishment  of  the  Calvinistic  Kirk  as  that  of  Scotland,  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  religious  liberty  on  the  part  of  Catholics.  Such  was  the 
freedom  of  religion  which  Knox  coveted  ! 

*  Lingard,  History  of  England,  vii,  p.  294-5.  He  quotes  Keith,  151, 
488  ;  Haynes,  356 ;  Knox,  239,  254-5 ;  Spottiswood,  150 ;  and  Act.  Pari. 
Scot.  ii.  525,  App.  605.  Cecil  seems  to  have  been  the  main  intriguer  in  ar- 
ranging the  pr<:;liminaries  of  the  convention,  and  especiall}'  in  suggesting  the 
unworthy  artifice  by  which  the  Catholics  were  defrauded  of  their  claims. 
He  had  already  prophecied  that  "  the  reparation  would  be  light  enough.' 
Ibid. 


244  SCOTTISH   REFORMATION KNOX. 

religion,  and  against  popery.  New  statutes  of  a  similar  kind  were  added 
It  was  provided  that  no  prince  should  be  afterwards  admitted  to  the  exercise 
of  authority  in  the  kingdom,  without  taking  an  oath  to  maintain  the  Prot- 
estant religion  ;  and  that  none  but  Protestants  should  be  admitted  to  any 
office,  not  hereditary  nor  held  for  life.  The  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  exer- 
cised by  the  diiferent  assemblies  of  the  church  was  formally  ratified,  and 
commissioners  appointed  to  define  more  exactly  the  causes  which  properly 
came  within  the  sphere  of  their  judgment."* 

10.  This  occurred  after  poor  Mary,  queen  of  Scots,  bad 
been  driven  from  Edinburgh,  and  while  she  was  detained  a 
prisoner  at  Lochleven.  Knox  now  clamored  for  her  blood, 
as  he  had  been  the  chief  cause  of  all  her  troubles  and  mis- 
fortunes. "Throckmorton,  the  English  ambassador,  had  a 
conference  with  him,  with  the  view  of  mitigating  the  rigor 
of  this  judgment ;  but  though  he  (Knox)  acquiesced  in  the 
resolution  adopted  by  the  lords  to  detain  her  in  prison,  he 
retained  his  sentiment  in  favor  of  her  trial  and  execution 
which  would  certainly  have  followed  ;  and  after  the  civil  war 
was  kindled  by  her  escape,  repeatedly  said,  that  he  considered 
the  nation  as  suffering  for  their  criminal  lenity ."f 

11.  Throckmorton's  royal  mistress — the  Jezabel  of  England 
— was  destined  to  become  the  executioner  of  her  unhappy 
cousin  of  Scotland.  How  the  latter  was  induced  by  her  forlorn 
condition  to  seek  shelter  in  England,  or  was  decoyed  thither  with 
the  hope  of  a  hospitable  welcome ;  how  she  was  then  treacher- 
ously seized  and  forced  to  wear  away  her  gentle  heart  in  prison 
for  nineteen  long  years;  how  she  was  tortured  with  slanderous 
accusations  against  her  virtue,  and  haunted  with  phantoms  of 
rebellion  devised  by  her  enemies  to  be  laid  to  her  charge, — 
of  rebellion  against  her  "dear  cousin"  Elizabeth — to  whom 
she  certainly  owed  no  allegiance  whatsoever ;  how  she  was 
at  length  cruelty  executed  by  order  of  Elizabeth  who  had 
previously  tried  to  have  her  privately  assassinated:  —  the 
whole  sad  history,  with  all  its  startling  and  harrowing  inci- 
dents, is  well  known,  and  need  not  be  here  repeated  in  detaik 


*  Life  of  Knox,  p.  319.  f  I^id.,  318. 


Mary's  reception  in  Scotland.  245 

It  may  be  more  to  our  present  purpose,  to  refer  to  what 
happened  previuuslj,  in  her  brief  but  unhappy  career  in 
Scotland. 

12.  From  the  moment  she  had  first  entered  Scotland,  on 
the  express  invitation  of  the  Protestant  nobles,*  she  was  tor- 
tured day  and  night  by  the  lords  of  the  congregation,  insti- 
gated thereto  by  John  Knox.f     This  holy  man  pursued  the 

*  McCrie,  Ibid.,  p.  231.  She  arrived  in  Scotland  on  the  19th  of  August, 
1561.     Ibid. 

f  Of  her  singular  reception  on  the  first  night  after  her  arrival  in  Scotland, 
Mackintosh  says  :  "  In  the  evening,  however,  they  were  annoyed  by  a  multitude 
of  500  or  600  persons,  who  sung  Psalms  under  the  windows — an  early  and  oifen- 
sive  badge  of  their  Calvinism — playing  on  sorry  rebecks  and  unstrung  fiddles, 
with  such  neglect  of  all  harmony,  that  the  Parisian  connoisseurs  thought  it 
worth  their  while  to  criticize  their  performance.  Next  morning,  the  queen's 
chaplain  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life  from  the  hands  of  the  fanatical 
rabble,  who  viewed  him  with  horror  'as  a  priest  of  Baal.'  '  Such,'  said  the 
queen,  'is  the  beginning  of  welcome  and  allegiance  from  my  subjects  ;  what 
may  be  the  end,  I  know  not ;  but  I  venture  to  foretell  that  it  will  be  very 
bad.' " — (Hist.  England,  p.  330.) — The  poor  queen  was  not  mistaken  in  her 
sad  presentiment !  Those  religious  people  were  much  too  holy  to  have  any 
regard  to  vulgar  politeness  or  common  humanity  ! 

Mary  had  applied  to  Elizabeth  for  permission  to  pass  through  England  on 
her  way  to  Scotland,  which  request  Elizabeth  rudely  refused,  addressing  her 
refusal  to  Mary's  envoy  "in  a  crowded  court,  with  a  loud  voice,  and  in  a 
tone  of  emotion;"  whereupon  Mary,  taking  the  English  ambassador  Throck- 
morton aside,  addressed  him  as  follows  : 

"My  lord  ambassador,  I  know  not  how  far  I  may  be  transported  by  pas- 
sion, but  I  like  not  to  have  so  many  witnesses  of  my  passion,  as  the  queen 
your  mistress  was  content  to  have  when  she  talked  to  M.  D'Oysell  (her  own 
envoy).  There  is  nothing  that  doth  more  grieve  me,  than  that  I  did  so  for- 
get myself  as  to  desire  of  the  queen  a  favor  that  I  had  no  need  to  ask.  You 
know  that,  both  here  and  elsewhere,  I  have  friends  and  allies.  It  will  be 
thought  strange  among  all  princes  and  countries,  that  she  should  first  ani- 
mate my  subjects  against  me  ;  and  now  that  I  am  a  widow,  hinder  my  re- 
turn to  my  own  country.  I  ask  her  nothing  but  friendship.  I  do  not 
trouble  her  state,  or  practice  with  her  subjects  ;  yet  I  know  there  be  in  her 
realm  that  be  inclined  enough  to  hear  offers.  I  know  also  that  they  be  not 
of  the  same  mind  as  she  is,  neither  in  religion  nor  in  other  things.  Your 
queen  says,  I  am  young  and  lack  experience.  I  confess  I  am  younger  than 
47 


246  SCOTTISH   REFORiMATION KNOX. 

youtlifu],  accomplished,  and  but  lately  widowed  queen,  with 
a  persistent  malignity  which  seems  almost  too  monstrous  to 
be  credible.  On  the  lirst  Sunday  after  her  arrival,  she  had 
preparations  made  for  the  celebration  of  Mass  in  Holyrood 
house:  whereupon  violent  murmurs  were  excited,  "which 
would  have  burst  into  an  open  tumult,  had  not  the  leaders 
interfered,  and  by  their  authority  repressed  the  zeal  (!)  of  the 
multitude,"  Knox  seemed  to  acquiesce  in  this  wish  of  "  the 
leaders"  to  prevent  an  open  breach  of  the  public  peace;  but 
"having  exposed  the  evil  of  idolatry  in  his  sermon  on  the  fol- 
lowing sabbath,  he  said  that  '  one  Mess  (Mass)  was  more  fear- 
full  unto  him,  than  if  ten  thousand  armed  enemies  wer  landed 
in  ony  parte  of  the  realme,  of  purpose  to  suppres  the  hole 
religioun.'  "* , 

The  godly  man  !  He  could  claim  religious  liberty  for  him- 
self, but  he  had  no  idea  of  allowing  it  to  others,  even  to  his 
own  youthful  queen !  And  yet  he  and  his  associates  were 
the  very  men  who  were  forever  ringing  the  cry  of  religious 
liberty  and  of  "popish  intolerance"  throughout  Scotland; 
and  who,  with  this  very  cry  on  their  lips,  destroyed  the  Cath- 
olic churches  and  monasteries,  and  after  first  slandering,  sup- 
pressed the  Catholic  worship  !f 

she  is.  During  my  late  lord  and  husband's  time,  I  was  subject  to  him  ; 
and  now  my  uncles,  who  are  counselors  of  the  crown  of  France,  deem  it 
unmeet  to  offer  advice  on  the  affairs  between  England  and  Scotland.  I  can- 
not proceed  in  this  matter,  till  I  have  the  counsel  of  the  nobles  and  states 
of  mine  own  realm,  which  I  cannot  have  till  I  come  among  them.  I  never 
meant  harm  to  the  queen,  my  sister.  I  should  be  loth  either  to  do  wrong 
to  others,  or  to  suffer  so  much  wrong  to  myself" — Apud  Mackintosh,  Ibid., 
p.  328. 

The  whole  heart  and  soul  of  Mary  of  Scots  are  in  this  speech.  For 
queenly  dignity,  for  delicate  but  telling  satire,  and  for  genuine  eloquence 
both  of  the  head  and  heart,  as  well  as  for  noble  simplicity,  it  is  scarcely  sur. 
passed  by  any  thing  we  have  ever  heard  or  read. 

*  McCrie,  p.  234. 

f  Even  Mackintosh  bears  evidence  to  the  moderation  and  justice  of  Mary's 
government  of  Scotland  during  the  first  years  after  her  arrival.     "Notwith- 


KNOx's   IMPLACABLE   HATRED.  247 

13.  "When  poor  Mary  sent  for  Knox,  after  he  had  coarsely 
attacked  from  the  pulpit  her  contemplated  marriage  with 
Darnley,  he  was  unmoved  by  her  tears,  and  he  relentlessly 
mocked  at  her  acute  sufferings.  If  not  directly  privy  to  the 
brutal  assassination  of  her  faithful  secretary,  Rizzio,  perpe- 
trated in  her  own  chamber  and  before  her  very  eyes,  and 
when  she  was  near  her  confinement,*  Knox  openly  expressed 
his  satisfaction  at  the  horrid  deed  of  blood,  describing  it  as 
"  an  event  which  contributed  to  the  safety  of  religion  and  the 
commonwealth,  if  not  also  his  approbation  of  the  conduct  of 
the  conspirators."!  So  implacable  in  his  hatred  was  this 
newly  modeled  saint,  that  he  persistently  refused  "to  pray 
for  her  welfare  and  conversion,  representing  her  as  a  repro- 
bate whose  repentance  was  hopeless,  and  uttering  impreca- 
tions against  her."  Such  was  the  charge  formally  made 
against  him  in  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Kirk,  which  met 
in  March,  1571 ;  and  his  accuser  promised  to  sustain  it  at  the 
next  Assembly,  "if  the  accused  continued  his  offensive 
speeches,  and  was  then  '  law-byding,  and  not  fugitive  accord- 
ing to  his  accustomed  manner.'  "J  Knox  repelled  with  scorn 
the  last  imputation — which  his  whole  life  had  nevertheless 

standing  the  forebodings  of  Mary  on  her  arrival,  her  administration  was  for 
several  years  prudent  and  prosperous.  The  Presbyterian  establishment  con- 
tinued inviolate,  without  any  inquiry  into  the  irregularities  of  its  origin. 
The  revolts  against  legal  authority  were  overlooked  ;  and  an  act  of  oblivion 
was  passed  in  the  parliament  of  1564." — Hist.  England,  p.  330. 

*  She  was  in  the  sixth  month  of  her  pregnancy. 

f  McCrie,  p.  309  and  note.     In  consequence,  "it  was  deemed  prudent  for 
him  to  withdraw." — Ibid.,  310. 

McCrie  adds  :  "  It  does  not  appear  that  he  (Knox)  returned  to  Edinburgh, 
or,  at  least,  that  he  resumed  his  ministry  in  it,  until  the  queen  was  deprived 
of  the  government." — (Ibid.,  p.  310.)  This  is  another  of  his  flights  when 
danger  threatened  his  precious  person  !  In  reply  to  King  James  VI.,  who 
denounced  Knox  for  approving  the  assassination  of  Rizzio,  "one  of  the  va\n- 
isters  said,  '  that  the  slaughter  of  David  (Rizzio),  so  far  as  it  was  the  work 
of  God,  was  allowed  by  Mr.  Knox,  and  not  otherwise.'  Knox  does  not 
however,  make  this  qualification." — Ibid.,  p.  309,  note. 
I  McCrie,   ibid.,  p.  338. 


248  SCOTTISH  reformation — knox. 

proved  true — but  he  still  persisted  in  his  determination  not 
to  pray  for  the  queen.* 

14.  That  Mary  was  innocent  of  the  wicked  charges  made 
against  her  by  unscrupulous  and  treacherous  men  ;  that,  like 
a  lamb  in  the  midst  of  wolves,  she  was  the  victim  of  their 
horrible  and  almost  fiendish  machinations ;  that  after  having 
first  murdered  her  favorite  secretary,  and  next  her  husband, 
then  forced  her  into  a  marriage  with  the  infamous  Bothwell, 
they  finally  forged  a  correspondence  between  her  and  Both- 
well,  with  a  view  to  ruin  her  character,  and  deprive  her  of 
her  throne  and  of  her  life :  all  this  has,  we  think,  been  con- 
clusively demonstrated  by  many  able  writers,  both  Catholic 
and  Protestant.  This  being  the  case,  what  are  we  to  think 
of  such  men  as  were  .implicated  in  those  horrid  scenes  of 
treachery  and  blood  If  If  history,  at  any  rate  in  Christian 
times,  any  where  presents  a  group  of  men  as  thoroughly 
wicked  as  Ruthven,  Lindsay,  Buchanan,  Morton,  Bothwell, 
Maitland,    Murray,  and  Knox,  we    have    nowhere   become 

*  .Life  of  Knox,  p.  339.  "  'He  (Knox)  had  learned  plainly  and  boldly  to 
call  wickedness  by  its  own  terms,  a  fig,  a  fig,  and  a  spade,  a  spade.'  He  had 
never  called  her  reprobate,  nor  said  that  her  repentance  was  impossible  ;  but 
he  had  affirmed  that  pride  and  repentance  could  not  long  remain  in  one 
heart.  He  had  prayed  that  God,  for  the  comfort  of  his  church,  would  oppose 
his  power  to  her  pride,  and  confound  her  and  her  assistants  in  their  impiety : 
this  prayer,  let  them  caU  it  imprecation  or  execration,  as  they  pleased,  had 
stricken  and  would  yet  strike  whoever  supported  her.  To  the  charge  of 
not  praying  for  her,  he  answered  :  '  I  am  not  bound  to  pray  for  her  in  this 
place,  for  sovereign  to  me  she  is  not !  and  I  let  them  understand,  that  I  am 
not  a  man  of  law  that  has  my  tongue  to  sell  for  silver  or  favor  of  the  world.' " 

■f  Even  after  Mary  was  securely  lodged  in  Elizabeth's  English  prison,  her 
good  cousin  of  England  and  her  envoys  were  in  constant  dread  of  her 
queenly  influence.  Thu.«  "  White,  a  gentleman  of  Elizabeth's  household, 
warned  Cecil  against  permitting  many  to  have  conference  with  her.  'For 
besides,'  said  he,  'that  she  has  a  goodly  personage,  she  hath  withal  an  allur- 
ing grace,  a  pretty  Scottish  speech,  and  a  searching  wit,  clouded  {softened) 
with  mildness.' " — Mackintosh,  p.  362. 

A  beautiful  tribute,  coming  from  an  enemy  !  Were  these  the  reasons  of 
Elizabeth's  unquenchable  jealousy  and  undying  hatred  ? 


MARY    INNOCENT MURRAY    AND   MAITLAND.  249 

acquainted  with  the  fact.*     There  may  have  been  particular 
cases  of  "total  depravity"  equaling  single  ones  in  this  hor 

*  Speaking  of  Murray  and  the  other  Scottish  lords  who  had  fled  to  Eng- 
land, Mackintosh  says  :  "  These  gentlemen,  the  best  of  their  time,  were 
joined  by  the  interest  of  the  Reformation  in  unnatural  union  with  the  worst 
offspring  of  civil  confusion, — with  Morton,  a  profligate  though  able  man  ; 
with  Ruthven,  distinguished  even  then  for  the  brutal  energy  with  which  he 
executed  wicked  designs  ;  and  with  the  brilliant  and  inconstant  Lethington 
(Maitland)  admired  by  all  parties  but  scarcely  trusted  by  any." — (P.  337.) 
He  closes  his  account  of  Rizzio's  assassination,  with  the  following  :  "  To 
complete  the  narrative  of  an  event  sufficient  to  dishonor  a  nation,  and  to 
characterize  an  age,  it  may  be  added  that  the  earl  of  Morton,  lord  chancel- 
lor of  Scotland,  commanded  the  guard  who  were  posted  at  the  entrance  of 
the  palace  to  protect  the  murderers  from  interruption." — (P.  338.) 

This  Scottish  historian  of  England  labors  hard  to  incriminate  poor  Mary, 
and  to  excuse  or  extenuate  the  conduct  of  her  enemies  and  murderers. 
His  texture  of  the  facts  and  circumstances  in  her  life  is  an  ingeniously 
drawn  but  most  unjust  lawyer's  brief,  to  make  out  her  enormous  guilt,  and 
to  exonerate  the  bad  men  by  whom  she  was  surrounded  and  ruined.  Of 
Murray,  particularl}^,  he  speaks  in  the  highest  terms  of  eulogy.  We  con- 
sider him  by  far  the  worst  man  of  them  all,  even  where  the  wickedness  of 
his  associates  was  so  gigantic.  The  half-brother  of  the  unfortunate  queen, 
and  wielding  great  influence,  he  might  easily  have  protected  her  fi-om  out- 
rage and  danger,  and  it  was  plainly  his  duty  to  do  so,  in  her  forlorn  condi- 
tion. But,  on  the  contrary,  he  was  ever  on  the  side  of  her  enemies,  secretly 
when  there  was  danger,  openly  when  all  was  safe.  He  seems  to  have  been 
the  master  intriguer  against  her  character  and  her  throne,  and  to  have  set 
the  others  on  to  do  the  work,  keeping  himself  meantime  cautiously  out  of 
view.  Whenever  any  great  deed  of  treachery  or  blood  was  about  to  be  per- 
formed, he  generally  absented  himself,  but  he  was  sure  soon  to  return,  to 
reap  the  profits  of  the  adventure  !  He  was  almost  as  bad  as  Cecil  and  Ehz- 
abeth  of  England.  He  met  a  bloody  death  from  the  private  vengeance  of 
one  of  the  Hamiltons. 

McCrie,  too,  as  was  natural,  defends  Murray  against  "the  cold  manner 
in  which  Mr.  Hume  has  spoken  of  him,"  and  he  is  particularly  pained  "to 
think  of  the  manner  in  which  Dr.  Robertson  has  drawn  his  character.  The 
faint  praise  which  he  has  bestowed  upon  him,  the  doubt  which  he  has 
thrown  over  his  moral  qualities,  and  the  unqualified  censures  which  he  has 
pronounced  upon  some  parts  of  his  conduct,  have,  I  am  afraid,  done  more 
injury  to  the  regent's  memory,  than  the  exaggerated  accounts  of  his  adver 


250  SCOTTISH    REFOllMATIO:-; K.NOX. 

rible  cluster ;  but  as  a  whole  they  stand  forth  unrivaled  in 
fiendish  wickedness !  Cecil  and  Walsingham  in  England 
may  have  equaled  the  Scottish  Murray  and  Maitland  in  cun- 
ning duplicity  and  in  well-planned  treachery ;  but  where 
shall  we  lind  the  parallels  to  the  others  ?* 

saries."  Note  xx,  p.  503-4. — Hume  and  Robertson  were  right ;  and  so  are 
Miss  Strickland,  and  other  Protestant  writers,  who  have  had  the  candor  to 
rescue  this  portion  of  history  from  the  calumny  which  had  clouded  it. 

Instances  of  Murray's  duplicity  and  treachery  abound.  Thus,  when 
Mary  was  preparing  to  leave  France  for  Scotland,  "  Maitland  promised  to 
betray  to  Cecil  the  plans  and  motions  of  Mary  and  her  friends ;  and  the 
Lord  James  (Murray),  having  proceeded  to  France  to  assure  his  sister  of 
his  attachment  and  obedience,  on  his  return  through  England  advised  Eliza- 
beth to  intercept  her  on  the  sea  and  to  make  her  a  prisoner." — (Camden,  i, 
83.  Keith,  163.  Chalmers,  from  Letters  in  the  State  Paper  office,  ii,  288, 
apud  Lingard,  vii,  296.)  This  is  fully  confirmed  by  Agnes  Strickland,  in 
her  interesting  details  of  the  whole  treacherous  affair.  (Queens  of  Scotland, 
vol.  iii,  chap,  vi,  p.  167,  seqq.) 

*  A  new  light  has  been  thrown  on  the  sad  history  of  Mary  by  the  recent 
publication,  in  seven  octavo  volumes,  of  nearly  five  hundred  new  letters  and 
state  papers  regarding  her  times,  collected  by  the  indefatigable  industry  of  a 
Russian  nobleman,  the  Prince  Alexander  LabanofF  de  Rostoif.  Mr.  Donald 
Mac  Cleod,  in  his  late  highly  interesting  "Life  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots," 
(1  vol.  12mo,  1857,)  has  availed  himself  of  these  new  documents,  and  has 
fully  vindicated  the  unfortunate  queen  from  all  the  foul  charges  made  against 
her  b)'  certain  writers,  among  whom  we  regret  to  mention  the  great  popular 
favorites  Charles  Dickens  and  W.  M.  Thackeray.  This  same  writer  has 
done  justice  to  the  character  of  her  accusers,  among  whom,  besides  Knox, 
Murray  and  Buchanan  stood  forth  pre-eminent.  For  full  details,  we  refer 
our  readers  to  this  fi-esh  and  vigorous  work. 

The  indefatigable,  excellent,  and  attractive  Protestant  authoress,  Agnes 
Strickland,  has  made  the  exploration  of  this  field,  and  the  vindication  of 
Mary  a  labor  of  love.  Her  extensive  woi'k  on  "the  Queens  of  Scotland," 
may,  in  fact,  be  said  to  have  exhausted  the  subject,  and  to  have  rendered 
palpabU;  and  undeniable  both  Mary's  innocence  and  the  horrible  and  almost 
.ifendish  guilt  of  her  accusers ;  both  that  of  the  Scottish  lords  of  the  Con- 
gregation who  harassed,  betrayed,  and  hunted  her  down,  and  that  of  her 
pitiless  cousin  Elizabeth,  who  welcomed  her  into  England  with  a  life-long 
prison  and  a  bloody  death.  It  is  well  that  there  is  a  great  day  of  God's 
judgment,  to  revise  and  reverse  the  judgments  of  men  on  earth  ! 


KNOX    THE   INSTIGATOR FORGERY.  251 

15.  But  towering  above  all  these  secretly  plotting  or  boldly 
acting  bad  men  stands  forth  John  Knox,  alternately  their 
agent  and  their  tool,  but  never  their  dupe ;  instigating  them 
to  almost  every  deed  of  treachery  and  blood ;  aiding  them  to 
carry  out  their  wicked  designs,  by  stirring  up  the  lowest  pas- 
sions of  the  populace  through  his  rugged  but  overpowering 
eloquence  in  the  pulpit;  and  encouraging  them  with  his 
secret  applause  or  open  eulogy  whenever  they  had  succeeded 
in  accomplishing  their  bloody  work !  Thus,  as  we  have  seen, 
he  approved,  even  if  he  did  not  instigate  the  assassination  of 
Beatoun  and  of  poor  Rizzio ;  while  he  certainly  was  the  prime 
mover  in  all  the  atrocious  acts  of  cruelty  towards  the  unhappy 
Mary  herself.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  rebuked  the  religious 
indifference,  or  lashed  the  vices  of  the  lords  of  the  congrega- 
tion, especially  when  the  latter  did  not  choose  to  be  restrained 
by  the  rigid  formalities  and  outward  observances  exacted  by 
the  newly  established  discipline  of  the  Kirk:  but,  if  they 
attended  the  kirk  regularly  and  observed  the  rules  of  deco- 
rum in  their  public  walk ;  if  they  were  fiery  in  their  zeal  for 
the  new  religion ;  they  were  held  up  by  him  for  imitation  as 
saints,  though  their  hearts  were  full  of  malice,  their  tongues 
of  treachery,  and  their  hands  of  blood.  In  the  eyes  of  Knox, 
hatred  of  the  Pope,  like  the  mantle  of  charity,  "covered  a 
multitude  of  sins";  and  if  a  man  proved  himself  a  good 
hater,  he  had  already  gone  far  towards  attaining  to  his  stand- 
ard of  Christian  perfection. 

16.  It  could  scarcely  be  expected  that  a  man  of  Knox's 
principles  would  be  very  scrupulous  as  to  the  means  which 
he  deemed  necessary  for  carrying  out  his  cherished  ends. 
He  seems,  in  fact,  to  have  acted  almost  habitually  on  the 
principle,  that  "  the  end  justifies  the  means."  He  scrupled 
not  Habitually  to  misrepresent  the  doctrines  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church  and  to  slander  the  character  of  the  Catholic 
clergy  ;  and  this,  too,  when  he  must  have  known  better,  f*  r 
he  had  full  opportunity  to  be  well  informed  on  the  subject. 
There  is  nothing,  for  instance,  more  sublimely  hypocritical 


"252  SCOTTISH   REFORMATION KNOX. 

than  the  pious  horror  with  which  he  was  wont  to  denounce 
the  ^'•idolatry  of  the  Mass ;"  for  he  knew  well,  that  whatevei 
else  there  might  be  that  was  objectionable  in  this  time-hal- 
lowed service  of  the  Church,  there  could  certainly  be  no 
idolatry;  inasmuch  as  the  adoration  was  plainly  paid  only  to 
Christ  the  Man-God,  believed  to  be  really  present  on  the 
altar.  So  far,  in  fact,  did  he  carry  his  recklessness  of  truth, 
that  he  seems  to  have  resorted  occasionally  even  to  forgery 
to  secure  his  fixed  purpose.  Thus,  when  James  Stuart,  half- 
brother  of  Queen  Mary — afterwards  Earl  of  Murray — seemed 
to  be  tardy  in  joining  the  lords  of  the  congregation  in  1559, 
he  scrupled  not  to  forge  a  letter  to  him,  in  order  to  hasten  his 
movements !  "At  least  Randall,  the  English  agent,  believed 
it  a  forgery :  '  which ' — Randall  says — '  I  geese  to  savor  to 
muche  of  Knox  stile  to  come  from  Fraunce,  though  it  will 
serve  to  good  purpose.'  "*  The  Englishman  was  evidently 
not  more  scrupulous  than  the  Scot ;  both  seem  to  have  acted 
on  the  belief  that  any  means  were  good  enough,  provided 
they  "  served  to  good  purpose."  Speaking  of  forgery  reminds 
us  of  the  well  known  and  often  quoted  testimony  of  the  can- 
did old  Anglican  parson — Whitaker — one  of  the  earliest  de- 
fenders of  Mary  of  Scots,  who  in  his  Vindication  of  the 
character  of  this  unhappy  queen,  says : 

■ "  Forgery — I  blush  for  the  honor  of  Protestantism  while  I  write — seems 
to  have  been  peculiar  to  the  reformed.  I  look  in  vain  for  one  of  these 
accursed  outrages  of  imposition  among  the  disciples  of  Popery."* 

The  same  Protestant  writer  draws  the  following  not  very 
flattering  picture  of  the  Scottish  reformer,  whom  he  calls  "  a 
fanatical  incendiary,  a  holy  savage,  the  son  of  violence  and 
barbarism,  the  religious  Sachem  of  religious  Mohawks ; " 
while  he  very  aptly  designates  Knox's  contemporary  and  dear 
friend — Buchanan — "  a  serpent, — daring  calumniator, — Levi- 
athan of  slander, — the  second  of  all  human  forgers, — and  the 

*  Sadler,  i,  499,  apud  Lingard,  vii,  280,  note. 

*  Vindication  of  Queen  Mary,  p.  65. 


CONFIRMATORY    EVIDENCE.  253 

first  of  all  human  slanderers."*  It  is  well  known  that  the 
fimous  Dr.  Johnson  was  wont  to  call  Knox  "  the  ruflBan  of 
the  Reformation."f  He  died  at  Edinburgh  on  the  24th  of 
November,  1572,  in  the  sixty-seventh  year  of  his  age.  By 
MeCrie  and  other  partial  writers,  his  death  is  painted  as  that 
of  a  saint;  by  others  who  were  his  contemporaries,  but  were 
opposed  to  his  new  creed,  it  is  represented  as  that  of  the 
hardened  reprobate. 

17.  The  facts  hitherto  alleged  rest  chiefly  on  the  authority 
of  McCrie,  who  in  many  important  particulars  is  corroborated 
by  Mackintosh.  In  order  not  to  cumber  the  narrative  or  in- 
terrupt the  current  of  events,  we  have  hitherto  abstained 
from  making  any  considerable  quotations  from  the  latest  and 
probably  the  most  interesting  and  reliable  writer  on  all  that 
is  connected  with  the  history  of  Mary,  queen  of  Scots ;  we 
refer  to  Agnes  Strickland.  We  now  proceed  to  furnish  from 
her  lately  published  Lives  of  the  Queens  of  Scotland  such 
quotations  as  may  be  deemed  most  appropriate  to  illustrate 
this  interesting  period  of  Scottish  history,  and  the  character 
of  Knox  and  his  associate  reformers,  as  well  as  of  the  people 
upon  whom  they  brought  to  bear  their  powerful  influence, 
for  good  or  for  evil.  It  is  needless  to  repeat  that  Miss  Strick- 
land is  a  Protestant,  and  that  she  has  availed  herself  with 
singular  industry  and  ability  of  the  ample  materials  which 
were  thrown  in  her  way.     Her  candor  and  truthfulness  few 

*  Quoted  by  McCrie,  p.  380-1  and  note.  He  believes  that  Whitaker  is 
not  to  be  relied  on,  because  he  was  a  Jacobite — or  warm  friend  of  the 
Stuarts.     Buchanan's  picture  is  drawn  to  the  life  in  the  above  sketch. 

t  In  regard  to  the  moral  character  of  Knox  widely  difterent  opinions  have 
been  expressed  by  different  writers,  according  to  their  respective  creeds. 
By  McCrie  and  writers  of  his  class,  who  openly  defend,  or  at  least  palliate 
all  bis  actions,  no  matter  how  atrocious  these  often  were,  he  is  represented 
as  a  saint,  guiltless  of  all  moral  delinquency.  By  contemporary  Catholic 
Vrriters,  he  is  charged  with  almost  every  moral  turpitude.  We  propose  to 
discuss  this  question  in  Note  F.  at  the  end  of  this  volume ;  in  which  we 
shall  republish  McCrie's  answer  to  the  accusers  of  Knox,  with  our  com< 
mems  thereon. 


254  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION KNOX. 

impartial  men  will  dispute.*     The  minuteness  of  her  details 
and  the  graphic  character  of  her  descriptions  throw  much 
additional  light  on  what  may  be  called  the  inner  life  of  the 
Scots,   and   particularly  of   John  Knox  and   his  colleagues 
during  the  period  in  question. 

18.  As  in  Geneva,  so  in  Edinburgh,  the  early  Calvinistic 
reformers  enacted  a  series  of  most  vexatious  Blue  Laws,  under 
the  efiects  of  which  the  people  were  sutiering  on  the  arrival 
of  their  queen  on  the  20th  of  August,  1561.  We  will  let  oui 
authoress  tell  what  occurred  in  consequence  : 

"  On  her  way  to  the  abbey  the  queen  was  met  by  a  company  of  distressed 
supplicants,  called  'the  rebels  of  the  crafts  of  Edinburgh/'f  who  knelt  to 
implore  her  grace  for  the  misdemeanor  of  which  they  had  been  guilty,  by 
raising  an  insurrectionary  tumult  on  the  21st  of  July,  about  a  month  before 
her  majesty's  return — not  against  her  authority,  but  to  resist  the  arbitrary 
proceedings  of  the  Kirk,  and  the  provost  and  bailies  of  Edinburgh.  The 
gloomy  spirit  of  fanaticism  had  done  much  to  deprive  the  working  classes 
of  their  sports  and  pastimes.  The  May  games  and  the  flower-crowned 
queen  had  been  clean  banished  ;  but  the  more  frolicsome  portion  of  the  com- 
munity, the  craftsmen's  servants  and  prentices,  clung  to  the  popular  panto- 
mine  of  Robin  Hood  with  miconquerable  tenacity.  It  was  to  no  purpose 
that  the  annual  commemoration  of  the  tameless  Southron  outlaw  was  de- 
nounced from  the  pulpit,  and  rendered  .contraband  by  the  session.  A  com- 
pany of  merry  varlets,  in  the  spring  of  1561,  determined  to  revive  the  old 
observance,  by  dressing  up  a  Robin  Hood,  and  performing  the  play  so  called 
in  Edinburgh,  on  his  anniversary,  which,  unfortunately,  this  year  befell  on  a 
Sunday.  This  was  an  oSense  so  serious,  that  James  Kellone,  the  graceless 
shoemaker  who  enacted  Robin,  being  aiTCsted,  was  by  the  provost,  Archi- 
bald Douglas  of  Kilspindie,  and  the  bailies,  condemned  to  be  hanged.  The 
craftsmen  made  great  solicitation  to  John  Knox  and  the  bailies  to  get  him 
reprieved  ;  but  the  reply  was :  '  They  would  do  nothing  but  have  him 
hanged.' |;  When  the  time  of  the  poor  man's  hanging  arrived,  and  the  gib- 
bet was  set  up,  and  the  ladder  in  readiness  for  his  execution,  the  craftsmen, 
prentices,  and  servants  flew  to  arms,  seized  the  provost  and  bailies,  and  shut 
them  up  in  Alexander  Guthrie's  writing-booth,  dang  (tore)  down  the  gibbet, 
and  broke  it  to  pieces,  then  rushed  to  the  Tolbooth,  which,  being  fastened 

*  For  the  satisfaction  of  the  reader  who  may  desire  to  investigate  ths 
■ubject  still  further,  we  will  exhibit  her  authorities  as  we  proceed. 

f  Knox's  History  of  the  Reformation,  \  Diurnal  of  Occurrents. 


TUMULT   AT    THE   FIRST   MASS.  255 

from  within,  they  brought  hammers,  burst  in  and  dehvered  the  condemned 
Robin  Hood,  and  not  him  alone,  but  all  the  other  prisoners  there,  in  despite 
of  magistrates  and  ministers. 

"One  of  the  bailies,  imprisoned  in  the  writing- booth,  shot  a  dag  or  a  horse 
pistol  at  the  insurgents,  and  grievously  wounded  a  servant  of  a  craftsman, 
whereupon  a  fierce  conflict  ensued,  which  lasted  from  three  in  the  afternoori 
till  eight  in  the  evening,  during  which  time  never  a  man  in  the  town  stirred 
to  defend  their  provost  and  bailies.  The  insurgents  were  so  far  victorioua 
that  the  magistrates,  in  order  to  procure  their  release,  were  fain  to  promise 
an  amnesty  to  them,  being  the  only  condition  on  which  they  would  be 
allowed  to  come  out  of  their  booth.*  Notwithstanding  the  amnesty,  the 
offenders  knew  themselves  to  be  in  evil  case,  and  took  this  opportunity  oi 
suing,  in  very  humble  wise,  for  grace  from  their  bonny  liege  lady,  for  their 
daring  resistance  to  a  most  despotic  and  barbarous  act  of  civic  authority. 
The  young  queen  was  probably  not  sorry  to  have  an  opportunity  of  endear- 
ing herself  to  the  operatives  of  her  metropolis,  by  commemorating  her 
return  to  her  realm  by  an  act  of  mercy,  and  frankly  accorded  her  grace,  on 
which  Knox  makes  this  comment:  'But,  because  she  was  sufficiently  in- 
structed that  all  they  did  was  done  in  despite  of  the  religion,  they  were 
easily  pardoned.'  "f 

19.  On  the  first  Sunday  after  her  an'ival,  the  queen  had 
the  Mass  celebrated  in  her  chapel  at  Holyrood ;  whereupon 
those  holy  men  who  had  been  so  long  clamoring  for  liberty 
of  conscience  enacted  the  following  scandalous  scene : 

"All  things  went  on  peacefully  in  Holyrood  till  the  24th  of  August.  On 
that  morning,  being  Sunday,  Mary  ordered  Mass  to  be  said  in  the  Chapei 
Royal ;  resolutely  claiming  for  herself,  and  the  Roman  Catholic  members  of 
her  household,  the  same  liberty  of  conscience  and  freedom  of  worship  which 
she  had  frankly  guarantied  to  her  subjects  in  general,  without  reservation 
or  exceptions.  The  hearts  of  the  leaders  of  the  Congregation  were  wonder- 
fully commoved,  when  they  learned  that  the  queen,  though  she  refi'ained 
from  persecuting  interference  with  their  mode  of  worship,  meant  to  go  to 
heaven  her  own  way.  Patrick,  Lord  Lindsay,  braced  on  his  armor,  and. 
rushing  into  the  close  at  the  head  of  a  party  of  the  church  militant,  brand- 
ished his  sword,  and  shouted,  '  The  idolater  priest  shall  die  the  death  !  'T 
They  attacked  the  queen's  almoner  as  he  was  proceeding  to  the  chapel,  and 
would  have  slain  him,  if  he  had  not  fled  for  refuge  into  the  presence  of  hig 

*  Diurnal  of  Occurrents,  printed  for  the  Banatyne  Club,  p.  66. 
f  Lives  of  the  Queens  of  Scotland,  iii,  208-9.     Edition  of  Harper  and 
Brothers,  New  York,  1855.  '  f  Tytler. 


256  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION  -KNOX. 

royal  tuist'-ess.  Mary,  greatly  offended  and  distressed  at  the  occurrenoe, 
exclaimed.  '  This  is  a  fine  commencement  of  what  I  have  to  expect.  What 
will  be  tue  end  I  know  not,  but  I  foresee  it  must  bs  very  bad.'*  She  was 
resolute  in  her  purpose,  nevertheless.  Her  brother,  the  Lord  James,  when 
he  visited  her  in  France  as  the  delegate  of  the  lords  of  the  Congregation, 
had  eniiujied  that  she  should  enjoy  the  privilege  of  worshiping  after  her  own 
uishio"..  and  nothing  could  shake  her  determination.  She  was,  to  use  the 
emphatic  words  of  Lethington  respecting  her  religious  opinions,  'an  unper- 
suaded  princess.'  '  The  Lord  James,  the  man  whom  the  godly  did  most 
reveren-^e,  undertook  to  keep  the  chapel  door,'  while  the  queen  was  engaged 
in  her  devotions,  which  included  an  office  of  thanksgiving  for  her  preserva- 
tion durin<r  the  perils  of  her  vovage,  and  her  safe  arrival  in  her  own  realm. 
The  conduct  of  the  Lord  James,  on  this  occasion,  gave  great  scandal  to  the 
less  liberally  disposed  of  the  Congregation.  He  excused  himself  by  saying, 
what  he  did  was  to  prevent  any  Scotchman  from  entering  the  chapel.  '  But,' 
says  Knox,  'it  was  and  is  well  known  that  the  door  was  kept  that  none 
should  have  entress  to  trouble  the  priest  ;'f  who,  after  he  had  performed  his 
office,  was  protected  to  his  chamber  by  Lord  Robert,  the  commendator  of 
HolvTood,  and  Lord  John  of  Coldingham,  both  illegitimate  sons  of  James 
v.,  and  Protestants.  '  And  so  the  godly  departed  with  great  grief  of  heart, 
and  that  afternoon  repaired  to  the  abbey  in  great  companies,  and  gave  plam 
signifl^rttiun  that  they  could  not  abi^e  that  the  land  which  God  had  by  his 
powei  puiged  fi-om  idolatry  should  be  polluted  again.'| 

"  ]Vr~;' was  ready  to  sacrifice  both  crown  and  life,  rather  than  swerve 
fi'om  her  principles  in  time  of  persecution.  Few  persons  of  her  tender  age 
could  have  acted,  however,  with  greater  courage  and  moderation,  in  the  dif- 
ficult predicament  in  which  she  found  herself  placed,  than  she  did.  By  the 
advice  of  her  privy  council  she  caused  proclamation  to  be  made  at  the 
market  cross,  stating  that  she  was  most  desirous  to  take  order,  with  the  ad- 
vice of  her  Estates,  to  compose  the  distractions  unhappily  existing  in  her 
realm ;  '  tliat  she  intended  not  to  interrupt  the  form  of  religion  which,  at 
her  return,  she  found  established  in  her  realm,  and  that  any  attempt  on  the 
part  of  others  to  do  so  would  be  punished  with  death ;  and  that  she,  on  the 
other  hand,  commanded  her  subjects  not  to  molest  or  trouble  any  of  her 
domestic  servants,  or  any  of  the  persons  who  accompanied  her  from  France, 
either  within  her  palace  or  without,  or  to  make  any  derision  or  invasion  of 
them  under  the  same  pena|ty.'  No  one  objected  to  this  proclamation  ex- 
cept the  carl  of  Arran,  who  entered  a  protest  against  'the  liberty  it  afforded 
to  the  queen's  servants  to  commit  idolatry.'  Robert  Campbell  of  Kinyean- 
sleugh  complained,  indeed,  that  the  zeal  of  men  against  Popery  was  strangely 

*  Brant  ime.  f  Knox  Hist,  fleformation,  ii,  271.  f  Ibid. 


MALIGNANT    INTOLERANCE.  257 

abated  since  the  return  of  the  queen.  '  I  have  been  here  now  five  days,' 
observed  he,  '  and  at  the  first  I  heard  every  man  say,  Let  us  hang  the  priest ! 
— but  after  they  had  been  twice  or  thrice  to  the  abbey,  all  that  fervency  wasf 
past.  I  think  there  be  some  enchantment  whereby  men  are  bewitched.' 
'  And  in  verray  deed,'  continues  Knox,  '  so  it  came  to  pass  ;  for  the  queen's 
flattering  words  upon  fhe  ane  part — ever  still  crying,  Conscience  !  Con- 
science !  it  is  a  sore  thing  to  constrain  the  conscience  ! — and  the  subtle  per- 
suasions of  her  supports  on  the  other  part,  blinded  all  men,  and  put  them 
in  the  opinion  she  will  be  content  to  hear  the  preachings,  and  so  no  doubt 
but  she  may  be  won  ;  and  thus  of  all  it  was  concluded  to  suffer  her  for  a 
time.'  "* 

20.  As  was  naturally  to  be  expected,  Knox  strongly  ob- 
jected to  the  cheerfulness  and  '"''joyousity''''  of  the  youthful 
queen.  According  to  his  gloomy  theology,  a  smile  was  almost 

*  Knox's  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  vol.  ii,  271.  Ibid^ 
p.  212-3-4. 

This  was  not  the  only  time  that  Mary  was  cruelly  annoyed  on  account 
of  the  practice  of  the  ancient  worship  in  her  own  household.  McCrie  him- 
self tells  us,  that  "  during  her  residence  in  Stirling,  in  the  month  of  August, 
the  domestics  whom  she  left  behind  her  in  Holyrood  house  celebrated  the 
popish  (!)  worship  with  greater  publicity  than  had  been  usual  when  she 
herself  was  present ;  and  at  the  time  when  the  sacrament  of  the  supper 
was  dispensed  in  Edinburgh,  they  revived  certain  superstitious  practices  (!) 
which  had  been  laid  aside  by  the  Catholics  since  the  establishment  of  the 
Reformation.  This  boldness  offended  the  Protestants,  and  some  of  them 
went  down  to  the  palace  to  mark  the  inhabitants  who  repaired  to  the 
service.  Perceiving  numbers  entering,  they  burst  into  the  chapel,  and 
presenting  themselves  at  the  altar,  which  was  prepared  for  Mass,  asked  the 
priest  how  he  durst  be  so  malapert  as  to  proceed  in  that  manner,  when  the 
queen  was  absent  ?  " — Ibid.,  p.  284. 

The  queen,  justly  indignant  at  this  outrage,  resolved  to  indict  the  prin- 
cipal participators  therein.  But  Knox  wrote  an  exciting  circular  letter  to 
his  co-religionists,  "  requesting  their  presence  on  the  day  of  trial." — (Ibid., 
p.  285.)  They  accordingly  assembled  in  great  numbers,  and,  as  a  tumult- 
uous mob,  surrounded  the  palace  while  the  trial  was  going  on.  Knox,  of 
course,  was  acquitted.  The  heart-broken  queen  was  subsequently  very  ill. 
See  the  whole  detailed  account  of  the  outrage  and  trial  in  Miss  Strickland's 
Queens  of  Scotland,  vol.  iv,  p.  12,  seqq.  She  discredits  the  partial  account 
of  Knox,  which  McCrie  follows,  and  also  refutes  the  statement  of  Randolph, 
the  English  ambassador. 
VOL.  II. — 22 


258  SCOTTISH   REFORMATION KNOX. 

equivalent  to  a  sin ;  and  as  for  certain  musical  instrumeiita 
wliicli  are  provocative  of  mirth,  and  tended  to  induce  "skip- 
"ping,"  they  were  clearly  an  abomination  before  the  l>ord! 
Says  Miss  Strickland : 

"  Mary  entered  the  council  chamber  in  her  regal  capacity,  but  she  never 
forgot  the  delicacy  of  her  sex  while  there.  '  In  the  presence  of  her  council,' 
observes  Knox,  in  whose  opinion  it  was  impossible  for  Mary  to  do  right,  'she 
kept  herself  very  grave  ;  for,  under  the  deuil  (mourning)  weed,  she  could 
play  the  hypocrite  in  fiill  perfection.  But  how  soon,'  continues  he,  'that 
ever  her  French  fillocks,  fiddlers,  and  others  of  that  band,  gatt  the  house 
alone,  there  might  be  seen  skipping  not  very  comely  for  honest  women.* 
Her  common  talk  was,  in  secret,  she  saw  nothing  in  Scotland  but  gravity, 
which  repugned  altogether  to  her  nature,  for  she  was  brought  up  in  joyous- 
ity — so  termed  she  her  dancing,  and  other  things  thereto  belonging.'  "f 

21.  Of  the  fiercely  intolerant  spirit  which  the  reformers 
had  introduced  into  Scotland,  and  of  the  almost  fiendish 
malignity  with  which  Knox  and  his  associates  pursued  the 
accomplished  young  queen  on  the  ground  of  her  religion,  the 
following  is  one  among  a  hundred  instances  which  might  be 
alleged.  The  holy  men  of  the  Kirk  seem  to  have  suddenly 
become  so  enamored  of  religious  liberty  as  to  wish  to  keep  it 
all  to  themselves,  and  to  allow  no  one  else,  not  even  their 
youthful  sovereign,  a  share  in  the  precious  boon ! 

"  Scarcely  had  Queen  Mary  returned  to  her  metropolis,  when  the  re-elected 
provost  Douglas  of  Kilspindie,  and  his  brethren  in  office,  attempted  a  most 
despotic  and  illegal  act  of  persecution  against  some  of  their  fellow-subjects, 
by  issuing  a  proclamation  imperatively  enjoining  'all  Papists,'  whom  they 
designated  by  the  offensive  appellation  of  idolaters,  and  classed  with  the 
most  depraved  offenders  against  the  moral  law,  to  depart  the  town,  under 
the  penalties  of  being  set  on  the  market  cross  for  six  hours,  subjected  to  all 
the  insults  and  indignities  which  the  rabble  might  think  proper  to  inflict, 
carted  round  the  town,  and  burned  on  both  cheeks,  and  for  the  third  offense 
to  be  punished  with  death,  f 

"  If  the  fair  cheeks  of  the  Papist  queen  blanched  not  with  alarm  at  the 
pain  and  disfigurement  with  which,  in  common  with  those  of  the  obstinate 
adherents  to  her' proscribed  fliith,  they  were  threatened  by  her  barbarous 

♦  History  of  the  Reformation,  vol.  ii.     f  Queens  of  Scotland,  ibid.,  p.  231. 
I  Town  Council  Register,  1561. 


HARD-HEARTEDNESS.  259 

provost  and  bailies,  it  was  haply  because  they  tingled  with  indignation  at 
the  insulting  manner  in  which  she  found  herself  classed  with  the  vilest  of 
criininals.  Instead,  however,  of  taking  up  the  matter  as  a  personal  griev- 
ance, by  insisting,  like  Esther,  that  she  was  included  in  this  sweeping 
denunciation  against  the  peo}ile  of  her  own  denomination,  she  treated  it  as 
an  infringement  of  the  liberties  of  the  realm,  and  addressed  her  royal  letter 
to  the  town  council,  complaining  of  this  oppressive  and  illegal  edict.  She 
must,  even  had  she  been  a  member  of  the  reformed  congregation,  have  done 
the  same,  as  a  duty  incumbent  upon  a  just  ruler  of  the  people  committed 
to  her  charge.  Her  remonstrance  produced  no  other  effect,  than  a  reitera- 
tion of  the  same  proclamation,  couched,  if  possible,  in  grosser  and  more 
offensive  language.  Mary  responded  to  this  act  of  contumely  by  an  order 
to  the  town  council  to  supersede  those  magistrates  by  electing  others.  The 
town  council,  on  this  indication  of  the  spirit  of  her  forefathers  on  the  part 
of  their  youthful  sovereign  in  her  teens,  yielded  obedience  to  her  mandate. 
Mary  then  issued  her  royal  proclamation,  granting  permission  'to  all  good 
and  faithful  subjects  to  repair  to  or  leave  Edinburgh,  according  to  their 
pleasure  or  convenience.' — '  And  so,'  says  Knox,  '  got  the  devil  freedom 
again,  whereas  before  he  durst  not  have  been  seen  in  daylight  upon  the 
common  streets.'  "* 

22.  When  Knox  had  heard  of  the  premature  death  of  Mary's 
first  husband,  he  had  openly  expressed  his  joy  and  thankful- 
ness to  God  for  the  sad  occurrence,  which  he  viewed  as  a 
righteous  judgment  on  "idolatry."  His  "zeal  against  pa- 
pistry pleads  his  excuse  with  the  majority  of  his  readers,  for 
sentiments  and  expressions  which,  if  proceeding  from  a  pa- 
pist, would  be  justly  reprobated  for  coarseness  and  intolerance." 
The  following  is  Knox's  account  of  the  young  king's  death : 

"  For  as  the  said  king  sat  at  Mass,  he  was  suddenly  stricken  with  an  im- 
posthume  in  that  deaf  ear  that  would  never  hear  the  truth  of  God,  and  so 
was  he  carried  to  ane  void  house,  laid  upon  a  palliasse,  unto  such  time  as  a 
cannobie  was  set  up  unto  him,  where  he  lay  till  the  15th  day  of  December, 
(John  reckons  Inj  old  style)  in  the  year  of  God  1560,  when  his  glory  perished, 
and  the  pride  of  the  stubborn  heart  evanished  in  smoke."f  The  godlie  in 
France,"  pursues  Knox,  "  upon  this  sudden  death,  set  forth  in  these  verses 
ane  admonition  to  kings." 

Tlie  elegant  verses  to  which  he  alludes  refer,  with  much  taste 

*  Queens  of  Scotland,  iii,  237-8.  Knox,  History,  etc.,  p.  293.  Arnot'a 
Edinburgh.  \  Queens  of  Scotland,  iii,  p.  125.     She  quotes  Knox,  ii,  132 


260  SCOTTISH   REFORMATION KNOX. 

and  delicacy,  to  the  young  king  being  afflicted  witli "  ane  rotten 
ear."  Yet  the  object  of  this  ghastly  humor  of  Knox  was  a  mere 
boy,  being  only  sixteen  years,  ten  months,  and  fifteen  days  old.* 
It  would  appear  from  the  following,  that  his  Calviuistic 
co-religionists,  even  the  Scottish  nobility  who  were  in  imme- 
diate attendance  on  the  queen's  court,  shared  in  his  cruel 
hard-heartedness.     Says  Miss  Strickland: 

"  Mary  requested  her  nobles  to  pay,  at  least,  the  trifling  tribute  of  respect 
to  her  of  wearing  black  on  an  anniversary  attended  with  such  painful  recol- 
lections to  her  as  the  death  of  Francis ;  but  they  churlishly  refused  to 
accord  that  conventional  mark  of  sympathy  to  her  grief  '  She  could  not 
persuade  nor  get  one  lord  of  her  own  to  wear  the  deuil  for  that  day,'  notes 
Randolph — 'not  so  much  as  the  earl  of  Both  well.'  We  shall  have  occasion 
to  specify  other  instances  of  Bothwell's  non-compliance  with  Mary's  desire 
for  the  customs  of  her  Church  to  be  obsei-ved  in  her  palace.  Immediately 
after  the  service  was  over,  Mary  caused  a  proclamation  to  be  made  at  the 
Mercat  Cross  by  a  herald,  '  that  no  man,  on  pain  of  his  life,  should  trouble 
or  do  any  injury  to  the  chaplains  that  were  at  the  Mass  :'f — and  this  time 
they  got  off  in  whole  skins.  Great  exception  was  taken  at  her  majesty's 
boldness  in  issuing  such  a  proclamation  on  her  own  responsibihty,  some  of 
her  subjects  considering  it  a  grievous  infringement  on  their  liberty  to  be 
denied  the  sport  of  breaking  the  heads  of  the  said  ecclesiastics."  | 

23,  It  would  appear,  that  the  greedy  Scottish  nobles  who 
had  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Reformation  in  order  to  rob 
the  Church,  wished  to  retain  all  or  nearly  all  the  sacrilegious 
spoil  in  their  own  hands,  and  not  to  allow  a  fair  proportion 
thereof  to  Knox  and  his  reverend  coadjutors  in  the  ministry. 
The  queen  incurred  additional  odium  with  these  ministers,  in 
consequence  of  having  given  her  sanction — probably  she 
could  not  help  it — to  a  measure  adopted  by  the  convention, 
which  assembled  in  December,  1561,  to  settle  the  vexed 
question  of  church  property.  We  will  let  our  authoress  relate 
the  occurrence; — Knox's  irrepressible  "vein  of  humor"  was 
now  turned  in  another  direction  : — 

"  Business  of  great  importance  occupied  the  attention  of  Queen  Mary  and 
her  cabinet  at  the  close  of  the  year  1561.     The  convention  appointed  for  the 

*  Knox,  ii,  132.       f  Keith,  207.       J  Queens  of  Scotland,  ibid.,  p.  250. 


CHURCH    PROPERTY KNOX   ON   DAKCING.  261 

settlement  of  the  church  property  met,  December  15  ;  and,  after  disputes 
which  are  too  lengthy  to  be  recorded  here,  consented  to  vest  a  third  of  the 
lands  belonging  to  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  and  incumbents  in  the 
crown,  out  of  which  the  queen  was  to  pay  the  stipends  of  the  Protestant 
ministers.*  So  little  had  the  maintenance  of  these  been  cared  for  by  these 
greedy  lay  impropriators,  the  lords  of  the  Congregation,  that  they  were,  for 
the  most  part,  in  a  state  of  miserable  destitution,  under  the  necessity  of 
working  with  their  hands  for  their  daily  bread,  or  soliciting  the  alms  of 
those  to  whom  it  was  their  duty  to  dispense  spiritual  instruction.  '  Two- 
thirds  of  the  church  property,'  Knox  sarcastically  observed,  'had  already 
been  given  to  the  devil,  and  the  remaining  third  was  by  this  new  arrange- 
ment to  be  divided  between  God  and  the  devil,  and  he  expected  to  see  the 
devil  get  two-tliirds  even  of  that  remnanff  '  The  ministers  being  sustained, 
the  queen  will  not  get  at  the  year's  end  wherewithal  to  buy  her  a  new  pair 
of  shoes,'  said  Lethington,  with  reference  to  the  surplus  calculated  to  remain 
to  the  crown.  The  most  eminent  of  the  political  leaders  of  the  reformed 
party  were  appointed  by  the  queen  to  the  oflflce  of  apportioning  the  stipends 
of  the  ministers.  The  paymaster  named  by  her  was  no  other  than  Wishart, 
laird  of  Pitarrow,  brother  of  the  martyr.  Three  hundred  marks  was  the 
highest  stipend  their  calculation  offered  to  any  minister ;  but  the  average 
quota  was  one  hundred  only.  Great  was  the  lamentation  and  bitter  the 
disappointment  this  arrangement  created ;  but,  instead  of  blaming  the 
wholesale  plunderers  who  had  applied  the  lion's  share  of  the  spoil  to  their 
own  behoof)  they  raised  an  outcry  against  the  queen  and  the  paymaster.  To 
the  latter  this  reproachful  proverb  was  applied,  '  The  good  laird  of  Pitarrow 
was  an  earnest  professor  of  Christ ;  but  the  muckle  devil  receive  the  comp- 
troller, for  he  and  his  collectors  are  become  greedy  fiictors.'  "I 

24.  We  have  already  seen  how  grievously  the  cheerful 
temperament  and   gaiety   of    the   youthful   queen   ofi'ended 

*  Keith,  Tytler,  Robertson,  Knox,     f  Queens  of  Scot,  and  Knox,  ii,  310. 

I  Knox,  ii,  310. — Quoted  ibid.,  p.  256-7.  McCrie  mentions  the  same  oc- 
currence, in  very  much  the  same  way.  He  gives  the  disinterested  and 
amusing  lament  of  Knox  as  follows :  "  Weall !  (exclaimed  Knox,  when  he 
heard  of  this  disgraceful  arrangement),  if  the  end  of  this  ordour,  pretendit 
to  be  takin  for  sustentatioun  of  the  ministers,  be  happie,  my  jugement  failes 
me.  I  sie  twa  pairties  fi-eely  gevin  to  the  devill,  and  the  third  mon  be 
devyded  betwix  God  and  the  devill.  Quho  wald  have  thocht,  that  quhen 
Joseph  reulled  in  Egypt,  his  brethren  sould  have  travellit  for  victualles 
and  have  returned  with  emptie  sakes  into  their  families  ?  0  happie  servanda 
of  the  devill,  and  miserable  servants  of  Jesus  Christ,  if  efler  this  lyf  thair 
wer  no  hell  and  heavin  !" — Ibid,  p.  249-50. 
48 


262  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION KNOX. 

Knox.  When,  in  spite  of  him,  she  ventured  to  dance  occa 
sionally  in  her  own  palace,  which  was  for  her  4.  species  of 
prison  beset  by  the  prying  spies  of  the  Kirk,  Knox  kept  nc 
longer  any  bounds  in  his  public  denunciation  of  her  from  the 
pulpit.  The  following  is  a  specimen  of  one  of  his  pulpit 
tirades,  and  of  the  spirit  which  he  exhibited  in  his  subsequent 
interview  with  the  queen  : 

"Mary  completed  her  twentieth  year  in  the  beginning  of  December,  1563, 
and  although  she  had  attained  that  mature  age,  she  continued  to  enjoy  the 
exercise  of  dancing,  a  pastime  to  which  her  Scottish  blood  and  her  French 
education  naturally  disposed  her.  Unfortunately  there  were  ill-natured  spies 
and  busy-bodies  in  her  household,  who  were  wont  to  report  her  sayings  and 
doings  to  her  formidable  adversary,  Knox,  in  a  manner  calculated  to  increase 
the  prejudice  with  which  his  zeal  against  Popery  taught  him  to  regard  her. 
Here  is  convincing  evidence,  from  his  own  pen,  of  the  manner  in  which  he 
was  irritated  by  those  base  tattlers  :  '  The  queen  returned  to  Edinburgli, 
and  then  began  dancing  to  grow  hot,  for  her  friends  began  to  triumph  in 
France.  The  certaintj''  thereof  came  to  the  ears  of  John  Knox,  for  there 
were  some  that  showed  to  him  from  time  to  time  the  estate  of  things,  and, 
among  others,  he  was  assured  that  the  queen  had  danced  excessively  till 
after  midnight,  because  that  she  had  received  letters  that  peisecution  was 
began  again  in  France,  and  that  her  uncles  were  beginning  to  stir  their 
tails.'*  Thus  the  young  queen  could  not  enjoy  the  recreation  of  a  ball  in 
her  own  palace  without  its  being  reported  to  Knox  that  she  danced  out  of 
malignant  glee,  to  celebrate  a  Protestant  discomfiture  in  France.  He  was 
provoked  to  preach  a  sermon  'inveighing  sore  against  the  queen's  dancing, 
and  little  exercise  of  herself  in  virtue  and  godliness.'}  Mischief- making 
tongues  there  were  in  that  court,  to  the  full  as  actively  employed  in  carrying 
aggravated  and  aggravating  versions  of  Knox's  sermon  to  the  queen,  as  there 
had  been  in  abusing  his  credulity  with  those  absurd  misrepresentations  of 
the  motives  of  her  dancing  which  had  excited  his  wrath.  The  result  was, 
that  Mary  the  next  day  summoned  him  into  her  presence,  to  answer  for  the 
disrespect  with  which  he  had  spoken  of  her  in  his  pulpit-l  She  received 
him,  however,  not  in  the  council-room,  surrounded  by  the  stern  formalities 
of  offended  majesty,  with  threats  of  racks  and  dungeons,  as  did  her  roj^al 
sister  of  England  her  contumacious  preachers  under  similar  provocations,  but 
in  her  own  bed-chamber,  among  her  ladies,  and  in  the  presence  of  seve-al 

*  Knox,  History  of  the  Keformation,  ii,  331. 

f  Randoliih  to  Cecil,  December,  15,  1562— State  Paper  Office  MS. 

I  Knox,  History  of  the  Keformation,  ii,  331. 


HIS    INTERVIEW    WITH    MARV  263 

of  his  intimate  friends  and  congregation;il  brethren,  the  earls  of  Moray  and 
Morton,  and  Lord  Lethington^  her  Protestant  ministers,  and  addressed  a 
personal  remonstrance  to  him  on  tlie  impropriety  of  which  he  had  been 
guilty  'in  travailing  to  bring  her  into  the  hatred  and  contempt  of  her  people' 
— adding,  '  that  he  had  exceeded  the  bounds  of  his  text.'  If  she  had  not 
used  the  mildest  language,  John  Knox  would  have  been  too  happy  to  have 
quoted  her  own  words  in  recording  the  story,  we  may  rest  assured.  Bui 
Mary,  whose  desire  was  conciliation,  reasoned  with  him  gently  and  oflPered 
him  an  opportunity  of  explanation  in  the  presence  of  his  friends  as  well  as 
his  accusers.  Whereupon  the  said  Master  John  Knox  favored  her  majesty 
with  an  extempore  abridgment  of  his  sermon.  Now,  although  in  his  revised 
edition,  it  contained  insinuated  comparisons  of  herself  to  the  daughter  of 
Herodias  and  Herod  both,  with  stern  censure  against  'princes  who  spent 
their  time  among  tiddlers  and  flatterers,  in  flinging  rather  than  hearing  or 
reading  God's  word,'  Mary  prudently  took  none  of  these  reproaches  to 
herself  She  listened  with  imperturbable  placidity,  and  appeared  not  to 
consider  herself  in  the  slightest  degree  referred  to,  in  cases  which  her  own 
conscience  told  her  were  irrelevant  to  her  conduct  and  character."* 

25.  Notwithstanding  the  coarse  rudeness  of  Knox,  the 
queen  still  sought  to  win  him  by  kindness ;  and  in  order  tc 
prevent  his  fiercely  inveighing  against  her  in  public,  she  con- 
descended to  beg  him  to  become  lier  monitor  in  private, 
whenever  he  might  have  any  thing  to  find  fiiult  with  in  her 
conduct.  Knox  refused  the  office,  so  gently  and  so  delicately 
offered.  The  interview  on  the  subject  is  thus  graphically 
described  by  Miss  Strickland  : 

"  It  is  not  often  that  feminine  gentleness  is  resisted  by  man,  or  queenly 
condescension  rudely  repulsed  by  a  subject ;  but  Knox  was  a  woman-hater 
by  nature,  and  a  defier  of  female  authority  from  principle  ;  instead,  there- 
fore, of  obeying  the  meekly  expressed  desire  of  his  youthful  sovereign,  to 
become  her  private  monitor — a  privilege  few  Christian  ministers  would  have 
rejected — he  told  her,  first,  '  that  her  uncles  were  enemies  to  God  and  his 
son  Jesus  Christ ;  and  as  to  herself,  if  she  pleased  to  frequent  the  public 
sermons,  she  need  not  doubt  of  hearing  both  what  he  liked  and  misliked  in 
her  and  others.  Or  if  it  would  please  her  to  appoint  any  day  and  hour  in 
which  it  would  please  her  to  hear  him  explain  the  doctrines  taught  publicly 
in  the  churches,  he  would  gladly  wait  upon  her.  But,'f  added  he,  'to  wait 
upon  your  chamber  door  or  elsewho-e,  and  then  to  have  no  further  liberty 
but  to  whisper  my  mind  in  your  grace's  ear,  or  to  tell  you  what  othe  rs  think 

*  Queeiisof  Scotland, ibid;  and  Knox,  Hist,  ii,  301, seqq.     f  Ibid.,  p.  334 


264  SCOTTISH  reformation — knox. 

or  speak  of  jou,  neither  will  my  conscience  nor  the  vocation  whereto  led 
hath  called  me  suffer  it.  For,  albeit  at  your  grace's  commandment  I  am 
here  now,  yet  can  not  I  tell  what  other  men  shall  judge  of  me,  that  at  this 
time  of  day  1  am  absent  from  my  book,  and  waiting  upon  the  court.' — '  You 
will  not  (can  not)  always  be  at  your  book,'  was  Mary's  brief  rejoinder  to 
this  burst  of  spu-itual  pride,  and  so  turned  away.  '  Knox  departed  w»ih  a 
reasonable  merry  countenance,  whereat  some  Papists  exclaimed,  as  ii  sur- 
prised, '  He  is  not  effrayed  ! ' — '  Why  should  the  pleasing  face  of  a  gc'itle- 
woman  effray  me  ?'*  he  with  unwonted  gallantry  replied ;  '  I  have  looked  to 
the  faces  of  many  angry  men,  and  have  not  been  effrayed  beyond  measure.'  "j 

26.  Nothing  could-  mitigate,  much  less  quench  the  fit  rce 
intolerance  of  Knox  and  the  Kirk.   Here  is  another  specirrien : 

"  Fresh  troubles  and  mortifications  beset  Mary  in  April,  1563,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  attempts  of  her  Roman  Catholic  subjects  to  celebrate  tQeir 
Easter  festival.  Triumphantly  as  the  Reformation  had  been  established  in 
Scotland,  a  third  at  least  of  the  people  remained  obstinate  in  their  attach- 
ment to  the  ancient  faith.  It  had  not,  therefore,  been  coiasidered  desirable 
by  the  queen's  Protestant  cabinet  to  inflict  the  penalty  of  death  denounced 
in  the  proclamations  issued  in  her  name  against  those  who  assisted  at  the 
Mass.  The  brethren  of  the  Congregation,  offended  at  this  moderation,  de- 
termined to  take  the  law  into  their  own  hands,  and  having  apprehended 
several  priests  in  the  west  country,  declared  their  intention  '  of  inflicting 
upon  them  the  vengeance  appointed  by  God's  law  against  idolaters,  without 
regard  either  to  the  queen  or  her  council.'|  '  The  queen  stormed  at  such 
freedom  of  speaking,'  says  Knox,  'but  she  could  not  amend  it.'  Her 
authority  being  too  weak  to  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  persecution,  Mary 
condescended  to  try  the  powers  of  her  persuasive  eloquence  on  John  Knox, 
whom,  on  the  13th  of  April,  she  required  to  come  to  her  at  Lochleven, 
where  she  then  was.  '  She  travailed  with  him  earnestly  two  hours  before 
her  supper,  that  he  would  be  the  instrument  to  persuade  the  people,  and 
principally  the  gentlemen  of  the  west,  not  to  proceed  to  extremities  with 
their  fellow-subjects  for  the  exercise  of  their  religion.'  He  replied  with  an 
exhortation  for  her  to  punish  malefactors,  adding,  '  that  if  she  thought  to 
delude  the  laws  enacted  for  that  object,  he  feared  that  some  would  let  the 
Papists  undei-stand  that  without  punishment  they  should  not  be  suffered  to 
offend  God's  majesty  so  manifestly.'  *  Will  ye  allow  that  they  shall  take 
my  sword  in  their  hand?'  asked  Mary.  Knox  cited,  in  reply,  the  facts  of 
Samuel  slaying  Agag,  and  Elijah  Je/ebel's  false  prophets  and  the  [iriests  of 

*  Queens  of  Scotland,  iii ;  and  Knox,  History  of  the  Reformation,  ii,  334. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  304.  I  Ibid.  p.  371. 


ANOTHER    ESTERVIIIW    WITH    MARY.  265 

Baal,  to  justify  the  sanguinary  proceedings  in  contemplation.  At  this  per- 
version of  Scripture  history  into  a  warrant  for  cruelty  and  oppression  Mary 
left  him  in  disgust,  and  passed  to  her  supper,  while  he  related  the  particu  • 
lars  of  the  conversation  to  her  premier,  the  earl  of  Moray.* 

"Unsatisfactory  as  the  conference  had  proved  to  the  queen,  she  neverthe- 
less sent  Walter  Melville  and  another  messenger,  before  sunrise  next 
morning,  to  summon  Knox  to  meet  her  at  the  hawking,  west  of  Kinross. 
Who  of  the  youthful  peers  of  Scotland  did  not  envy  the  stern  theologian 
that  assignation  for  a  private  interview  with  their  beautiful  sovereign,  in 
some  secluded  glen  among  the  western  Lomonds  ?  Assuredly  the  noblest 
among  the  princely  bachelors  who  contended  for  her  hand  would  have 
rejoiced  to  have  changed  places  with  Master  John  Knox  on  that  occasion. 
Mary  came  to  the  trysting  place,  without  a  trace  of  the  displeasure  she  had 
manifested,  at  their  parting  on  the  preceding  evening,  clouding  the  serenity 
of  her  features.  Perhaps  she  had  said  her  Paternoster  to  good  purpose 
when  she  retired  to  rest,  slept  sweetly,  and  forgotten  her  wrath ;  her  spirits 
might  be  renovated,  too,  and  her  circulation  improved  by  riding  among  the 
mountains,  with  her  followers,  in  the  fresh  morning  air.  Master  John  Knox, 
who  never  gives  her  credit  for  one  good  feeling,  insinuates  that  her  amiable 
deportment  proceeded  either  from  reflection  or  deep  dissimulation.  Even 
by  his  account,  she  conducted  herself  most  graciously,  made  no  allusion  to 
any  cause  of  dispute  between  them ;  took  no  offense  at  dry  rejoinders  and 
retorts  uncourteous,  but  tried  her  utmost  to  conciliate  his  good-will ; — lost 
labor,  alas !  toward  one  who  despised  her  sex  and  disallowed  her  authority."! 

27.  When  the  queen  received  advantageous  offers  of  mar- 
riage from  various  Catholic  courts  of  Europe,  Knox  and  his 
co-religionists  took  the  alarm,  apprehending  danger  to  the 
ascendency  of  the  Kirk,  or  rather  fearing  that  such  an  alliance 
might  deprive  them  of  the  luxury  of  persecuting  all  who 
ventured  to  dissent  from  the  new  church  establishment.  Knox 
on  this  occasion  employed  all  his  eloquence  to  induce  the 
lords  of  the  Congregation  to  take  effectual  steps  to  prevent 
any  such  matrimonial  alliance : 

"'And  now,  my  lords,'  said  he,  'to  put  an  end  to  all,  I  hear  of  the 
queen's  marriage.'  Duckies  (dukes),  brethren  to  emperors  and  kings,  strive 
all  for  the  best  game  ;  but  this,  my  lord,  will  I  say,  note  the  day  and  bear 
witness,  after  whensoever  the  nobility  of  Scotland,  professing  the  Lord 
lesus,  consents  that  ane  infidel — and  all  Papists  are  infidels — shall  be  head 

*  Knox,  History,  ii,  372-3.      f  Queens  of  Scotland,  ibid.,  p.  317  seqq. 
VOL.   II. — 23 


266  SCOTTISH  reformation — knox. 

of  your  sovereign,  ye  do  so  far  as  in  ye  lieth  to  banish  Clirist  Jesus  from  this 
realm.  Ye  bring  God's  vengeance  upon  the  country,  a  plague  upon  your- 
selves, and  perchance  ye  shall  do  small  comfort  to  your  sovereign.'*  These 
words  and  his  manner  of  speaking,  John  tells  us,  were  '  deemed  intolerable ; 
Papists  and  Protestants  were  both  offended,  yea  his  most  familiare  disdained 
him  for  that  speaking.'  An  exaggerated  version  of  his  sermon  was  instantly 
reported  to  her  majesty,  in  terms  calculated  to  ofiend  and  irritate  her  to 
the  utmost ;  and,  in  spite  of  her  repeated  experience  of  the  folly  of  entering 
into  personal  discussion  with  him,  she  rashly  inflicted  upon  herself  the 
mortification  of  giving  him  ocular  demonstration  of  the  vexation  it  was  in 
his  power  to  inflict  upon  her.  Lord  Ochiltree  and  divers  of  the  faithful  bore 
him  company  to  the  abbey,  when  he  proceeded  thither  after  dinner,  in  obe- 
dience to  her  majesty's  summons  ;  but  none  entered  her  cabinet  with  him 
but  John  Erskine  of  Dun.  '  The  queen,  in  a  vehement  fiime,'  writes  Knox, 
'  began  to  cry  out  that  never  prince  was  handled  as  she  was.  I  have,'  said 
she,  '  borne  with  you  in  all  your  rigorous  manner  of  speaking,  both  against 
myself  and  against  my  uncles  ;  yea,  I  have  sought  your  flivor  by  all  pos- 
sible means.  I  offered  unto  you  presence  and  audience  whensoever  it  pleased 
you  to  admonish  me,  and  yet  I  can  not  get  quit  of  you ;  I  avow  to  God  I 
shall  be  once  revenged.'  And  with  these  words,"  continues  our  historian, 
"scarcely  could  Marnock,  her  secret  chalmer  boy,  get  napkins  to  hold  her 
eyes  dry  for  the  tears ;  and  the  owling,  besides  womanly  weeping,  stayed 
her  speech.' — No  exaggeration,  of  course,  is  contained  in  this  delicate  picture 
of  feminine  emotion,  except,  perhaps,  in  the  excessive  requisition  to  the  page 
for  napery  to  staunch  the  floods  of  tears  which  ovei-flowed  Mary's  bright 
eyes  on  this  occasion.  One  moderately  sized  handkerchief — and  that  a  lady 
always  has  at  hand — might  have  sufficed  to  wipe  away  all  she  shed  on  this 
occasion,  one  would  imagine,  even  if  she  really  wept  as  her  adversary  tells 
us,  for  naught,  and  behaved  as  like  a  petulant  spoiled  child  as  he  describes. 

"Mary  might  have  had  somewhat  to  say  in  her  defense,  if  she  had  enjoyed 
the  opportunity  of  telling  her  own  story.  '  Thus  it  is.  Madam,  your  grace 
and  I  have  been  at  diverse  controversies,'  observed  Knox,  '  into  the  which  I 
never  perceived  your  grace  to  be  ofiended  at  me.'f  And  this  is  bearing 
positive  testimony  to  the  patience  she  had  shown  on  former  occasions,  under 
circumstances  of  no  slight  provocation.  'But  when  it  shall  please  God,' 
■continued  he, '  to  deliver  you  from  that  bondage  of  darkness  and  error  in  the 
which  you  have  been  nourished,  for  the  lack  of  true  doctrine,  your  majesty 
will  find  the  liberty  of  my  tongue  nothing  offensive.  Without  the  preach- 
ing-place, Madam,  I  think  few  have  occasion  to  be  offended  at  me ;  and 
there.  Madam,  I  am  not  master  of  myself,  but  maun  obey  Him  who  com- 


*  Historj  ^f  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  ii,  386-7.         f  Ibid.,  p.  387. 


KNOX  MOCKS  AT  HER  TEARS.  26? 

mands  me  to  speak  plain,  and  to  flatter  no  flesh  upon  the  face  of  the  csarth.' 
— 'But  what  have  you  to  do  with  my  marriage  ?'  asked  the  queen.  In- 
stead of  answering  to  the  point,  Knox  told  her,  '  that  God  had  not  sent  him 
to  await  upon  the  courts  of  princesses,  nor  upon  the  chambers  of  ladies,  but 
to  preach  the  evangel  of  Jesus  Christ  to  such  as  pleased  to  hear  it ;  and  that 
•  it  had  two  parts — repentance  and  faith  ;  and  that,  in  preaching  repentance, 
it  was  necessary  to  tell  joeople  of  their  faults  ;  and  as  her  nobility  were,  for 
the  most  part,  too  aflfectionate  to  her  to  regard  their  duty  to  God  and  their 
country  to  do  so,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  speak  as  he  had  done.' 
Mary  reiterated  her  question,  'What  have  you  to  do  with  my  marriage?' 
haughtily  adding,  'Or  what  are  you  within  this  commonwealth  ?'  And  now 
she  got  her  answer  in  plain  words.  'A  subject  biwn  within  the  same, 
Madam,'  said  he,  'and  albeit  I  neither  be  earl,  lord,  nor  baron  within  it,  yet 
has  God  made  me  (how  abject  that  ever  I  be  in  your  eyes)  a  profitable 
member  within  the  same.  Yea,  Madam,  to  me  it  appertains  no  less  to  fore- 
warn of  such  things  as  may  hurt  it,  if  I  foresee  them,  than  it  does  to  any 
of  the  nobility  ;  for  both  my  vocation  and  conscience  crave  plainness  of  me, 
and  therefore,  Madam,  to  yourself  I  say  that  which  I  speak  in  public  place. 
Whensoever  that  the  nobility  of  this  realm  shall  consent  that  ye  be  subject 
to  an  unfaithful  husband,*  they  do  as  much  as  in  them  lieth  to  renounce 
Christ,  to  banish  his  truth  from  them  and  to  betray  the  freedom  of  this 
realm,  and  perchance  shall,  in  the  end,  do  small  comfort  to  yourself 

"'At  these  words,'  continues  Knox,  'owling  was  heard,  and  tears  might 
have  been  seen  in  greater  abundance  than  the  matter  required.  John  Er- 
skine  of  Dun,  a  man  of  meek  and  gentle  spirit,  stood  beside,  and  entreated 
what  he  could  to  mitigate  her  anger,  and  gave  unto  her  many  pleasing 
words  of  her  beauty,  of  her  excellence,  and  how  all  the  princes  of  Europe 
would  be  glad  to  seek  her  favor.'f — From  this  it  is  apparent  that  the  manly 
heart  of  that  good  Christian  gentleman  was  moved  by  the  distress  of  his 
sovereign  lady,  who  scarcely  could  have  lifted  up  her  voice  and  wept  aloud, 
and  shed  such  abundance  of  tears  as  to  choke  her  utterance,  without  some 
great  cause  of  provocation,  of  which  John  Erskine  showed  his  disapproval, 
evidently  by  the  kindly  manner  in  which  he  interposed  to  soothe  and  com- 
fort her.  Knox  stood,  however,  unmoved,  till  the  queen  became  somewhat 
more  composed — or,  to  use  his  own  words,  '  while  that  the  queen  gave  place 
to  her  inordinate  passion.'  Some  reproach  had  been  addressed  to  him, 
eitlier  by  her  majesty,  or  more  probably,  as  her  emotion  prevented  her  from 
speaking,  by  iiis  friend  Erskine,  as  appears  from  his  considering  it  necessary 
to  defend  himself  from  the  imputation  of  having  taken  pleasure  in  causing 

*  Knox  here  clearly  means  a  Roman  Catholic,  which  her  next  spouse, 
Darnley,  was.  f  Knox,  History  of  the  Reformation, 


268  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION KNOX. 

her  tears.  'Madam,'  said  he,  'in  God's  presence  I  speak.  I  never  delighted 
in  the  weeping  of  any  of  God's  creatures ;  yea,  I  can  scarcely  well  abide 
the  tears  of  my  own  boys  whom  my  own  hand  corrects,  much  less  can  I  re- 
joice in  your  majesty's  weeping.  But  seeing  that  I  have  ofifered  unto  you 
no  just  occasion  to  be  offended,  but  have  spoken  the  truth  as  my  vocation 
craves  of  me,  I  maun  rather  sustain,  albiet  unworthy,  your  majesty's  tears, 
rather  than  I  dare  hurt  my  conscience  or  betray  my  commonwealth  through 
my  silence.'  "* 

28.  The  position  of  Maiy  became  daily  more  and  more 
embarrassing.  The  constant  intrigues  of  Elizabeth  to  stir  up 
disaflfection  or  civil  commotions  in  Scotland ;  the  treachery  of 
her  own  counselors,  and  especially  of  her  own  illegitimate 
half-brother,  the  earl  of  Murray ;  the  thunderings  from  the 
pulpit  of  John  Knox  and  the  other  ministers  against  her 
"  idolatry : "  all  these  things,  together  with  the  affair  of  her 
marriage  and  the  future  settlement  of  her  kingdom,  weighed 
heavily  on  her  mind  and  heart,  and  the  continued  solicitude 
and  anguish  they  induced  often  plunged  her  into  serious  ill- 
ness, so  that  her  health  and  even  her  life  was  more  than  once 
endangered.  In  spite  of  the  solicitations  of  Catherine,  the 
queen  dowager  of  France,  she  wisely  decided  not  to  embroil 
herself  nor  her  kingdom  in  the  rising  quarrel  between  Eng- 
land and  France.  Still  nothing  could  satisfy  the  discontented 
men  of  the  Kirk,  to  whom  her  very  existence  seemed  to  cause 
intense  pain.  Knox  even  blamed  her  for  the  changes  of  the 
weather,  in  which  his  zeal  or  fanaticism  discovered  manifest 
signs  of  God's  displeasure  at  her  persistent  "  idolatry !"  Says 
Miss  Strickland : 

"  Her  sympathies  were  probably  with  France  ;  but  she  conformed  her  ac- 
tions to  the  wishes  of  her  subjects.f  It  was,  however,  impossible  for  her 
ever  to  do  right  in  the  eyes  of  the  party  whom  she  intended  to  please  by 
this  line  of  policy.  Not  only  her  most  innocent  actions,  but  things  over 
which  no  mortal  ever  possessed  the  slightest  control — such  as  the  state  of 
the  weather,  and  the  appearance  of  meteorological  phenomena — were  ingen 

*  Queens  of  Scotland — Ibid.     Knox,  Hist,  of  the  Ref,  p.  327,  seqq. 
•)•  Keith.     Tytler.     State  Paper  MSS.  of  the  yeai-  1564 — Scotch  (lorres- 
pondence. 


SIGNS   AND   WONDERS   QUOTED    AGAINST  HER.  269 

lously  turned  to  her  reproach,  as  well  as  alleged  marvels  which  never  did 
occur.  The  philosophic  reader  of  the  present  age  of  practical  science  can 
scarcely  fail  of  being  amused  at  the  following  record  of  the  superstition,  th« 
ignorance,  and  prejudice  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  manner  in  which 
the  passions  of  the  uneducated  were  inflamed  against  Queen  Mary  by  her 
eloquent  adversary,  John  Knox  : — 

'"God  from  heaven,'  he  says,  'and  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  gave  decla- 
ration that  he  was  offended  at  the  iniquity  that  was  committed,  even  within 
this  realm  ;  for  upon  the  20th  day  of  January  there  fell  wet  in  great  abund- 
ance, which  in  the  falling  freisit  (froze)  so  vehemently  that  the  earth  was 
but  one  sheet  of  ice.  The  fowls,  both  great  and  small,  freisit,  and  might 
not  flee.  Many  died  ;  and  some  were  taken  and  laid  beside  the  fire,  that 
their  feathers  might  resolve.*  And  in  that  same  month,  the  sea  stood  still, 
as  was  clearly  observed,  and  neither  ebbed  nor  flowed  in  the  space  of  twenty- 
four  hours.  In  the  month  of  February,  the  15  th  and  18th  days  thereof,  were 
seen  in  the  firmament  battles  arrayed,  spears  and  other  weapons,  as  it  had 
been  the  joining  of  two  armies.  These  things  were  not  only  observed,  but 
also  spoken  and  constantly  affirmed  by  men  of  judgment  and  credit.  But 
the  queen  and  our  court  made  merry,  and  there  was  banqueting  and  ban- 
queting. The  queen  would  banquet  all  the  lords  ;  and  that  was  done  upon 
policy,  to  remove  the  suspicion  of  her  displeasure  against  them,  because 
they  would  not,  at  her  devotion,  damn  John  Knox.  To  remove,  we  say, 
that  jealousj'^,  she  made  the  banquet  to  the  whole  lords,  whereat  she  would 
have  the  duke  amongst  the  rest.  It  behoved  them  to  banquet  her  again ; 
and  so  did  the  banqueting  continue  till  Eastren's  Eve,  and  after.  But  the 
puir  ministers  were  mockit,  and  reputed  as  monsters ;  and  the  guard  and 
the  officers  of  the  kitchen  were  so  griping,  that  the  ministers'  stipends  could 
not  be  paid.'  "f 

29.  Knox  was  more  than  once  taken  to  task  in  the  Assembly 
of  the  Kirk  for  his  virulent  abuse  of  the  queen  from  the 
pulpit.  In  such  cases,  he  took  little  pains  to  soften,  much 
less  to  retract  his  harsh  language  of  denunciation.  Here  is  a 
case  in  point : 

"At  the  Assembly  of  the  church,  which  took  place  June  25th  1564, 
Lethington,  who  continued  a  nominal  adherent  of  the  Congregation,  remon- 
strated with  Knox,  for  calling  the  queen  from  the  pulpit  'a  slave  of  Satan,' 
and  affirming  'that  God's  vengeance  hung  over  the  realm  on  account  of  hep 
impiety  in  continuing  to  practice  the  rites  of  her  own  religion.'  The  loyal 
part  of  the  Assembly  declared  'that  such  violence  of  language  could  nevel 

♦  Hist.  Reformation,  vol.  ii,  p.  417.         f  Ibid.,  quoted  ibid.,  iv,  p.  35-6. 


270  SCOTTISH    REFORMATION XNOX. 

profit ; '  and  the  Master  of  Maxwell,  who  was  a  sincere  reformed  Christian, 
said  in  plain  words,  'If  I  were  in  the  queen's  majesty's  place,  I  would  not 
suffer  such  things  as  I  hear.' — Knox  defended  himself  from  the  implied 
charge  of  intolerance  in  these  words  :  '  The  most  vehement,  and,  as  ye 
speak,  excessive  manner  of  prayer  I  use  in  public  is  this  :  0  Lord,  if  thy 
pleasure  be,  purge  the  heart  of  the  queen's  majesty  from  the  venom  of  idol- 
atry, and  deliver  her  from  the  bondage  of  Satan,  in  the  which  she  hath  been 
brought  up,  and  yet  remains,  for  lack  of  true  doctrine,  etc.'*  Lethington 
asked  him  '  where  he  found  the  example  of  such  prayer  as  that  ? ' — Knox 
replied  in  the  words,  '  They  will  be  done,  in  the  Lord's  prayer ' — a  strange 
perversion  of  the  divine  spirit  of  that  most  pure  and  perfect  form  of  prayer. 
Lethington  told  him  'he  was  raising  doubts  of  the  queen's  conversion.' — 
'  Not  I,  my  Lord,'  replied  Knox, '  but  her  own  obstinate  rebeUion.'  '  Wherein 
rebels  she  against  God?'  asked  Lethington.  'In  every  action  of  her  life,' 
retorted  Knox,  'but  in  these  two  heads  especially — that  she  will  not  hear 
the  preaching  of  the  blessed  evangel  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and,  secondly,  that 
she  maintains  that  idol,  the  Mass.' — '  She  thinks  not  that  rebellion,  but  good 
religion,'  replied  Lethington. 

"  This  was  the  simple  fact  as  regarded  Mary's  unpopular  and  impolitic 
adhesion  to  the  faith  in  which  she  had,  unfortunately  (!)  for  herself,  been 
educated ;  and  that  she  did  so  against  her  worldly  interests  ought  not  to  be 
imputed  to  her  as  a  crime.  '  Why  say  ye  that  she  refuses  admonition  ? ' 
asked  Lethington  ;  '  she  will  gladly  hear  any  man.' — '  When  will  she  be 
seen  to  give  her  presence  to  the  public  preachings  ? '  asked  Knox.  '  I  think 
never,'  replied  Lethington,  'as  long  as  she  is  thus  entreated.' — A  lengthened 
disputation  followed,  on  the  question  whether  the  queen  should  be  still  per- 
mitted to  enjoy  the  liberty  of  her  private  worship,  against  which  Knox 
strenuously  protested.  The  Assembly,  being  much  divided  in  opinion,  desired 
to  refer  the  decision  to  Calvin  ;  but  as  Knox  objected  to  that  manner  of  set- 
tling the  dispute,  the  Assembly  broke  up  unresolved."! 

30.  On  the  queen's  marriage  with  Darnley,  instead  of  popular 
acclamations,  a  tumult  ensued,  which  lasted  the  whole  night. 
This  was  evidently  caused  by  the  virulent  invectives  of  Knox 
against  her  marriage  with  a  Catholic  prince,  as  Darnley  pro- 
fessed to  be ;  though,  in  his  case,  there  appears  to  have  been 
little  of  religion  beyond  the  mere  profession.  The  morning 
after  this  popular  commotion,  she  felt  compelled  to  convene 
the  burgesses  and  magistrates  of  the  city,  and  she  addressed 

*  See  the  whole  in  Knox,  History  Reformation,  vol.  ii,  p.  428. 

f  Queens  o^  Scotland ;   v,  50-1 — Knox,  Hist.  Reformation,  vol.  ii.  p.  4()1 


TUMULT   AT   HER    MARRIAGE.  271 

them  in  a  strain  of  eloquence  which  appears,  for  the  time  at 
least,  to  have  soothed  even  their  fierce  intolerance.  She 
frankly  promised  to  others  what  she  boldly  demanded  for  her- 
self— freedom  of  conscience.     Says  Miss  Strickland  : 

"Instead  of  the  acclamations  usual  on  such  occasions,  a  tumult  took  place, 
which  lasted  all  night ;  and  the  royal  bride  found  herself  under  the  neces- 
sity, at  an  early  hour  the  next  morning,  of  summoning  the  principal  bur- 
gesses and  magistrates  into  her  presence,  to  inquire  the  cause  of  the  riot. 
She  exhibited  no  signs  of  anger,  but  wisely  endeavored  to  soothe  the  irrita- 
tion which  she  suspectt  d  to  arise  from  the  natural  apprehensions  excited  by 
her  marriage  with  a  Roman  Catholic  prince.  She  took  that  opportunity  of 
repeating  to  them  her  reply  to  the  demands  which  had  been  made  to  her  by 
her  Protestant  subjects,  and  this  she  did  in  the  mildest  and  most  persuasive 
words  she  could  devise.  'I  cannot,'  said  she,  'comply  with  your  desire  that 
I  should  abandon  the  Mass,  having  been  brought  up  in  the  Catholic  faith, 
which  I  esteem  to  be  a  thing  so  holy  and  pleasing  in  the  sight  of  God  that 
I  could  not  leave  it  without  great  scruples  of  conscience ;  nor  ought  my  con- 
science to  be  forced  in  such  matter,  any  more  than  yours.  I  therefore  en- 
treat you,  as  you  have  full  liberty  for  the  exercise  of  your  religion,  to  be 
content  with  that,  and  allow  me  the  same  privilege.  And  again,  as  you 
have  full  security  for  your  Uves  and  properties  without  any  vexation  from 
me,  why  should  you  not  grant  me  the  like  ?  As  for  the  other  things  you 
demand  of  me,  they  are  not  in  my  power  to  accord,  but  must  be  submitted 
to  the  decision  of  the  Estates  of  Scotland,  which  I  propose  shortly  to  con- 
vene. In  the  mean  time,  you  may  be  assured  I  will  be  advised  on  whatever 
is  requisite  for  your  weal,  and  that  of  my  realm  ;  and,  as  far  as  in  me  lies,  I 
will  strive  to  do  whatever  appears  for  the  best.' — With  this  assurance  they 
all  declared  themselves  satisfied,  and  the  tumult  was  appeased.  So  true  it 
is  that  a  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath."* 

31.  Darnley  had  a  much  easier  and  a  much  more  pliant 
conscience  than  his  noble  consort.  To  conciliate  Knox  and 
the  Kirkers,  he  went  to  the  kirk-preaching  the  Sunday  fol- 
lowing the  marriage ;  and  he  there  heard — what  he  richly 
deserved  to  hear  —  a  fierce  and  coarse  personal  invective 
against  himself  from  the  implacable  reformer !  The  incident 
is  somewhat  amusing,  while  it  is  eminently  characteristic  of 
Knox : 


*  Queens  of  Scotland ;  iv,  155-6. 


272  SCOTTISH   REFORMATION KNOX. 

"  Darnley,  who,  like  his  father,  and  probably  acting  by  his  advice,  coca 
Bionally  made  his  Popish  principles  bend  to  his  political  interests,  and  waa 
minded  to  play  the  popular,  went  in  state  on  the  following  Sunday,  August 
19,  to  the  High  Kirk  of  Edinburgh  to  hear  John  Knox  preach,  a  throne 
having  l)een  erected  on  purpose  for  his  accommodation.  Knox  could  not 
resist  the  opportunity  of  making  a  most  offensive  personal  attack  on  his 
majesty  in  the  face  of  the  whole  congregation,  coupled  with  still  coarser  and 
more  insulting  language  of  the  queen — taken  for  his  text  these  words  from 
the  six-and-twentieth  chapter  of  Isaiah  :  '  0  Lord,  our  God,  other  lords  than 
Thou  have  ruled  over  us.'  By  way  of  illustrating  this  portion  of  Scripture, 
Knox  took  occasion  to  speak  of  the  government  of  wicked  princes,  '  who  for 
the  sins  of  the  people,  are  sent  as  tyrants  and  scourges  to  plague  them.'* 
Among  other  things,  he  said  '  that  God  set  in  that  room,  for  the  offenses  and 
sins  of  the  people,  boys  and  women,'  and  some  other  '  words  which  appeared 
bitter  in  the  king's  ears,  as  that  God  justly  punished  Ahab  and  his  poster- 
it)^,  because  he  would  not  take  order  with  that  harlot  Jezabel.'  Darnley 
must  have  been  less  than  man  to  hear  such  expressions  applied  to  his  queen 
and  wife  without  indignation.  The  length  of  the  sermon,  which  detained 
him  an  hour  and  more  longer  than  the  time  appointed  aggravated  his  dis- 
pleasure, and  so  commoved  him  that  he  would  not  dine ;  and  being  troubled 
with  great  fury,  he  past  in  the  afternoon  to  the  hawking."f 

32.  As  we  have  already  shown,  the  chief  enemy  of  Mary 
and  the  arch-intriguer  against  her  peace  in  Scotland  was  her 
own  "dear   cousin"  Elizabeth   of    England.^     The  "virgin 

*  Knox,  Hist.  Ref ,  vol.  ii,  p.  497.         f  Queens  of  Scotland,  Ibid.,  p.  163-4, 
J  Though  Elizabeth  had  a  personal  feeling  of  hostility  against  Knox,  yet 
she  not  unfrequently  used  him,  as  a  fit  instrument  for  carrying  out  her  in- 
trigues against  Mary  in  Scotland.     Says  Miss  Strickland,  speaking  of  the 
cause  of  Elizabeth's  repugnance  to  Knox  : — 

"  The  reformed  party  in  Scotland  were  in  her  pay,  and  subservient  to  her 
will,  although  her  dislike  to  John  Knox  was  unconquerable,  having  been 
provoked  by  his  abuse  of  the  English  Liturgy,  in  the  first  place,  and  in  the 
second,  by  his  work,  entitled,  'First  Blast  of  the  Trumpet  against  the 
Monstrous  Regiment  (meaning  the  government)  of  Women.'  It  is  true 
that  this  fulmination  was  published  during  her  sister's  reign,  and  was  more 
especially  aimed  against  the  queen-regent  of  Scotland,  and  her  daughter,  the 
j'outhful  sovereign  of  that  realm,  but  Elizabeth  considered,  that  the  honor 
of  the  whole  sex  was  touched  in  his  book,  and  that  all  female  monarcha 
were  insulted  and  aggrieved  by  it.  It  was  in  vain,  that  he  endeavored,  by 
personal  flattery  to  herself,  to  excuse  his  attack  upon  the  folly  and  incapacity 
of  womankind  in  general.     He  assured  her,  '  that  she  was  an  exception  tc 


A   DARK   PLOT THE    VICTIM    HUNTED    TO   DEATH.        273 

queen "  pursued  her  with  a  malignity,  which  if  we  had  not 
positive  evidence  to  prove  its  human  source,  we  should  be  in 
clined  to  ascribe  to  a  satanical  origin.  Among  numerous 
instances  of  this  atrocious  plotting,  we  present  the  following , 
— and  if  the  plot  herein  referred  to  and  triumphantly  proved 
by  Miss  Strickland  can  be  paralleled,  for  cold-blooded 
treachery  and  baseness,  in  all  previous  history,  we  are  not 
aware  of  the  fact.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  infamous  plot 
was  hatched  not  long  after  the  northern  insurrection,  while 
poor  Mary  was  a  close  prisoner  in  England,  and  that  the 
state  paper  on  which  the  evidence  of  it  rests  is  in  Cecil's  own 
handwriting. 

"  The  Scotch  had  sold  her  (Elizabeth's)  fugitive  rebel,  the  earl  of  North- 
umberland, into  her  hands,  that  she  might  execute  her  vengeance  upon  him ; 
and  Elizabeth,  in  return,  proposed,  not  to  sell,  but  to  resign  their  injured 
sovereign  into  the  cruel  hands  of  Morton  and  the  regent  Marr,  to  be  dealt 
with  in  the  way  of  justice — words  which  were  tantamount  to  Cromwell's 
private  memorandum  '  to  send  such  and  such  persons  to  London,  to  be  tried 
and  executed.'  There  was,  indeed,  to  be  the  mockery  of  a  trial ;  but  then 
the  children  or  near  kinsfolk  of  Morton  and  Marr  were  to  be  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  English  queen,  as  hostages,  that,  trial  or  not,  the  execution  of 
Mary  was  to  take  place  within  four  hours  after  she  was  given  up  to  their 
tender  mercies. 

"  The  details  of  this  iniquitous  pact,  are  clearly  and  succinctly  related  by 
Mr.  Tytler,  and  the  actual  documents  may  be  seen  in  the  State  Paper  oflBce. 
The  instructions  for  Killigrew,  to  whom  the  arrangement  of  ^  the  great 
mutter,^  as  it  was .  significantly  termed  by  the  diplomatic  accomplices,  was 
committed,  are  in  Burleigh's  own  hand.*  The  monuments  of  history  afford 
not  a  more  disgraceful  document ;  nor  has  the  light  of  truth  ever  unveiled  a 

the  sweeping  rule  he  had  laid  down,  that  her  whole  life  had  been  a  miracle, 
which  proved,  that  she  had  been  chosen  by  God,  that  the  oflBce  which  was 
unlawful  to  other  women,  was  lawful  to  her,  and  that  he  was  ready  to  obey 
her  authority  ;'  but  the  queen  was  nauseated  with  the  insincerity  of  adula- 
tion from  such  a  quarter,  and  notwithstanding  the  persuasions  of  Cecil  and 
Throckmorton,  refused  to  permit  him  to  set  a  foot  in  England  on  any  pre- 
tense."— Queens  of  England,  vi,  146.  She  quotes  Strype,  Tytler,  and  Lin 
gard. 

*  MS.  State  Papers  in  September,  October,  November,  December,  1572, 
and  in  1573 


274  SCOTTISH   REFORMATION — KNOX. 

blacker  mass  of  evidence,  than  the  correspondence  between  Killigi-ew  and 
Burleigh  and  Leicester,  during  the  negotiation  Mary  had  however,  ceaseJ 
to  be  an  object  of  alarm  to  the  rebel  lords  ;  and  even  her  deadly  foe,  Mor- 
ton, the  wily  accomplice  in  Darnley's  murder,  would  not  undertake  the 
office  of  the  queen  of  England's  hangman  without  a  fee.  Why  should  he 
and  the  regent  Marr  sell  their  souls  for  nought  ?  They  demanded  money 
of  the  parsimonious  Elizabeth — a  yearly  stipend  withal,  no  less  than  the 
amount  of  the  sum  it  cost  her  majesty  for  the  safe-keeping  of  her  royal 
prisoner.  The  dark  treaty  was  negotiated  in  the  sick-chamber  of  the  guilty 
Morton,  with  the  ardent  approbation  of  the  dying  Knox ;  and,  after  nearly 
six  weeks'  demur,  the  regent  Marr  gave  consent,  but  was  immediately 
stricken  with  a  mortal  illness,  and  died  at  the  end  of  twenty-four  hours. 
Morton  insisted  on  higher  terms,  and,  more  than  that,  an  advantageous 
treaty  and  the  present  of  three  thousand  English  troops,  under  the  com- 
mand of  the  earls  of  Huntington,  Essex,  and  Bedford,  to  assist  at  the  ex- 
ecution, otherwise  he  would  not  undertake  it"* 

Finally,  the  poor  victim  of  perisecution  aud  tyranny,  after 
lingering  for  nineteen  years  in  an  English  prison,  to  which 
she  was  driven  by  the  relentless  persecution  and  unmanly 
intrigues  of  John  Knox  and  his  religious  colleagues  in  Scot- 
land, was  put  to  death  in  a  manner  so  very  barbarous,  that 
the  recital  excites  a  shudder  of  horror  in  every  generous 
heart,  even  after  the  lapse  of  nearly  three  centuries.  Our 
limits  will  not  permit  us  to  go  into  the  details.  A  careful 
modern  writer  sums  up  the  tragedy  in  the  following  brief 
sentences : 

"  That  one  leading  cause  of  her  condemnation  and  death  was  her  religion, 
is  undeniable.  Evidence  has  already  been  adduced,  impUcating  an  arch- 
bishop of  the  new  church.f  Camden  acknowledges  this  to  have  been  one 
of  the  prevailing  motives  in  the  council,  (p.  485) ;  and  the  same  cause  was 
assigned  by  Lord  Buckhurst,  who  had  been  deputed  to  announce  to  her  her 
doom.  What  an  insight  into  the  character  of  the  men  who  brought  about 
the  Reformation  at  this  period,  does  Mary's  history  present,  Leicester  re- 
commended that  the  queen  of  Scots  should  be  despatched  by  poison ;  and 
Qnding  Walsingham  demur,  sent  a  divine  to  convince  him  of  its  Christian 

♦  Queens  of  England,  vi,  283.  She  quotes  Tytler's  Scotland,  Stat« 
Paper  MSS.,  etc. 

t  Archbishop  Parker  of  Canterbury.  See  Hallam's  Constitutional  His 
lory,  in  loco,  whore  the  same  fact  is  stated. 


BUTCHERY    OF   MARY    OF   SCOTS.  275 

lawfulness.  (Camd.  p.  485.)  'It  appears,  that  Elizabeth  really  wished  to  ba 
relieved  ft  om  killing  her  victim  by  her  sign  manual  and  warrant ;  but  she 
sought  relief  in  ihe  alternative  of  secret  assassination.  She  caused  the  two 
.secretaries,  Walsingham  and  Davison,  to  write  to  Paulet  and  Drury,  to  send 
them  on  the  subject  of  privately  despatching  their  prisoner.  The  two  jail- 
ors, from  integrity  or  prudence,  rejected  the  suggestion. ' — Mackintosh,  iii, 
p.  322.  The  frantic  bigotry  of  the  times  is  also  horribly  exhibited,  in  the 
conduct  of  the  Protestant  dean  of  Peterborough  to  the  queen  when  on  the 
scaffold.  He  preached,  threatened,  denounced  eternal  death,  pursued  her 
round  the  scafibld ;  a  monster,  the  very  incarnation  of  that  fiendish  fana- 
ticism which,  as  much  as  policy,  had  pursued  her  to  the  death.  The  earl 
of  Kent  observing  that  she  prayed  with  a  crucifix  in  her  hand,  exclaimed, 
'  Madam,  you  had  better  leave  such  popish  trumperies,  and  bear  him  in  your 
heart.'  She  replied,  '  I  can  not  hold  in  my  hand  the  representation  of  hi3 
sufferings,  but  I  must  at  the  same  time  bear  him  in  my  heart.'  When  her 
head  was  severed  from  her  body —  '  So  perish  all  her  enemies,'  subjoined 
the  dean  of  Peterborough,  to  the  usual  words  of  the  executioner;  'So 
perish  all  the  enemies  of  the  gospel,'  replied  the  fanatical  earl  of  Kent 
This  scene  is  a  miniature  picture  of  the  glorious  Reformation."* 

*  "Waterworth,  Lectures  on  the  Reformation,  p.  401-2,  note. 
On:;/"  For  more  on  the  subject  of  Mary's  innocence  of  the  charges  brought 
against,  her,  see  Note  G.  at  the  end  of  the  present  volume. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PUOTESTANT  REFORMATION. 


CHAPTER     VI. 

REFORMATION    IN    IRELAND. 

Ireland  a  noble  exception — England  labors  in  vain  to  destroy  her  faith — 
Ireland  compared  with  England,  Scotland,  France,  Bavaria,  and  Austria — 
Progressive  cruelty  of  English  government — Successive  steps  taken  to 
reform  Ireland — Under  Henry  VIII. — Under  Edward  VI. — Attempts  to 
thrust  the  new  service  on  Ireland — Its  fiiilure — Ileylin's  testimony — 
Glaring  inconsistency — Elizabeth  trying  to  reform  Ireland — Extracts  from 
McGee — The  terrible  contests  under  Elizabeth's  reign — The  O'Neill — The 
revolt  of  Desmond — And  of  Tyrone — Wholesale  confiscation — Confisca- 
tion of  Ulster,  Munster,  and  Connaught — The  Deputy  Mountjoy — Miss 
Strickland's  testimony — McGee  on  martyred  Irish  bishops — The  English 
Jezabel — The  system  of  colonization — Rather  one  of  extermination — 
Elizabeth's  land  partnership  with  Essex — The  English  penal  laws  en- 
forced in  Ireland — Another  more  formidable  code  established — Its  details 
furnished  by  Bancroft — A  horrible  picture — Other  Protestant  opinion  and 
testimony — North  American  Review — Sidney  Smith  and  Junius — Ire- 
land faithful  to  the  last — The  result  summed  up — Intolerance  nobly 
rebuked — Conclusion. 

Among  the  nations  of  Europe  in  which  the  attempt  was 
made  to  introduce  the  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
Ireland  stands  forth  a  brilliant  exception-  to  what  may  be 
regarded  as  the  ordinary  course  of  events  elsewhere  under 
similar  circumstances.  She  was  probably  much  more  sorely 
tempted,  and  for  a  much  longer  time,  than  any  other  Euro- 
pean country ;  but  she  remained  firm  and  unshaken  in  her 
loyalty  to  the  venerable  Church  of  her  fathers,  while  several 
other  nations  under  much  less  grievous  pressure,  fell  away 
either  partially  or  wholly  from  the  ancient  faith. 

In  England,  as  we  have  already  shown,  the  government 
forced  the  Reformation  on  a  reluctant  clergy  and  people ;  in 
Scotland,  the  people,  after  having  been  lashed  into  fury  by 
49  (277-) 


278  REFORMATION    IN   IRELAND. 

the  mad  invectives  of  the  preachers,  marched  tumultuously 
to  Holjrood  house,  and  forced  the  Reformation  on  the 
reluctant  government:  and  in  both  cases  the  Reformation, 
introduced  and  sustained  hy  such  means,  fully  succeeded. 
Not  so  in  Ireland.  The  English  government  sought  to 
thrust  the  Reformation  on  the  Irish  people  by  horrible  penal 
enactments,  and  by  systematic  spoliation  and  violence  for 
centuries,  but  it  utterly  failed  to  accomplish  its  purpose. 

While  the  church  of  England  was  established  by  system- 
atic terrorism  and  violence,  and,  as  if  mindful  of  its  state 
origin,  has  ever  since,  with  the  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
been  wholly  subservient  to  the  government  which  first 
awakened  it  into  life;  while  "the  fiery  cross"  of  Calvin, 
which  John  Knox  carried  amidst  tumult  and  bloodshed  over 
the  hills  and  valleys  of  Scotland,  was  upheld  by  the  violence 
and  sacrilege  which  originally  reared  it:  Ireland,  to  her 
eternal  honor  be  it  said,  stood  firm  as  the  rock  amid  perils 
and  suflTerings,  in  comparison  with  which  those  of  the  English 
and  Scottish  Catholics,  though  protracted  and  grievous 
enough,  counted  almost  as  nothing.  France,  Austria,  and 
Bavaria,  indeed,  stood  firm  also;  but  it  nnist  be  remembered, 
that  in  all  these  countries,  the  weight  of  the  government  was 
thrown  into  the  scale  of  Catholicity  and  against  rising  Prot- 
estantism: w^hereas  in  Ireland  every  thing  was  brought  to 
bear,  and  continued  to  be  arrayed  for  centuries,  against  the 
Hdelity  of  the  people,  who  had  no  protection  but  in  the  vigor 
of  their  faith,  and  in  the  shield  which  heaven  interposed 
between  their  weakness  and  the  enormous  power  of  their 
tormentors.  Deprived  of  all  human  resources  and  succor, 
the  Irish  Catholics  nevertheless  triumjihed.  and  the  Reforma- 
tion in  Ireland  proved  an  utter  and  signal  failure. 

From  au  early  period,  Ireland  was  looked  upon  by  Eng- 
land, not  so  much  as  an  integral  portion  of  the  British  em- 
pire, as  a  conquered  province  to  be  kept  down  by  force,  and 
to  be  plundered  at  will  by  its  foreign  rulers.  Each  successive 
English  dynasty  sought  to  outstrip  its  predecessor  in  measures 


IRELAND   STANDS   FIRM.  279 

of  severity  against  Ireland.  The  Tudors  surpassed  the  Plan- 
tagenets  in  cruelty,  and  the  Stuarts — if  possible — the  Tudors ; 
while  Cromwell,  bearing  aloft  his  bloody  banner,  far  surpassed 
them  all,  and,  under  the  mask  of  religion,  pushed  his  cruel- 
ties to  the  very  climax  of  atrocity.  At  the  head  of  his 
ferocious  troopers — who  were  all  saints  as  well  as  soldiers — 
this  holy  man,  carried  out  Calvin's  doctrine  of  the  eternal 
and  immutable  "decree,"  by  ruthlessly  sacking  the  houses 
and  towns,  desecrating  and  destroying  the  churches,  and 
butchering  and  burning  the.  persons  of  the  Irish  people,  in- 
cluding men,  women,  and  children  !*  He  imagined  that  this 
was  the  most  effectual,  as  it  certainly  was  the  most  thorough 
method,  for  "  removing  the  monuments  of  idolatry." — What 
right  had  those  senseless  Irish  "Papists"  to  taint,  with  their 
idolatrous  breath,  the  air  breathed  by  men  so  holy  as  Crom- 
well's godly  troopers !  Still,  even  Cromwell  could  not  suc- 
ceed in  shaking  the  fidelity  of  Ireland.  He  might  possibly 
annihilate  her  people,  he  could  destroy  their  faith  in  no  other 
way. 

The  history  of  the  wrongs  and  persecutions  of  Ireland  for 
conscience'  sake  is  too  well  known,  and  its  facts  are  too 
generally  admitted  on  all  hands,  to  require  any  very  lengthy 
exposition.  Besides,  the  details  are  so  very  sad,  that  we  do 
not  willingly  dwell  upon  them.  Hence  our  sketch  shall  be 
rapid,  embracing  only  the  principal  points  in  the  successive 
attempts  to  thrust  the  Reformation  on  Ireland.-f 

From  first  to  last,  the  English  government  employed  force 
and  violence  to  induce  the  Irish  clergy  and  people  to  accept 
the  various  phases  of  the  Reformation,  as  these  successively 
appeared  in  England;  and  from  first  to  last,  the  Irish  clergy 

*  At  Drogheda,  for  instance,  the  terror-stricken  people,  chiefly  women 
and  children,  were  burnt  up  in  the  church  to  which  they  had  fled  for  shelter! 

f  Those  who  may  wish  to  see  a  fuller  account  are  referred  to  the  late  ex- 
cellent publication  of  Thomas  D'Arcy  McGee,  entitled  :  A  History  of  the 
Attempts  to  establish  the  Protestant  Reformation  in  Ireland,  etc.  Boston. 
Donahoe,  1853      We  shall  occasionally  refer  to  this  work  in  the  sequel. 


280  REFORMATION   IN    IRELAND. 

and  the  people  in  a  body  resisted,  and  finally  triumphed  in 
their  determined  opposition.  This  is  the  cardinal  fact  run- 
ning through  the  entire  history  of  the  efforts  made  by  England 
to  bring  about  the  success  of  the  Reformation  in  Ireland. 

1.  Henry  YIII.  determined  to  force  the  royal  supremacy 
and  his  new  religious  system  on  Ireland.  But  it  is  certain  that 

"  His  innovations  in  religion  were  viewed  with  equal  abhorrence  by  the  in- 
digenous Irish,  and  the  descendants  of  the  English  colonists ;"  that  the  par- 
liament which  abolished  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Pope  was  not  the  true  rep- 
resentative of  Irish  opinion,  but  the  mere  echo  of  English  feelings, — a  miser- 
able body  of  mere  creatures  of  the  English  court,  which  "one  day  con- 
firmed the  marriage  of  the  king  with  Anne  Boleyn,  and  the  next,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  arrival  of  a  courier,  declared  it  to  have  been  invalid  from 
the  beginning ;"  that  it  was  impossible  to  enforce  among  the  Irish  people 
this  parliamentary  enactment ;  and  that "  the  two  races  combined  in  defense 
of  their  common  faith,"  causing  "  repeated  insurrections.''* 

"  A  parliament  was  summoned  by  Lord  Gray,  who  had  succeeded  Skef- 
fington  ;  and,  to  elude  the  opposition  of  the  clergy,  their  proctors,  who  had 
hitherto  voted  in  the  Irish  parliaments,  were  by  a  declaratory  act  pro- 
nounced to  be  nothing  more  than  assistants,  whose  advice  might  be  received, 
but  whose  assent  was  not  required.  The  statutes  which  were  now  passed 
were  copied  from  the  proceedings  in  England.  The  papal  authority  was 
abolished ;  Henry  was  declared  head  of  the  Irish  church ;  and  the  first 
fruits  of  all  ecclesiastical  livings  were  given  to  the  king."f 

Of  all  the  Irish  Catholic  bishops,  only  one,  and  he  a  mere 
creature  of  Henry,  who  had  been  appointed  on  account  of 
his  mean  subserviency  to  the  policy  of  Henry's  vicar  general 
Cromwell,  J  gave  his  vote  for  the  change  of  religion.  This  was 
Brown  of  Dublin,  and  he  was  a  royal  tool,  more  than  a  true 
Catholic  bishop,§  The  other  bishops,  in  a  body,  with  Cromer, 
archbishop  of  Armagh  at  their  head,  unanimously  resisted 
the  innovation ;  which  was  so  very  odious  to  the  Irish  people 

■*  See  Lingard,  History  of  England  ;  vi,  323,  seqq.,  for  the  authorities. 

t  Irish  Statutes,  28  Henry  VHI.  12.     Lingard,  vi,  325-6.  I  Ibid. 

5  He  was  an  Enghshman,  and  he  had  ingratiated  himself  with  Henry 
and  Cromwell  by  the  ready  and  ardent  zeal  with  which  he  sought  to  pro- 
mote the  cause  of  the  divorce.  He  was  appointed  in  1535.  See  McGee 
6up.  (!it.  p.  37 


PROCESS    FOR    REFORMING    IRELAND.  281 

that  they  boldly  took  the  field  under  Fitzgerald  in  defense  of 
the  ancient  faith.* 

In  1541,  Henry  succeeded  by  dextrous  management  iu 
having  himself  declared  king  of  Ireland ;  and  he  very  soon 
afterwards  began  that  system  of  confiscation  which  was  to  be 
followed  up  by  his  successors,  until  little  remained  to  be  con- 
fiscated, whether  in  church  or  state.  "  Confiscation  and  Prot- 
estantism were  born  at  a  birth  in  the  fertile  mind  of  the 
newly  elected  king  of  Ireland."  Archbishop  Brown  of  Dub- 
lin and  four  others  were  appointed  as  commissioners  of  in- 
fpection  and  examination,  and  armed  men  attended  them 
from  church  to  church,  hewing  down  the  crucifix  with  their 
swords,  and  defacing  the  monuments  of  the  dead.  "  There 
was  not,"  says  a  contemporary  annalist,  "  a  holy  cross,  nor  an 
image  of  Mary,  nor  other  celebrated  image  in  Ireland,"  with- 
in the  reach  of  the  reformers  or  near  their  fortresses,  "  that 
they  did  not  burn."  Say  the  Four  Masters  in  their  Annals : 
"  They  also  made  archbishops  and  subbishops  for  themselves ; 
and  although  great  was  the  persecution  of  the  Roman  em- 
perors against  the  Church,  it  is  not  probable  that  so  great  a 
persecution  as  this  ever  came  from  Rome  hither.  So  that  it 
is  impossible  to  tell  or  narrate  its  description,  unless  it  should 
be  told  by  him  who  saw  it." 

It  were  tedious  to  go  into  the  details  of  that  wholesale 
system  of  sacrilege  and  confiscation  which  the  eighth  Henry 
inaugurated  in  Ireland ;  besides  that  the  subject  will  recur  in 
the  sequel.  We  may,  however,  here  mention,  that  during 
this  and  the  following  reigns  nearly  six  hundred  Irish  mon- 
asteries were  confiscated  ;  to  say  nothing  of  churches  violated 

*  McGee,  sup.  cit.  p.  37.  Fitzgerald  was  apprehended  and  imprisoned, 
but  his  place  was  taken  by  the  O'Neill,  who  was,  however,  defeated  by  Gray 
at  Bellahoe.  The  father  of  Fitzgerald  had  been  perfidiously  committed  to 
the  London  tower  and  beheaded,  after  having  voluntarily  surrendered  on 
the  promise  of  pai-don ;  and  along  with  him  were  beheaded  his  five  uncles, 
who  had  been  treacherously  seized  at  a  banquet  by  this  same  lord  lieuten- 
ant Gray !     Ibid. 

VOL.   II. — 24 


282  REFORMATION    IN    IRELAND. 

and  seized  on  far  the  new  worship,  and  of  shrines  and  sane 
tuaries  sacrilegiously  pillaged  and  destroyed.  That  the  first 
attempt  to  introduce  the  Reformation  into  Ireland  was  a  work 
of  mere  brute  force,  which  was  wholly  unsuccessful,  is  ap- 
parent from  the  fact  attested  by  Agard,  an  ofiicial  of  the 
English  government,  in  a  letter  to  the  vicar  general  Crom- 
well :  "  Except  the  archbishop  of  Dublin,  only  Lord  Butler, 
the  master  of  the  rolls,  Mr.  Treasurer,  and  one  or  two  more 
of  small  reputations,  none  may  abide  the  hearing  of  it  (the 
king's  supremacy),  spiritual,  as  they  call  them,  or  temporal."* 

Such  being  the  undoubted  facts  of  history,  as  they  stand 
recorded  on  the  Irish  Statute  book  and  on  the  pages  of  con- 
temporaneous historians,  we  might  well  marvel  at  the  coolness 
with  which  the  Anglican  writer  Palmer  relates  the  transac- 
tion, if  we  were  not  persuaded  that  a  plain  statement  of  the 
facts,  as  they  really  occurred,  would  have  proved  utterly  fatal 
to  his  favorite  theory,  that  the  English  and  even  the  Irish 
Church  reformed  itself!  He  says  :t  "Henry  VIII.  caused  the 
papal  jurisdiction  to  be  abolished  in  1537  by  the  parliament 
(Irish).  The  bishops  and  clergy  generally  assented,  and 
several  reforms  took  place  during  this  and  the  next  reign." 

2,  When  the  new  book  of  Common  Prayer  was  adopted  by 
statute  as  the  law  of  the  land  under  Edward  VI.,  in  the 
parliament  of  1552,  it  was  done  with  the  provision  that  it 
should  be  introduced  by  force,  in  place  of  the  Mass,  into 
every  diocese  of  the  kingdom,  including  those  of  Ireland. 
The  great  majority  of  the  Irish  people  could  not,  indeed,  un- 
derstand English,  and  Cranmer  and  his  brother  reformers  had 
been  perpetually  inveighing  against  what  they  designated 
the  absurdity  of  having  the  service  in  an  unknown  tongue. 
But  men  who  were  determined  to  carry  their  point  at  all 

♦  The  authorities  for  the  quotations  in  this  and  the  preceding  paragraph, 
may  be  seen  in  McGce's  work,  sup.  cit.  p.  39,  seqq.  In  his  Monasticon, 
Archdall  "gives  an  incomplete  list  of  five  hundred  and  sixty-three  Irish 
houses  confiscated." — Ibid.,  p.  44,  note. 

+  Compendious  Ecclesiastical  History,  p.  167. 


THE   NEW    SERVICE   IN   IRELAND.  283 

hazards,  were  not  to  be  stopped  in  their  headlong  course  by 
any  inconsistency,  no  matter  how  glaring.  They  had  trans- 
lated the  service  into  French  for  the  benefit  of  their  subjects 
of  Jersey  and  Guernsey ;  but  they  meant  to  do  nothing  of 
the  kind  for  the  Irish,  whose  language  they  hated  and  sought 
to  abolish.  Referring  to  this  remarkable  inconsistency  of  the 
Anglican  reformers,  the  Protestant  historian  Heylin  employs 
the  following  strong  language — he  is  speaking  of  what  oc- 
curred in  the  subsequent  reign  of  Elizabeth  : 

"There  also  passed  an  act  for  the  uniformity  of  common  prayer,  etc.,  with 
the  permission  for  saying  the  same  in  Latine,  in  such  church  or  place,  where 
the  minister  had  not  the  knowledge  of  the  English  tongue.  But  for  trans- 
lating it  into  Irish  (as  afterwards  into  Welsh  in  the  fifth  year  of  this  queen) 
there  was  no  care  taken,  either  in  this  parliament,  or  in  any  following.  For 
want  whereof,  as  also  by  not  having  the  Scriptures  in  their  native  language, 
most  of  the  natural  Irish  have  retained  hitherto  their  old  barbarous 
customes,  or  pertinaciously  adhere  to  the  corruptions  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
The  people  are  required  by  that  statute,  under  several  penalties,  to  frequent 
their  churches,  and  to  be  present  at  the  reading  of  the  English  Liturgy, 
which  they  understand  no  more  than  they  do  the  Mass.  By  which  means 
the  Irish  were  not  only  kept  in  continual  ignorance  as  to  the  doctrines  and 
devotions  of  the  church  of  England,  but  we  have  furnished  the  papists  with 
an  excellent  argument  against  ourselves,  for  having  the  divine  service  cele- 
brated in  such  a  language  as  the  people  do  not  understand.* 

Was  this  attempt  to  thrust  the  new  fangled  Anglican 
service  on  the  Irish  people  successful  ? 

"  By  Brown,  the  archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  four  of  his  brethren,  the  order 
was  cheerfiiUy  obeyed  ;  Dowdal,  archbishop  of  Armagh,  and  the  other  pre- 
lates rejected  it  with  scorn.  The  consequence  was,  that  the  ancient  service 
was  generally  maintained ;  the  new  was  adopted  in  those  places  only  where 
an  armed  force  compelled  its  introduction.  The  lords  of  the  council,  to 
punish  the  disobedience  of  Dowdal,  took  from  him  the  title  of  primate  of 
all  Ireland,  and  transferred  it  to  his  more  obsequious  brother  the  archbishop 
of  Dubhn."t 

*  Quoted  by  Waterworth,  Historical  Lectures  on  the  Reformation,  p. 
352-3,  note. 

f  Lmgard,  History  of  England,  vii,  90.  He  quotes  Leland,  lib.  iii.  c.  8. 
Archbishop  Dowdal  left  the  country,  but  he  was  re-instated  under  Mary. 
The  instruction  to  the  lord  deputy  to  have  the  service  translated  into  Irish. 


284  REFORMATION    IN    IREIAND. 

Thus  was  the  new  service  introduced,  or  rather  attempted 
to  be  introduced  into  Ireland.  The  new  bishops  whom  Cran- 
mer  sent  over  were  Englishmen,  and  they  were  "providently 
accompanied  by  six  hundred  horse  and  four  hundred  foot, 
under  Sir  Edward  Bellingham."  But  one  of  all  the  original 
Catholic  bishops  of  Ireland,  Myler  Magrath  archbishop  of 
Cashel,  was  found  to  stain  his  soul  with  the  awful  guilt  of 
apostasy  from  the  faith  of  his  fathers ;  and  so  great  was  the 
indignation  of  his  people  thereat,  that  they  rose  in  a  tumult 
and  compelled  him  to  leave  Cashel  and  fly  into  England. 
The  new  bishops  were  able  to  officiate  only  in  those  places  in 
which  they  could  be  escorted  and  guarded  by  English  soldiers, 
who  amused  themselves  during  intervals  of  leisure  in  pillaging 
the  neighboring  churches  and  sanctuaries.*  Tlius,  to  give 
one  specimen,  they  plundered  the  famous  shrine  of  St.  Kiaran 
at  Clonmacnoise : 

"They  took  the  large  bells  out  of  the  steeple,  and  left  neither  large  nor 
small  bell,  imago,  altar,  book,  gem,  nor  even  glass  in  a  window  in  the  walls 
of  the  church,  that  they  did  not  carry  with  them  ;  and  that  truly  was  a 
lamentable  deed  to  plunder  the  city  of  St.  Kiaran,  the  patron  saint."f 

3.  Under  Mary,  the  old  service  was  re-established  amidst 
the  general  rejoicings  of  the  Irish  people,  including  even  the 
obsequious  courtiers  of  the  English  pale ;  though  during  the 
two  previous  reigns  these  men  had  dared  breathe  only  the 
language  of  servile  compliance  with  the  biddings  of  the  En- 
glish court,  which  had  lately  become  apparently  the  only 
fountain  of  divine  inspiration!  But  subsequently,  the  same 
lord  deputy  Sussex,  who  had  with  seeming  alacrity  restored 
the  Catholic  worship  under  Mary,  called  another  parliament 
to  abolish  it  under  Elizabeth,  and  to  re-instate  in  its  place  the 
second  edition,  revised  and  amended,  of  the  new  Anglican 
service.    What  else  soever  the  English  monarchs  may  have 

until   the  natives  could  learn  English,  was  never  complied  with,  and  it 
remained,  as  it  was  probably  intended,  a  dead  letter. 

*  For  more  details,  see  McGee,  sup.  cit.  p.  47,  seqq. 

i  Aunals  of  the  Four  Masters,  ibid.,  p.  49.  uote. 


ELIZABETH    REFORMING    IRELAND.  285 

had  to  complain  of  in  Ireland,  they  surely  had  no  reason  to 
blame  the  tardiness  of  their  officials,  whether  lay  or  clerical, 
who  dwelt  under  the  shadowing  protection  of  the  Dublin 
castle ;  for  these  and  their  dependents  of  the  English  pale 
were  certainly  compliant  enough.  But,  fortunately,  the  great 
body  of  the  Irish  clergy  and  people  were  not  to  be  changed 
backwards  and  forwards  so  easily. 

In  this  new  Irish  parliament,  the  second  of  Elizabeth, 

"  It  was  enacted  that  the  Irish  should  be  reformed  after  the  model  of  the 
English  church  :  but  both  the  nobility  and  the  people  abhorred  the  change ; 
and  the  new  statutes  were  carried  into  execution  in  those  places  only  where 
they  could  be  enforced  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet."* 

4.  The  opposition  was  not  confined  to  mere  words  ;  it  exhib- 
ited itself  in  bold  deeds.  For  now  commenced,  in  earnest 
that  memorable  struggle  between  Irish  right  and  English 
might,  between  the  Irish  champions  of  civil  and  religious 
freedom  and  the  English  hosts  sustaining  a  most  glaring  op- 
pression, which  continued  with  little  intermission  until  the 
close  of  Elizabeth's  long  reign,  and  which  cast  a  dark  shadow 
on  the  sorrowful  days  which  preceded  her  melancholy  death.f 
English  might  finally  conquered  Irish  right ;  and  Ireland,  by 
the  permission  of  an  inscrutable  Providence,  was  left  a 
desert;  but  in  the  midst  of  this  desert,  there  still  bloomed, 

*  Lingard,  History  of  England,  vii,  125-6.  Irish  Statutes,  2  Elizabeth, 
1,  2,  3.  Such  being  the  indisputable  facts  of  history,  we  can  scarcely  have 
patience  with  such  men  as  Palmer,  who  coolly  writes  as  follows : — "When 
Ehzabeth  succeeded,  the  former  laws  were  revived,  the  papal  power  again 
rejected,  and  the  royal  supremacy  and  the  English  ritual  again  introduced. 
These  regulations  were  approved  by  seventeen  out  of  nineteen  Irish  bishops 
in  the  parliament  of  1560,  and  by  the  rest  of  the  bishops  and  clergy  who 
took  the  oath  of  supremacy,  and  remained  in  the  possession  of  their  bene- 
fices. The  people  also  generally  acquiesced,  and  continued  to  attend  on 
divine  service  for  several  years." — Sup.  cit.  p.  167. 

f  What  most  troubled  Elizabeth  during  her  last  hours,  was  the  thought 
of  Ireland  and  of  the  failure  of  Essex,  her  last  deputy  there,  together  with 
that  of  her  own  waning  popularity  on  aeoount  of  the  execution  of  her 
favorite. 


286  REFORMATION   IN    IRELAND. 

by  the  side  oi  the  shamrock,  the  perennial  tree  of  that  blessed 
faith  which  St.  Patrick  had  planted  and  watered  with  his 
tears.* 

5.  TVe  can  not  go  into  the  details  of  this  melancholy  con- 
test. Suffice  it  to  say,  that  Shane  O'Neill,  the  heir  of  Tyrone, 
first  stood  up  valiantly  for  his  rights,  and  proclaimed  himself 
the  champion  of  the  ancient  faith.  His  impetuous  nature,  or 
the  goadings  of  the  English,  drove  him  into  rebellion,  to 
secure  his  rightful  heritage,  for  which  he  had  pleaded  in  vain 
at  the  court  of  Elizabeth:  but  his  .army  was  defeated  by  the 
more  disciplined  English  troops ;  and  having  in  his  affliction 
sought  refuge  among  the  Scots  of  Ulster,  he  was  basely 
assassinated  by  them,  at  the  instigation  of  Piers,  an  English 
officer  in  the  pay  of  the  deputy.f  His  lands  and  those  of  his 
numerous  adherents,  comprising  one  half  of  Ulster,  wero 
declared  confiscated  to  the  crown ;  and  by  an  act  of  parlia- 
ment the  name  and  dignity  of  the  O'Neill  were  declared 
abolished  forever.J 

6.  The  rebellion  of  the  O'Neill  was  the  signal  for  the 
breaking  out  of  insurrections  all  over  Ireland.     The  local 

*  As  had  been  the  case  under  Edward,  so  now  under  Ehzabeth  a  batch 
of  new  parliamentary  bishops  was  appointed  ;  who,  however,  now  as  then, 
were  not  able  to  enter  their  sees  or  exercise  their  functions  outside  the 
boundaries  of  the  English  pale,  unless  they  were  escorted  by  English 
troops !  The  Irish  chieftains  who  headed  the  various  insurrections  stood 
forth  the  champions  of  the  old  and  legitimate  Catholic  bishops  and  clergy, 
whom  the  government  sought  to  oust.  Thus  the  new  hierarchj'  was  able 
to  gain  a  foothold  nowhere,  except  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet  i  'or  the 
names  of  Elizabeth's  bishops,  and  details  of  their  curious  proceedings,  see 
McGee,  p.  57,  seqq. 

f  Mr.  McGree  says  that  "  the  deputy  employed  Piers,  a  spy,  to  assassinate 
him.  Under  pretense  of  peace,  the  assassin  met  him  at  McDonnell's  of  An- 
trim, procured  a  quarrel,  stabbed  him,  and  brought  his  head,  'pickled  in  a 
pipkin,' to  Dublin  ca-stle.  For  this  service  Piers  had  ' a  thousand  marks' 
from  the  queen."     P.  57-8.     We  follow  the  statement  of  Lingard. 

I  See  Lingard,  ibid.  He  quotes  Camden,  Rymer,  and  the  Irish  Statutes, 
?  Ehzabeth. 


WHOLESALE    CONFISCATION.  287 

chieftains,  both  of  the  English  and  the  Irish  pale,  successively 
rained  the  banner  of  revolt ;  but  as,  unhappily,  they  did  not 
act  in  concert,  and  were  more  impetuous  than  well-disci- 
plined, they  were  subdued  in  detail.  The  usual  sequel  to 
every  suppression  of  rebellion  was  a  wholesale  confiscatior 
of  the  property  of  the  refractory  chieftain  and  of  his  adherents 
and  before  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign  perhaps  half  the  lands 
of  Ireland  had  been  already  declared  forfeited  to  the  crown ! 
After  the  suppression  of  the  revolt  of  Desmond — in  1586 — 
he  was  attainted  by  parliament,  and  all  the  lands  of  his  earl- 
dom, comprising  nearly  six  hundred  thousand  acres,  were 
confiscated,  nominally  for  the  benefit  of  the  crown,  really  for 
that  of  Elizabeth's  courtiers.* 

The  rebellion — as  it  was  called — of  the  gallant  Tyrone, 
was  probably  the  most  formidable  of  all  those  which  occurred 
under  her  disastrous  reign.  It  continued,  with  various  vicis- 
situdes of  failure  and  success,  for  ten  years,  from  1593  until 
the  queen's  death  in  1603 ;  and  it  was  then  terminated  only 
by  a  treacherous  accommodation.!  Throughout  the  whole 
period  of  the  terrible  struggle,  Tyrone  had  pleaded  in  vain 
for  religious  toleration  for  himself  and  his  co-religionists; 
which  shows  that  liberty  of  conscience  was  a  main  element 
in  the  contest.^ 

*  See  Lingard,  Ibid.,  p.  349. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  383.  This  accommodation,  which  promised  pardon  to  Tyrone 
and  his  followers,  and  a  partial  restoration  of  his  lands,  was  hastily  entered 
into  by  the  deputy  Mountjoy,  after  he  had  secretly  learned — what  was  as 
yet  unknown  to  Tyrone — that  the  queen  was  dying.  Tyrone  had  previously 
— in  1599 — agreed  to  an  armistice  with  Essex,  who  promised  to  intercede 
in  his  behalf  with  Elizabeth,  not  only  for  his  pardon,  but  that  his  demand 
of  religious  toleration  might  be  granted. — (Ibid.,  p.  355.)  Elizabeth  was  so 
much  displeased  with  this  equitable  action  of  her  former  favorite,  that  it  was 
one  chief  reason  of  his  subsequent  execution. 

J  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  only  two  Irish  lord  deputies  under 
Elizabeth,  who  showed  any  disposition  to  conciliate  the  Irish  people,  to  deal 
impartially  with  the  native  Irish  and  those  of  the  pale,  and  to  do  any  thing 
\ike  even  handed  justice  in  their  administration — Perrot  and  Essex — both 


288  REFORMATION    m    IRELAND. 

7.  Of  Elizabeth's  treatment  of  Ireland,  especially  under  th*« 
administration  of  her  favorite  deputy  Mountjoy,  the  candid 
and  excellent  English  Protestant  lady,  Agnes  Strickland, 
writes  as  follows : 

" '  Ireland,'  says  Naunton,  '  cost  her  more  vexation  than  any  thing  else. 
The  expense  of  it  pinched  her ;  the  ill  success  of  her  oflScers  wearied  her, 
and  in  that  service  she  grew  hard  to  please.'  The  barbarity  with  which  she 
caused  that  country  to  be  devastated  is  unprecedented,  excepting  in  the 
extermination  of  the  Caribs  by  the  Spaniards.  Henry  VIII.  had  given  him- 
self little  concern  with  the  state  of  religion  in  Ireland  ;  it  remained  virtually 
a  Catholic  country  ;  the  monasteries  and  their  inhabitants  were  not  uprooted, 
as  in  England ;  and  the  whole  country  persistently  acknowledged  the  su- 
premacy of  the  Pope,  through  all  the  Tudor  reigns,  till  Elizabeth  ascended 
the  throne 

"Ireland,  which  had  acknowledged  the  English  monarchs  as  suzerains,  or 
lords  paramount  over  their  petty  kings  and  chiefs,  for  several  centuries,  had 
scarcely  allowed  them  as  kings  of  Ireland  for  a  score  of  years,  now  flamed 
out  into  rebellion  against  the  English  lord-deputy ;  and  this  functionary,  by 
the  queen's  orders,  governed  despotically,  by  mere  orders  of  council,  and 
endeavored  to  dispense  with  the  Irish  parliament.  The  taxes  were  forth- 
with cessed  at  the  will  of  the  lord  deputy.  The  earl  of  Desmond,  the  head 
of  the  Fitzgeralds,  and  possessed  at  that  time  of  an  estate  of  six  hundred 
thousand  acres,  aided  by  Lord  Baltinglas,  head  of  the  Eustaces,  whose  family 
had  for  four  generations  filled  the  office  of  lords-treasurer  or  lords-deputy, 
and  were  ever  closely  allied  with  the  Geraldines,  resisted  the  payment  of 
this  illegal  tax,  and  required  that  a  parliament  might  be  called,  as  usual,  to 
fix  the  demands  on  the  subject ;  for  which  measure,  these  gallant  precursors 
of  Hampden  were  forthwith  immured  in  a  tower  of  Dublin  castle.  They 
sent  messengers  to  Elizabeth,  to  complain  of  the  conduct  of  her  lord  deputy ; 
for  which  presumption,  as  she  called  it,  she  transferred  them  to  the  more 
alarming  prison  of  the  Tower  of  London 

"The  lord  deputy  Mountjoy  (the  Irish  say  by  the  advice  of  Spencer,  the 
poet),  the  commander  of  the  English  forces,  commenced  that  horrid  war  of 
extermination  which  the  natives  call  '  the  Hag's  Wars.'  The  houses  and 
standing  corn  of  the  wretched  natives  were  burnt,  and  the  cattle  killed, 
wherever  the  English  came,  which  starved  the  people  into  temporary  sub- 

suflfered  the  death  of  traitors  at  her  hands  !  The  case  of  Perrot  is  particu- 
larly striking  in  this  respect,  as  it  was  his  punishment  of  the  guilty  within 
the  English  pale  which  first  excited  the  royal  anger  that  resulted  in  his  ac- 
cusation and  death  as  a  traitor. 


EXTERMINATION MARTYRED    CATHOLIC    BISHOPS.  289 

mission.  Wlien  some  of  the  horrors  of  the  case  were  represented  to  the 
queen,  and  she  found  the  state  to  which  the  sister  Island  was  reduc(;d,  she 
was  heard  to  exclaim,  '  that  she  found  she  had  sent  wolves,  not  shepherds, 
to  govern  Ireland,  for  they  had  left  nothing  but  ashes  and  carcasses  for  her 
to  reign  over.'  "* 

8.  That  the  desire  of  forcibly  suppressing  the  Catholic 
religion  in  Ireland  was  one  of  the  principal  motives,  which 
instigated  the  atrocities  that  marked  the  civil  wars  of  this 
reign,  is  sufficiently  apparent  from  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
facts.  We  content  ourselves  with  the  following  extracted 
summary,  which  will  also  serve  to  show  "how  the  Church 
reformed  itself"  in  Ireland  : 

"  While  the  war  against  the  Desmonds  was  raging  in  the  South,  under 
pretense  of  suppressing  rebellion,  no  one  could  help  seeing  that  in  reality  it 
was  directed  against  the  Catholic  religion.  If  any  had  doubted  the  real  objects, 
events  which  quickly  followed  Elizabeth's  victory  soon  convinced  them. 
Dermid  0' Hurley,  archbishop  of  Cashel,  being  taken  by  the  victors, was  brought 
to  Dublin  in  1582.  Here  the  Protestant  primate  Loftus  besieged  him  in 
vain  for  nearly  a  year  to  deny  the  Pope's  supremacy,  and  acknowledge  the 
queen's.  Finding  him  of  unshaken  faith,  he  was  brought  out  for  martyrdom 
on  Stephen's  Green,  adjoining  the  city ;  there  he  was  tied  to  a  tree,  his 
boots  filled  with  combustibles,  and  his  limbs  stripped  and  smeared  with  oil 
and  alcohol.  Alternately  they  lighted  and  quenched  the  flame  which  en- 
veloped him,  prolonging  his  torture  through  four  successive  days.  Still  re- 
maining firm,  before  dawn  of  the  fifth  day  they  finally  consumed  his  last 
remains  of  life,  and  left  his  calcined  bones  among  the  ashes  at  the  foot  of  his 
stake.  The  relics,  gathered  in  secret  by  some  pious  friends,  were  hidden 
away  in  the  half-ruined  church  of  St.  Kevin,  near  that  outlet  of  Dublin 
called  Kevinsport.  In  Desmond's  town  of  Kilmallock  were  then  taken 
Patrick  O'Hely,  bishop  of  Mayo,  Father  Cornelius,  a  Franciscan,  and  some 
others.  To  extort  from  them  confessions  of  the  new  faith,  their  thighs  were 
broken  with  hammers,  and  their  arms  crushed  by  levers.  They  died  with- 
out yielding,  and  the  instruments  of  their  torture  were  buried  with  them  in 
the  Franciscan  Convent  of  Askeaton.  The  Most  Reverend  Eichard  Creagh, 
primate  of  all  Ireland,  was  the  next  victim.  Failing  to  convict  him  in  Ire- 
land of  the  imputed  crime  of  violating  a  young  woman,  who  herself  exposed 
the  calumny,  and  suffered  for  so  doing,  they  brought  him  to  London,  where 
he  is  said  to  have  died  of  poison  on  the  14th  of  October,  1585."t 

*  Queens  of  England,  vi,  p.  353-4.  For  lengthy  details  of  Mountjoy's 
atrocities,  see  McGee,  sup.  cit.,  p.  71,  seqq.  f  McGee,  sup.  cit.,  p.  64. 

VOL.  n. — 25 


290  REFORMATION   IN    IRELAND. 

9.  Tlie  results  of  all  these  desolating  wars  were  most  disas 
trous.  Ireland  was  made  a  desert;  her  fields  lay  unculti- 
vated, and  her  people  were  starving.  The  attempt  to  force 
upon  them  a  new  religion,  unheard  of  until  it  had  been  con- 
ceived in  the  brain  of  the  corrupt  tyrant  Henry  and  of  his 
Btill  more  mischievous  and  more  wicked  daughter  Elizabeth, 
was  now  bearing  its  legitimate  fruits.  The  new  liturgy  might, 
indeed,  be  read,  wherever  there  were  English  bayonets  enough 
to  enforce  the  reading ;  but  the  people  would  not  listen  to  it, 
and  at  the  rate  at  which  extermination  was  now  progressing, 
there  would  soon  be  likely  to  remain  few  if  any  people  to 
hear  it  read,  even  on  compulsion  !  The  poet  Spenser  was  in 
Ireland  at  the  close  of  Desmond's  "  rebellion,"  and  he  draws 
the  following  sad  picture  of  the  general  popular  misery  by 
which  its  suppression  was  followed  :* 

"Out  of  every  corner  of  the  woods  and  glynns  they  (the  Catholic  people) 
came  creeping  forth  on  their  hands,  for  their  legs  could  not  bear  them  ;  they 
spake  like  ghosts  crying  out  of  their  graves  ;  they  did  eat  dead  carrions  ; 
happy  were  they  who  could  find  them.  In  a  short  space  there  was  none 
almost  left,  and  a  tnost  populous  and  plentiful  country  was  suddenly  void  of 
man  and  beast."f 

10.  What  was  now  to  be  done  for  Ireland  ?  How  were 
her  fertile  but  now  desolate  lands  to  be  again  cultivated,  and 
her  famine-stricken  and  perishing  people  to  be  relieved,  or 

*  In  his  Report  on  the  State  of  Ireland,  p.  165,  quoted  by  Lester  (Protes- 
tant) in  his  Condition  and  State  of  England,  in  2  vols.,  New  York,  1843 — 
vol.  ii,  p.  92. 

t  In  the  distribution  of  the  confiscated  lands  in  Munster  among  her  cour- 
tiers, after  the  suppression  of  Desmond's  rebellion,  this  same  Edmund 
Spenser  the  poet  received  over  three  thousand  acres  ;  but  the  man  who  re- 
ceived the  largest  share  bore  the  very  appropriate  name  of  Butcher.  To 
Francis  Butcher  and  Hugh  Wirth  were  assigned  no  less  than  twenty-four 
thousand  acres  ! — See  the  list  apud  McGee,  p.  63. 

This  was  called  the  confiscation  of  Munster,  which  occurred,  together 
with  that  of  about  one  half  of  Ulster,  during  Elizabeth's  reign.  It  was 
followed  by  that  of  the  rest  of  Ulster,  under  her  successor  James  I.,  and  by 
that  of  Connaiight  under  Charles  I.  The  instigator  of  this  last  was  the 
despotic  Stafford.     Thus  almost  all  Ireland  was  successively  confiscated ! 


ATROCIOUS    SCHEME   OF   COLONIZATION.  291 

rather  replaced?  Tlie  remedy  was  well  worthy  the  wicked 
heart  of  the  English  Jezabel,  and,  like  all  her  other  remedies 
for  the  ills  of  Ireland,  it  was  even  worse  than  the  disease 
itself.  The  wholesale  confiscation  was  followed  by  a  whole- 
sale system  of  colonization,  as  it  was  called.  It  would  have 
been  much  more  appropriately  designated  a  system  of  or- 
ganized extermination.  It  consisted  in  parceling  out  among 
her  greedy  favorites  the  confiscated  lands,  on  condition  that 
they  would  colonize  them  with  English  tenants,,  so  as  to  have 
one  family  for  every  two  hundred  and  forty  acres.*  This 
furnishes  the  key  of  that  thoroughly  wicked  policy  which 
Elizabeth  inaugurated,  which  the  Stuarts  and  Cromwell  more 
fully  carried  out,  and  which  has  resulted  in  evils  so  wide- 
spread, so  terrible,  and  so  protracted  for  Ireland.! 

The  idea,  at  least  in  its  practical  bearings  and  develop- 
ment, seems  to  have  originated  with  the  secretary  Sir  Thomas 
Smith,  shortly  after  the  suppression  of  Shane  O'Neill's  "  re- 
bellion," in  15G94  But  though  the  experiment  was  made  in 
1572,  by  an  ample  grant  of  the  confiscated  lands  to  the  bas- 
tard son  of  the  projector,  it  appears  to  have  failed,  chiefly 
on  account  of  the  stern  opposition  of  the  native  proprietors, 


*  This  is  probably  the  origin  of  that  phrase,  now  become  fashionable  in 
tertain  quarters  in  this  free  country  :  "  No  Irish  need  apply." 

f  The  result  of  the  system  was,  that  fully  three-fourths — some  say  seven- 
eighths — of  the  landed  property  in  Ireland  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  in- 
gignificant  Protestant  minority,  who  lorded  it  over  their  Irish  tenants  with 
a  rod  of  iron,  and  who  have  continued  to  do  so  to  a  great  extent  even  down 
to  the  present  day.  The  Irish  landlord  system  is  probably  the  most  oppres- 
sive of  all  those  that  exist  in  the  civilized  world,  hardly  excepting  even  that  of 
Russia.  The  recent  commission  for  encumbered  estates  has  considerably 
modified  the  above  result,  but  the  evil  still  remains. 

\  Others  suppose  that  to  Elizabeth  herself  belongs  the  merit  of  having 
originated  this  atrocious  scheme  of  wholesale  spoliation  ;  and  that  she  encour- 
aged her  officers  and  soldiers  to  put  down  the  rebellion,  with  the  prospect  of 
having  abundant  lands  distributed  amongst  them  in  case  of  success.  At  any 
rate,  it  was  well  worthy  her  heartless  character,  and  she  fully  acted  on  the 
plan,  whoever  was  its  originator. 


292  REFORMATION    IN    IRELAND. 

whc  very  naturally  objected  to  being  thus  summarily  ousted 
from  their  ancient  possessions.  It  was  subsequently  tried 
again,  on  a  much  larger  scale,  by  Elizabeth's  favorite,  Walter 
Devereux,  earl  of  Essex,  with  whom  she  had  entered  into  a 
regular  business  partnership.  The  contract  between  Essex 
and  his  mistress  provided,  "  that  each  should  furnish  an  equal 
share  of  the  expense,  and  that  the  colony  should  be  equally 
divided  between  them,  so  soon  as  it  had  been  planted  with 
two  thousand  settlers."  But  the  natives  again  very  properly 
objected ;  Essex  was  thwarted  by  the  lord  deputy  who  dis- 
puted his  powers  ;  he  was  not  sustained  by  his  royal  partner 
in  the  concern ;  and  the  result  was,  that,  after  ruining  him- 
self by  the  preliminary  expenses  necessary  for  so  brilliant  a 
speculation,  he  utterly  failed  to  establish  his  colony.*  A 
third  experiment  was  tried  on  a  still  more  extensive  scale, 
after  the  confiscation  of  Desmond's  estates ;  and  this  time  it 
partially  succeeded,  the  natives  being  now  suificiently  humbled 
and  famine-stricken  to  consent,  in  considerable  numbers, 
"  rather  than  abandon  the  place  of  their  birth,  to  hold  of  for- 
eigners the  lands  which  had  descended  to  them  from  their 
progenitors."! 

11.  While  attempts  were  thus  successively  made  to  thrust 
the  new  religion  on  Ireland  by  force,  the  English  penal  sta- 
tutes against  non-conformists  were,  as  a  matter  of  course,  ex 
tended  to  the  sister  kingdom.J  The  Irish  parliaments  of 
those  days,  as  we  have  already  seen,  were  generally  composed 
of  the  merest  creatures  of  the  English  court,  none  others  be- 
ing permitted  to  hold  a  seat  therein,  at  least  to  have  a  voice 
in  controlling  the  deliberations.  The  Irish  parliament  thus  be- 
came a  mere  echo  of  the  English.  Under  such  atrocious  ty- 
rants as  Henry  and  Elizabeth,  it  could  scarcely  have  been 

*  See  Lingard,  viii,  127-8,  for  all  the  details,  with  the  authorities. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  350. 

I  Ireland,  previously  regarded  by  England  as  a  province,  was  declared  to 
have  risen  to  the  dignity  of  a  kingdom  under  Henry  VIII.,  who,  as  we  hav« 
seen,  was  chosen  king. 


IRISH   PENAL   CODE.  293 

any  thing  else ;  as  these  rulers  had  succeeded  in  reducing  to 
the  most  abject  servitude  even  those  sturdy  parliaments  of 
England,  which  in  the  good  old  Catholic  days  of  Magna 
Charta  had  made  the  English  monarchs  tremble  on  their 
thrones.  But  now  all  had  changed ;  the  blessed  Reformation 
had  emancipated  the  English  people  from  "popish"  thralldom, 
and  given  to  them  instead  the  priceless  boon  of  abject  and 
crouching  political  slavery!  Of  course,  the  Irish  Catholics 
could  not  expect  any  immunity  from  the  operation  of  the  mer- 
ciless code  of  pains  and  penalties,  with  which  the  right  of 
private  judgment — the  boasted  heir-loom  of  the  Reformation 
— was  so  amply  guarded  and  jprotected  in  the  sister  kingdom ! 
And  they  neither  expected  nor  received  it,  however  much 
they  might  have  desired  the  boon  of  exemption.  The  penal 
laws  of  England  were  enforced  in  Ireland,  whenever  and 
wherever  it  was  possible  to  secure  their  execution. 

12.  But  besides  the  penal  code  of  England,  another  one 
much  more  galling  and  atrocious  in  its  provisions  was  fastened 
upon  Ireland.  Its  details  are  so  very  ferocious  and  horrible, 
a^  almost  to  stagger  belief ;  yet  there  they  are,  in  all  their 
hideousness,  glaring  at  us  from  the  pages  of  the  English 
and  Irish  statute  books !  No  one  can  dispute  them ;  and 
the  fact  that  most  of  them  have  been  since  repealed  — ' 
though  not  all — is  indeed  a  relief  for  the  present,  but  no  in- 
demnity for  the  past.  They  are  a  sequel  to  the  earlier  penal 
enactments  already  referred  to,  and  they  surpass  even  these 
in  atrocity.  They  belong  to  the  history  of  the  attempted 
Reformation  in  Ireland,  which  would  be  wholly  incomplete, 
in  fact  scarcely  intelligible,  without  them.  We  might  fill  a 
volume,  were  we  to  enter  into  minute  details  in  regard  to 
this  atrocious  system  of  legislation.  We  must  content  our- 
selves with  the  following  summary,  which  we  believe  to  be 
entirely  accurate,  and  to  contain  most  of  its  enactments.  We 
are  indebted  for  it  to  our  excellent  American  historian  Ban- 
croft. We  will  be  pardoned  the  length  of  the  extract,  on  ac- 
count of  the  interest  of  the  matter,  and  the  unimpeachable 
50 


294  REFORMATION    IN    IRELAND. 

character  of  the  witness,  who  furnishes  his  authorities  as  he 
proceeds.* 

"In  addition  to  this,  an  act  of  the  English  parliament  rehearsed  the  daa 
gei"S  to  be  appreliended  from  the  presence  of  popish  recusants  in  the  Irish 
parliament,  and  required  of  every  member  the  new  oaths  of  allegiance  and 
supremacy  and  the  declaration  against  transubstantiation.  But  not  only 
were  Roman  Catholics  excluded  from  seats  in  both  branches  of  the  legisla- 
ture ;  a  series  of  enactments,  the  fruit  of  relentless  perseverance,  gradually 
excluded  '  papists '  from  having  any  votes  in  the  election  of  members  to  serve 
in  parliament. 

"  The  Catholic  Irish,  being  disfranchised,  one  enactment  pursued  them 
after  another,  till  they  suffered  under  a  universal,  unmitigated,  indispensable, 
exceptionless  disqualification.  In  the  courts  of  law,  they  could  not  gain  a 
place  on  the  bench,  nor  act  as  a  barrister,  or  attorney,  or  solicitor,  nor  be 
employed  even  as  a  hired  clcik,  nor  sit  on  a  grand  jury,  nor  serve  as  a  sherilf 
or  a  justice  of  the  peace,  nor  hold  even  the  lowest  civil  office  of  trust  and 
profit,  nor  have  anj'^  privilege  in  a  town  corporate,  nor  be  a  freeman  of  such 
corporation,  nor  vote  at  a  vestry.  If  papists  would  trade  and  work,  they 
must  do  it,  even  in  their  native  towns,  as  aliens.  They  were  expressly  for- 
bidden to  take  more  than  two  apprentices  in  whatever  employment,  except 
in  the  linen  manufiicture  only.  A  Catholic  might  not  marry  a  Protestant — 
the  priest  who  should  celebrate  such  a  marriage  was  to  be  hanged  ;  nor  be 

*  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  v,  p.  66,  seqq.  It  will  be 
seen  that  many  of  these  laws  were  enacted  at  a  comparatively  recent  period. 

Edmund  Burke  in  his  Fragment  of  a  Tract  on  the  Popery  Laws,  and  in 
his  other  writings,  furnislies  substantially  the  same  facts,  but  in  a  more  ex- 
tended form  and  in  a  more  technical  style.  He  views  the  Irish  penal  code 
from  the  stand-point  of  the  lawyer,  rather  than  from  that  of  the  historian. — 
See  Burke's  Works,  American  Edit,  in  three  volumes,  8vo,  vol.  ii,  p.  402,  seqq. 

In  his  Constitutional  History  of  England,  Hallam  treats  at  considerable 
length  the  various  penal  enactments  against  Ireland,  which  were  passed  in 
the  successive  English  reigns  from  Elizabeth  to  the  Georges.  He  fully  con- 
firms the  statements  of  Bancroft  and  Burke.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that 
probably  the  worst  portion  of  the  Irish  penal  code  was  enacted  after  the 
rev»lution  in  1088.  Under  William  of  Orange  and  his  successors,  Ireland 
was  scourged  with  greater  ferocity  than  she  had  been  under  the  Tudors  or 
the  Stuarts.  With  the  cry  of  liberty  forever  on  their  lips,  the  whigs,  who 
had  expelled  James  II., because  he  sought  to  establish  religious  liberty  in 
England,  practiced  themselves  the  most  atnx;ious  tyranny  over  Ireland. 
Hallam  gives  tJ*o  odious  details. 


IRISH    PENAL   LAWS.  295 

a  guardian  to  any  child,  nor  educate  his  own  child,  if  the  mother  declared 
nerself  a  Protestant  ;  or  even  if  his  own  child,  however  young,  should  pro- 
fess to  be  a  Protestant.  None  but  those  who  conformed  to  the  established 
church  were  admitted  to  study  at  the  universities,  nor  could  degrees  be  ob- 
tained but  by  those  who  had  taken  all  the  tests,  oaths,  and  declarations. 

"  No  Protestant  in  Ireland  might  instruct  a  papist.  Papists  could  not 
supply  their  want  by  academies  and  schools  of  their  own  ;  for  a  Catholic  to 
teach,  even  in  a  private  family  or  as  usher  to  a  Protestant,  was  a  felony, 
punishable  by  imprisonment,  exile,  or  death.  Thus  '  papists '  were  excluded 
from  all  opportunity  of  education  at  home,  except  by  stealth  and  in  violation 
of  law.  It  might  be  thought  that  schools  abroad  were  open  to  them  ;  but, 
by  a  statute  of  King  William,  to  be  educated  in  any  foreign  Catholic  school 
was  an  unalterable  and  perpetual  outlawry.  The  child  sent  abroad  for  edu- 
cation, no  matter  of  how  tender  an  age,  or  himself  how  innocent,  could 
never  after  sue  in  law  or  equity,  or  be  guardian,  executor,  or  administrator, 
or  receive  any  legacy  or  deed  of  gift ;  he  forfeited  all  his  goods  and  chattels, 
and  forfeited  for  his  life  all  his  lands.  Whoever  sent  him  abroad,  or  main- 
tained him  there,  or  assisted  him  with  money  or  otherwise,  incurred  the 
same  liabilities  and  penalties.  The  crown  divided  the  forfeiture  with  the 
informer ;  and  when  a  person  was  proved  to  have  sent  abroad  a  bill  of  ex- 
change or  money,  on  him  rested  the  burden  of  proving  that  the  remittance 
was  innocent,  and  he  must  do  so  be  fore  justices  without  the  benefit  of  a  jury. 

"The  Irish  Catholics  were  not  only  deprived  of  their  liberties,  but  .even 
of  the  opportunity  of  worship,  except  by  connivance.  Their  clergy,  taken 
from  the  humbler  classes  of  the  people,  could  not  be  taught  at  home  nor  be 
sent  for  education  beyond  seas,  nor  be  recruited  by  learned  ecclesiastics  from 
abroad.  Such  priests  as  were  permitted  to  reside  in  Ireland  were  required 
to  be  registered,  and  were  kept  like  prisoners  at  large  within  prescribed 
limits.  All  'papists'  exercising  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  all  monks,  friars, 
and  regular  priests,  and  all  priests  not  then  actually  in  parishes  and  to  be 
registered,  were  banished  from  Ireland  under  pain  of  transportation,  and,  on 
a  return,  of  being  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered.*  Avarice  was  stimulated 
to  apprehend  them  by  the  promise  of  a  reward ;  he  that  should  harbor  or 
conceal  them  was  to  be  stripped  of  all  his  property. 

"When  the  registered  priests  were  dead,  the  law,  which  was  made  per- 
petual, applied  to  every  popish  priest.  By  the  laws  of  William  and  of  Anne, 
St.  Patrick,  in  Ireland,  in  the  eighteenth  crntury,  would  have  been  a  felon. 
Any  two  justices  of  the  peace  might  call  before  them  any  Catholic,  and 
make  inquisition  as  to  when  he  heard  Mass,  who  were  present,  and  what 
Catholic  schoolmaster  or  priest  he  knew  of;  and  the   penalty  for  refusal  to 

•  This  law  was  probably  meant  to  show  Protestant  love  of  religious  liberty ! 


296  REFORMATION    IN   IRELAND. 

answer  was  a  fine  or  a  year's  imprisonment.  The  Catholic  priest,  abjuring 
his  religion,  received  a  pension  of  thirty,  and  afterwards  of  forty  pounds. 
And  in  spite  of  these  laws,  there  were,  it  is  said,  four  thousand  Catholic 
clergymen  in  Ireland ;  and  the  Catholic  worship  gained  upon  the  Protestant, 
80  attractive  is  sincerity  when  ennobled  by  persecution,  even  though  the 
laws  did  not  presume  a  papist  to  exist  there,  and  did  not  allow  them  to 
breathe  but  by  the  connivance  of  the  government ! 

"  The  Catholic  Irish  had  been  plundered  of  six-sevenths  of  the  land  by 
iniquitous  confiscations ;  every  acre  of  the  remaining  seventh  was  grudged 
them  by  the  Protestants.  No  non-conforming  Catholic  could  buy  land,  or 
receive  it  by  descent,  devise,  or  settlement ;  or  lend  money  on  it,  as  the 
security  ;  or  hold  an  interest  in  it  through  a  Protestant  trustee ;  or  taka  a 
lease  of  ground  for  more  than  thirty-one  years.  If,  under  such  a  lease,  he 
brought  his  farm  to  produce  more  than  one-third  beyond  the  rent,  the  first 
Protestant  discoverer  might  sue  for  the  lease  before  known  Protestants, 
making  the  defendant  answer  all  interrogatories  on  oath  ;  so  that  the  Catho- 
Uc  fixrmer  dared  not  drain  his  fields,  nor  inclose  them,  nor  build  solid  houses 
on  them.  If  in  any  way  he  improved  their  productiveness,  his  lease  was 
forfeited.  It  was  his  interest  rather  to  deteiiorate  the  country,  lest  envy 
should  prompt  some  one  to  turn  him  out  of  doors.  In  all  these  cases  the 
forfeitures  were  in  favor  of  Protestants.  Even  if  a  Catholic  owned  a  horse 
worth  more  than  five  pounds,  any  Protestant  might  take  it  away.*  Nor 
was  natural  affection  or  parental  authority  respected. 

"The  son  of  a  Catholic  landholder,  however  dissolute  or  however  young, 
if  he  would  but  join  the  English  church,  could  revolt  against  his  father,  and 
turn  his  father's  estate  in  fee  simple  into  a  tenancy  for  life,  becoming  himself 
the  owner,  and  annulling  every  agreement  made  by  the  father,  even  before 
his  son's  conversion. 

"  The  dominion  of  the  child  over  the  property  of  the  Popish  parent  was 
universal.  The  Catholic  father  could  not  in  any  degree  disinherit  his  apos- 
tatizing son ;  but  the  child,  in  declaring  himself  a  Protestant,  might  com- 
pel his  father  to  confess  upon  oath  the  value  of  his  substance,  real  aid  per- 
sonal, on  which  the  Protestant  court  might  out  of  it  award  the  son  imme- 
diate maintenance,  and  after  the  father's  death,  any  establishment  it  pleased. 
A  new  bill  might  at  any  time  be  brought  by  one  or  all  of  the  children,  for 
a  fmther  discovery.  If  the  parent,  by  his  industry,  improved  his  property, 
the  son  might  compel  a  new  account  of  the  value  of  the  estate,  in  order  to 
a  new  disposition.  The  father  had  no  security  against  the  persecution  of 
his  children,  but  by  abandoning  all  acquisition  or  improvement." f 

*  This  was  a  strikhig  illustration  of  the  command  :  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal  !" 
T  For  every  statement  above  given,  he  quotes  the  acts  of  the  several  par- 


IRISH   PENAL    LAWS.  297 

13.  This  atrocious  penal  legislation  was  mainly  based  on  the 
hatred  of  the  Catholic  religion,  and  the  wish  to  eradicate  it 
from  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  Irish  people.  Its  entire  tenor 
and  drift  clearly  establish  this  fact.  And  now  we  may  ask  with 
confidence  of  any  impartial — we  do  not  say  Christian— but  man^ 
what  is  to  be  thought  of  a  religious  Keformation  attempted 
to  be  enforced  by  such  means  as  these  ?  What  are  we  to  think 
of  the  sincerity  of  the  men,  who,  while  boasting  that  they 
were  shedding  abroad  the  blessed  light  of  religious  liberty, 
adopted  such  a  code  as  this  to  induce  religious  conformity  ?* 

liaments  which  passed  these  odious  laws ;  besides  Burke  on  the  Penal 
Laws,  and  other  authorities.  These  we  have  omitted  in  order  not  to  cum- 
ber our  pages.  Moreover  any  one  of  our  readers  who  wishes  to  pursue  the 
investigation  may  easily  procure  and  consult  Bancroft.  In  another  place 
Bancroft  adds : 

"  The  inhabitants  of  Ireland  were  four  parts  in  five,  certainly  more  than 
two  parts  in  there,  Roman  Catholics.  ...  In  settling  the  government,  En- 
gland intrusted  it  exclusively  to  those  of  the  '  English  Colony,'  who  were 
members  of  its  own  church ;  so  that  the  little  minority  ruled  the  island. 
To  facilitate  this,  new  boroughs  were  created  ;  and  wretched  tenants,  where 
not  disfranchised,  were  so  coerced  in  their  votes  at  elections,  that  two-thirds 
of  the  Irish  house  of  commons  were  the  nominees  of  the  large  Protestant 
proprietors  of  the  land." — Bancroft's  History,  vi,  66. 

*  In  an  elaborate  article  on  Ireland,  published  in  the  Metropolitan  Record 
for  March  12,  1859,  we  find  the  following  condensed  epitome  of  the  Irish 
penal  laws ;  which  from  the  foregoing  more  extended  account  will  be  found 
to  be,  in  the  main,  accurate.  We  republish  it  in  a  note,  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  may  wish  to  see  the  principal  of  these  atrocious  laws  at  a  single 
glance. 

"ON    EDUCATION. 

'If  a  Catholic  schoolmaster,  taught  any  person,  Protestant  or  Catholic, 
any  species  of  literature  or  science,  such  teacher  was,  for  the  crime  of  teach- 
ing, punishable  by  banishment ;  and  if  he  returned  from  banishment  he  was 
subject  to  be  hanged  as  a  felon. 

'If  a  Catholic,  whether  a  child  or  adult,  attended  in  Ireland  a  school 
kept  by  a  Catholic,  or  was  privately  instructed  by  a  Catholic,  such  person, 
although  a  child  in  its  early  infancy,  incurred  a  forfeiture  of  all  its  property, 
present  or  future. 

•If  a  Catholic  child,  however  young,  was  sent  to  any  foreign  country  for 


298  REFORMATION    IN    IRELAND. 

Tl  ere  can  evidently  be  but  one  opinion  among  all  reason 
able  and  honest  men,  in  regard  both  to  the  Reformation  itself 

education,  such  infant  incurred  a  similar  penalty — that  is,  a  forfeiture  of  all 
right  to  property  present  or  prospective. 

'  If  any  person  in  Ireland  made  remittance  of  any  money  or  goods  for  the 
maintenance  of  any  Irish  child  educated  in  a  foreign  country,  such  person 
mcurred  similar  forfeiture.' 

"With  respect  to  the  Catholic  church,  which  had  shed  so  much  lustre  on 
the  land,  the  reforming  civilizers  enacted  : 

'  To  teach  the  Catholic  religion  is  declared  a  felony,  punished  hy  trans- 
portation. 

*  To  be  a  Catholic,  monk,  or  friar,  punishable  by  banishment,  and  to  re- 
turn from  the  banishment  an  act  of  high  treason,  to  be  punished  by  death. 

'To  exercise  the  functions  of  a  Catholic  bishop  or  archbishop,  in  Ireland, 
a  transportable  oifense,  and  to  return  from  banishment,  as  such,  an  act  of 
high  treason,  punished  by  being  hanged  and  afterwards  quartered  by  the 
executioner.' 

"Domestic  happiness,  family  union,  and  fraternal  love  would,  it  waa 
thought,  by  Ireland's  English  rulei-s,  be  promoted  by  a  code  such  as  this  : 

'If  a  Catholic  wife  declared  herself  a  Prostestant,  she  was  immediately 
entitled  to  a  separate  maintenance  and  the  custody  of  all  the  children. 

'If  the  eldest  son  of  a  Catholic,  no  matter  of  what  age,  became  a  Protest- 
ant, he  at  once  made  his  father  a  tenant  for  life  of  his  own  estate,  and  such 
son  became  absolute  master  of  such  estate. 

'  If  any  other  child,  younger  than  the  eldest  son,  declared  itself  a  Prot- 
estant, it  at  once  became  free  from  all  control  of  the  parent.' 

"  Thus  the  wife,  the  heir  at  law,  and  all  the  other  children,  were,  by  stat- 
ute law,  openly  encouraged  to  rebel  against  the  husband  and  father,  and  vio- 
late every  principle  of  a  Christian  life. 

"catholics     excluded     from     the     government    service,    and    EDMUND 
BURKE'S   OPINION   OF   ENGLAND'S   LAWS. 

"  After  an  acquaintance  of  about  five  hundred  years,  the  English  govern- 
ment thought  that  her  military,  naval,  and  civil  service,  both  in  Ireland  and 
abroad,  could  be  best  promoted  by  legislation,  such  as  the  following : 

'Catholics  were  declared  incapable  of  holding  any  commission  in  the 
arm)^  or  navy,  or  serving  even  as  private  soldiers,  unless  they  abjured  that 
religion. 

'  Catholics  were  universally  excluded  from  all  oflBces  under  the  state,  and 
deprived  of  the  right  of  voting  at  any  election. 

'Catholics  were  excluded  fiom  Parliament. 


OTHER    PROTESTANT   TESTIMONY.  299 

and  the  means  adopted  to  enforce  it  upon  an  unwilling  and 
resisting  population  in  Ireland.  This  opinion  necessarily 
grows  out  of  the  facts  themselves,  contrasting  as  they  do  so 
glaringly  with  the  professions  of  the  men  who  unblushingly 
enacted  those  bloody  laws. 

14.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that,  in  England's  treatment  of 
Ireland,  there  was  another  element  of  bitterness  infused  into 
the  cup  of  religious  intolerance ;  we  refer  to  that  which  re- 
sulted from  difference  of  race.  This  feeling,  indeed,  long 
preceded  the  sixteenth  century  ;  but  it  was  very  greatly  in- 
creased by  the  subsequent  attempt  to  enforce  the  new  religion 
in  Ireland.  If  the  Irish  were  scourged  with  rods  before,  they 
were  scourged  with  scorpions  after  the  Reformation  —  so 
called.  An  able  American  writer  of  the  day  places  this 
matter  in  so  clear  a  light,  and  confirms  his  views  with  so 
many  apposite  Protestant  authorities,  that  we  can  not  prob- 
ably do  better  than  to  furnish  some  extracts  from  his  well- 
written  paper.* 

Speaking  of  a  statute  passed  under  Henry  VIII.,  he  says  : 

"In  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  Henry  VIII.,  a  law  was  passed  restraining 
the  Irish  from  having  themselves  shorn  or  shaven  above  the  ears,  and  from 
wearing  coulins  (long  locks)  on  their  heads,  or  hair  on  their  upper  lips,  and 
prescribing  for  them  a  particular  kind  of  rude  dress,  so  that  they  should  not 
presume  under  heavy  penalties  to  dress  like  the  English."! 

Of  what  took  place  after  the  Reformation,  he  writes  as  fol- 
lows : 

"After  the  Reformation,  it  did  not  require  so  much  eflfort  to  keep  the  in- 

'If  any  Catholic  purchased  for  money  an  estate  in  land,  any  Protestant 
may  take  it  from  him  without  paying  a  farthing  of  the  purchase  money.' 

"Edmund  Burke,  speaking  of  the  code,  said :  '  It  was  a  machine  of  wise 
and  elaborate  contrivance,  and  as  well  fitted  for  the  oppression,  impoverish- 
ment, and  degradation  of  a  people,  and  the  debasement  in  them  of  human 
nature  itselfj  as  ever  proceeded  from  the  perverted  ingenuity  of  man.'  " 

*  In  the  North  American  Review,  for  January,  1858,  art.  Ireland,  Past 
and  Present. 

t  The  writer  quotes  Walker's  Historical  Memoirs  of  the  Irish  Bardii 
p.  134. 


300  REFORMATION    IN   IRELAND. 

digenous  and  the  English  inhabitants  of  Ireland  in  mutual  enmity.  Sectarian 
animosity  now  proved  a  most  useful  auxiliary  to  British  rule ;  for  the 
hatred  of  race  had  already  grown  too  feeble.  Hitherto  the  English  inhab- 
itants of  Ireland  had  been  taught  to  hate  the  natives  as  an  antagonistic,  in- 
ferior race  ;  now  they  were  taught  to  hate  them  as  believers  in  a  false  creed. 
The  title  '  wild  Irish '  was  not  suflBciently  repulsive,  till  reinforced  by  the 
still  more  obnoxious  stigma  attached  to  the  term  '  Papist.'  This  was  ac- 
cordingly adopted ;  and  among  the  first  fruits  of  the  Reformation  for  Ireland 
was  a  new  set  of  penal  laws  against  the  Irish 'Papists.'  In  reference  to 
these  laws  Secretary  Hutchinson  wrote,  in  his  Account  of  Ireland,  in 
1773: 

" '  The  Papists  incur  penalties  for  foreign  education,  yet  are  not  allowed 
education  at  home  :  they  can  not  be  physicians,  lawyers,  soldiers.  If  they 
become  traders  and  mechanics,  they  scarcely  enjoy  the  rights  of  citizens. 
If  farmers,  they  shall  not  improve,  being  discouraged  by  short  limitation  of 
tenure  ;  and  yet  there  is  complaint  of  the  dullness  and  laziness  of  a  people 
whose  spirit  is  restrained  from  exertion,  and  whose  industry  has  no  reward 
to  excite  it.' 

"  It  was  made  a  capital  offense  for  the  Irish  to  have  schools  or  schoolmas- 
masters.  If  a  schoolmaster  was  convicted  of  having  taught,  or  attempted 
to  teach  any  Irish  person,  young  or  old,  the  punishment  for  the  first  offense 
was  transportation ;  and  if  he  ever  returned  from  penal  servitude,  and  re- 
peated the  crime,  the  penalty  was  death !  Yet  the  people  thus  treated  were 
abused  for  not  being  intelligent  and  enlightened  !  Irish  commerce  was  also 
placed  under  severe  restrictions.'  "* 

Burke  was  right  in  calling  such  a  code  "  a  horrible  and  im- 
pious system  of  servitude."f 

15.  With  such  feelings,  followed  by  such  legislation  on  the 
part  of  England,  we  do  not  at  all  wonder  that  gifted  Prot- 

*  North  American  Review,  for  January,  1858,  art.  Ireland,  Past  and 
Present.  The  writer  quotes  De  Rebus  Hibernicis,  vol.  ii,  p.  366-71,  and 
adds  :  "  General  Desgriny,  who  accompagnied  Lauzun  to  Ireland  in  1670, 
wrote  to  the  French  minister  of  war,  as  follows  :  '  La  politique  des  Anglois 
a  ete  de  tenir  ces  peuples  cy  comme  des  esclaves,  et  si  bas,  qu'  il  ne  leur 
etoit  permis  d'  apprendre  a  lire  et  a  ecrire ' — The  policy  of  the  English  has 
been  to  keep  these  people  here  lil-e  slaves,  and  so  low  that  it  is  not  permitted 
to  them  to  learn  to  read  and  write.'  " — This  was  no  doubt  by  way  of  con- 
clusively proving  to  the  world  the  wonderful  efficacy  of  Protestantism  in 
emancipating  the  human  mind  from  the  degrading  ignorance  and  thralldoiB 
of  popery  !  t  Quoted  ibid. 


IRELAND    FAITHFUL   TO  THE   LAST.  301 

estant  Irishmen,  like  Burke,  Swift,  Grattan,  Curran,  and 
Goldsmith,  should  have  lashed  English  oppression,  and 
pleaded  earnestly  and  eloquently  the  cause  of  oppressed  Ire- 
land ;  or  that  this  feeling  of  just  indignation  should  have 
extended  to  generous  minded  English  Protestants  themselves; 
to  such  men,  for  instance,  as  Sydney  Smith  and  the  caustic 
writer  of  the  Junius  Letters.  The  former,  in  his  famous 
Plimley  Letters,  clearly,  eloquently,  and  wittily  exhibited  the 
atrocious  injustice  of  England  towards  Ireland,  and  urged, 
not  in  vain,  the  necessity  of  an  at  least  partial  redress  of  her 
grievances,  through  the  passage  of  the  Catholic  emancipation 
bill ;  while  the  latter  broke  forth  into  the  following  character- 
istic strain  of  indignant  invective,  in  his  celebrated  Letter  to 
the  King  :* 

"The  people  of  Ireland  have  been  uniformly  plundered  and  oppressed. 
In  return  they  give  you  every  day  fresh  marks  of  their  resentment.  They 
despise  the  miserable  governor  you  have  sent  them,  because  he  is  a  creature 
of  Lord  Bute  ;  nor  is  it  from  any  natural  confusion  in  their  ideas  that  they 
are  so  ready  to  confound  the  original  of  a  king  with  the  disgraceful  repre- 
sentation of  him." 

16.  Of  the  subsequent  history  and  sufferings  of  Ireland 
under  the  penal  laws ;  of  her  impatience  under  the  galling 
yoke  of  the  English  Protestant  ascendency,  and  her  repeated 
efforts  to  free  herself  from  its  terrible  pressure  ;  of  its  having 
been  still  more  firmly  riveted  on  her  neck  at  each  successive 
failure  of  insurrection ;  of  her  partially  successful  struggles 
to  stand  erect,  and  to  prosper  temporally,  in  spite  of  all  these 
long  continued  and  terrible  obstacles ;  and  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  the  grasp  of  oppression  was  finally 
somewhat  relaxed  by  the  action  of  the  British  parliament, 
reluctantly  and  at  the  eleventh  hour  sweeping  away  some  of 
the  more  odious  features  of  the  terrible  penal  code  under 
which  she  had  groaned  for  centuries :  of  these  and  of  other 
things  our  present  scope  does  not  allow,  nor  indeed  require 
us  to  treat.     Suffice  it  to  refer  to  the  general  result,  which 

*  North  American  Kevlew,  for  January,  1858,  sup.  cit. 


302  REFORMATION    IN    IRELAND. 

may  be  summed  up  in  two  words :  that  in  the  political  rela 
tion,  the  national  spirit  of  Ireland  has  never  been  entirely 
broken,  and  in  the  religious  one,  her  faith  has  never  been  im- 
paired. After  all  the  violent  and  protracted  efforts  of  En- 
gland to  pervert  her  from  the  ancient  religion,  seven-eighths 
of  her  children  still  cling  to  it  with  undying  love. 

Faithful  Catholic  Ireland  might  be  deprived  of  all  else — of 
lands,  of  personal  comforts,  of  political  liberty ;  but  the  hand 
of  the  spoiler  and  oppressor  could  never  tear  from  her  heart 
the  jewel  of  faith,  which  she  prized  far  above  all  earthly 
considerations.  They  might,  and  they  did  destroy  her  mon- 
asteries and  seize  upon  her  churches ;  they  might,  and  they 
did  despoil  her  of  all  her  church  property,  and  impose  upon 
her  people  the  odious  tithe-tax  to  support  the  clergy  of  a  new- 
fangled church  which  she  abhorred  in  her  very  soul ;  they 
might,  and  they  did  slander  her  faith  and  endeavor  to  ruin 
her  character  by  systematic  denunciation  of  her  alleged  de- 
moralization ;*  they  mi^it,  and  they  did  banish  her  priests 
and  schoolmasters  and  hunt  them  down,  if  they  dared  return, 
like  so  many  wild  beasts ;  they  might,  and  they  did  commit 
these  and  a  thousand  other  indignities  too  tedious  and  too 
horrible  to  dwell  on ;  they  never  could  seduce  her  from  her 
allegiance  to  "  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints !"  To 
this  she  clung  in  life  and  in  death,  and  she  loved  it  the  more 
dearly,  precisely  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  privation  and 
suffering  her  children  were  made  to  endure  on  its  account. 

Never,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  mankind,  has  so  wither- 
ing a  rebuke  been  administered  to  all  powerful  and  bitterly 
intolerant  tyranny,  as  that  which  the  unshaken  constancy  of 

*  It  has  generally  been  stated  by  English  Protestant  writers,  with  a  view 
to  present  an  unfavorable  impression  of  the  influence  of  Catholicity  on  the  Irish 
people,  that  crime  has  always  been  much  more  rife  in  Ireland  than  in  Eng- 
land The  subject  is  ably  discussed  in  a  late  number  of  the  Dublin  Review ; 
and  the  result  is  by  no  means  disparaging  to  Ireland,  or  flattering  to  Eng- 
knd.  See  also  Joseph  Kay's  (Protestant)  Report  to  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge, on  the  present  utterly  degraded  moral  condition  of  the  masses  of 
the  English  and  Welsh  population. 


CONCLUSION.  303 

Ireland  has  administered  to  Protestant  England.  The  only 
parallel  to  it,  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  is  that  presented 
by  the  heroic  attitude  of  the  early  Christians  towards  per- 
secuting pagan  Eome,  during  three  centuries  of  patient  mai- 
tyrdom,  and  of  brilliant  victory  in  the  midst  of  the  excruciat- 
ing tortures  of  death. 

We  conclude  this  Chapter  with  the  following  eloquent  pas- 
sage from  the  pen  of  an  American  Protestant  writer  :* 

"Ireland  still  has  an  existence  as  a  nation.  She  has  her  universities  and 
her  literature.  She  is  still  the  'Emerald  Isle  of  the  ocean.'  An  air  of 
romance  and  chivalry  is  around  her.  The  traditionary  tales  that  live  in  her 
literature  invest  her  history  with  heroic  beauty.  But  she  has  no  need  of 
these.  Real  heroes,  the  O'Neills,  the  O'Briens,  and  the  Emmetts,  will  be 
remembered  as  long  as  self-denying  patriotism  and  unconquerable  valor  are 
honored  among  men.  In  every  department  of  literature  she  still  takes  her 
place.  Where  is  the  wreath  her  shamrock  does  not  adorn  ?  Where  the 
muse  that  has  not  visited  her  hills  ?  Her  harp  has  ever  kindled  the  soul  of 
the  warrior,  and  soothed  the  sorrows  of  the  broken-hearted.  It  has  sounded 
every  strain  that  can  move  the  human  heart  to  greatness,  or  to  love.  What- 
ever vices  may  stain  her  people,  they  are  free  from  the  crime  of  voluntary 
servitude.  The  Irishman  is  the  man  last  to  be  subdued.  Possessing  an 
elasticity  of  character  that  will  rise  under  the  heaviest  oppression,  he  wants 
only  a  favorable  opportunity  and  a  single  spark  to  set  him  in  a  blaze." 

*  Lester,  Condition  and  Fate  of  England,  sup.  cit.  ii,  73-4. 

0:^  For  more  Oh  the  church  of  England,  as  established  by  law,  and  as 
firmly  riveted  on  the  necks  of  the  people  by  the  CoRONAfiON  Oath  of  the 
kings  and  queens  of  England  and  Ireland,  see  Note  H.  at  the  end  of  this 
volume. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PROTESTAiNT  REFORMATION 


CHAPTER     VII. 

REFOKMATION    IN    THE    NETHERLANDS. 

Interest  which  attaches  to  the  subject — Prescott's  Philip  II. — His  prejudices 
glanced  at — The  Netherlands  in  the  sixteenth  century — Their  highly 
prosperous  condition  in  commerce  and  manufactures — The  new  doctrines 
penetrate  into  the  Netherlands — Policy  of  the  emperor  Charles  V. — His 
edicts — He  does  not  establish  the  Inquisition — His  repressive  policy  fails 
— The  Netherlands  continue  to  flourish — Accession  of  Philip  II. — View 
of  the  religious  condition  of  Europe  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury— The  "fiery  cross"  of  the  Reformation — It  everywhere  brings  about 
a  union  of  church  and  state — Results  in  civil  commotions — Which 
weaken  the  cause  of  liberty — Guizot's  testimony — Character  of  Philip  II. 
— The  hereditary  Spanish  feeling  beautifully  portrayed  by  Prescott — 
Sublime  sternness  of  Philip — We  have  no  mission  to  defend  him — Much 
less  Alva — Philip's  war  with  the  Pope — Prescott's  position  reviewed — 
Church  not  responsible  for  Philip's  policy — Case  of  Caranza — Philip  defies 
the  Council  of  Trent — His  opposition  to  the  Pope  in  matters  trenching  on 
the  spiritual  order — Nomination  of  bishops — The  Pope  and  despotism — 
Good  qualities  in  Phihp's  character — The  Catholic  liberties  of  the  Neth- 
erlanders — The  struggle  begins — Catholics  and  Protestants  at  first  com- 
bine against  Philip — The  war-cry  Vivent  les  Gueux  ! — -Matters  precipitated 
by  violence — Horrible  excesses  committed  by  the  Protestant  party  fully 
related  by  Prescott — The  Iconoclasts  and  church  spoilers — The  preachers 
take  the  field — And  stir  up  the  people  to  violence — Churches  and  convents 
sacked — Awful  riot  at  Antwerp — The  Cathedral  plundered — The  "  two 
thieves  "  presiding  over  the  work — Its  beautiful  ornaments  in  ruins — The 
sacrilegious  fury  spreads  over  all  Flanders — Four  hundred  churches  de- 
molished or  sacked  in  Flanders  alone — Awful  desolation — Irreparable 
injury  to  the  fine  arts — What  the  "beggars"  really  meant  and  wanted — 
Their  idea  of  religious  liberty — Reaction — Tumults  stopped — And  an 
msurrection  quelled — Impression  made  by  these  outrages  on  Philip — 
Duke  of  Alva  the  embodiment  of  his  stern  resolve — Execution  of  the 
Catholic  Counts  Egmont  and  Hoorne,  and  of  Montigny — William  of 
Orange  prudently  flies  —  Menzel's  account  —  Two  inferences  drawn  — 
Glance  at  the  subsequent  events  of  the  struggle — Queen  Elizabeth  nied- 
(304) 


PRESCOTT   AS    AN   HISTORIAN.  305 

iling — Treasures  of  Alva  seized  by  her — A  general  gloom  in  consequence 
of  the  troops  being  quartered  on  the  people — And  of  the  imposition  of 
new  taxes  by  Alva — A  calm  before  a  storm — The  struggle  begins  in 
earnest. — Privateers  scour  the  British  channel — Alva  recalled  and  Ee- 
quesens  appointed — Elizabeth  coquetting  with  the  insurgents — Eequesens 
succeeded  by  Don  John  of  Austria — The  Spanish  soldiery  break  through 
all  restraint,  and  sack  Antwerp — General  indignation — The  Pacification 
of  Ghent — Approved  by  Don  John  In  the  Perpetual  Edict — Discontent 
of  Orange — The  Spanish  troops  dismissed  and  recalled — The  war  recom- 
mences— The  Netherlands  become  the  battle  ground  of  Europe — The 
Catholic  provinces  compelled  to  separate  from  the  Protestant — Outrages 
on  their  churches  and  themselves  committed  by  Casimir,  the  ally  of  Or- 
ange— An  army  of  Lutheran  Huns — Alexander  Farnese — Brilliant  in  the 
cabinet  as  in  the  field — Renews  the  Perpetual  Edict — And  attaches  the 
Catholic  Provinces  to  his  government  —  Philip  issues  his  ban  against 
Orange — Who  replies  with  a  declaration  of  independence — He  is  assassi- 
nated— Atrocities  committed  against  the  Catholics — Menzel  and  Motley — 
Dutch  Catholics  exterminated  —  Horrid  excesses  —  "Better  Turks  than 
Papists" — Lutherans  do  not  sympathize  with  their  Dutch  brethren-^The 
jatholic  religion  suppressed — Diplomacy  of  Orange — His  character — The 
butcher  Sonoy — His  horrible  barbarities — Orange  screens  him  from  pun- 
nishment — Van  der  Marck,  hie  predecessor  in  the  butchery — He  slays 
more  than  Alva — Testimony  of  Kerroux — The  subsequent  history  of  the 
Dutch  Republic — Final  result  of  the  struggle — Gomarists  and  Arminians 
— King  James  I.  of  England  intermeddling — Synod  of  Dort — Grotius 
persecuted — The  patriot  Barnavelt  beheaded — Many  Protestants  banished 
— Recapitulation — Four  conclusions  reached — Religious  liberty,  as  under- 
stood by  the  Dutch  Calvinists — And  as  exhibited  in  their  acts. 

Public  attention  to  the  history  of  the  Netherlands  in  the 
sixteenth  century  has  been  lately  awakened  in  this  country, 
by  the  publication  of  what  has  proved  to  be  the  last  work  of 
our  great  historian  Prescott,  who,  alas !  lived  not  to  complete 
his  task.  Many  of  the  most  graphic  and  interesting  scenes' 
of  his  "  History  of  the  Reign  of  Philip  the  Second  "*  are  laid 
in  the  Netherlands ;  while  the  very  nature  of  the  combat 
which  raged  there  is  such,  as  to  appeal  strongly  to  our  feel- 
ings both  as  patriots  as  religionists. 

*  The  work  is  in  three  volumes  8vo,  published  by  Philips,  Sampson,  and 
Company,  Boston,  in  1855  and  1858. 
VOL.  n.-26 


306  REFORMATION    IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

As  we  shall  frequently  have  occasion  to  quote  this  work  lu 
the  course  of  the  present  chapter,  it  may  be  well  for  the 
reader  to  bear  in  mind,  that  Prescott,  though  a  man  of 
enlarged  mind  and  generous  principles,  does  not  always  riae 
superior  to  the  religious  prejudices  almost  inseparable  from  * 
New  England  education, — so  far  at  least  as  the  Catholic  Church 
is  concerned.  He  occasionally  grievously  misrepresents  our 
religious  principles  and  practices,  and  in  things,  too,  which 
are  so  very  simple  and  obvious,  and  so  generally  known,  that 
a  much  worse-informed  man  should  have  felt  ashamed  of 
making  mistakes  in  regard  to  them.  Thus,  he  seriously  re- 
produces, as  an  unquestioned  Catholic  principle,  the  absurd 
and  abominable  maxim  which  has  been  already  refuted  a 
thousand  times;  "No  faith  to  be  kept  with  heretics!"* 
Again,  he  gravely  imputes  to  Catholics  the  absurd  idolatry  of 
"adoring  images  !"t  Finally — for  we  need  not  multiply  ex- 
amples— he  absurdly  enough  confounds  the  years  of  indul- 
gence with  years  of  remission  "of  the  pains  of  purgatory ,";| 

In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Netherlands 
embraced  all  the  countries  bordering  on  the  lower  Rhine,  and 
comprehended  seventeen  provinces,  which  occupied  the  whole 
of  the  territory  now  included  in  the  kingdoms  of  Holland  and 
Belgium ;  besides  Luxemburg,  and  what  was  formerly  called 
French  Flanders,  comprising  the  two  provinces  of  Artois 
and  Hainault  since  annexed  to  France.  These  provinces 
were  at  that  time  probably  in  a  more  flourishing  condition 
than  almost  any  other  portion  of  Europe.  They  teemed  with 
the  products  of  agricultural  and  mechanical  industry.     Man- 

*  Prescott,  Hist.  Philip  II.,  ii,  49.  Of  the  sainted  PontiflF  Pius  V.  he  says, 
that  he  "doubtless  held  to  the  orthodox  maxim  'of  no  faith  to  be  kept 
with  heretics.' " 

t  Ibid.,  p.  55.  The  priests  deposited  the  image  in  the  chapel  ....  "to  re- 
ceive there  during  the  coming  week  the  adoration  of  the  faithfiil." 

\  Diid.,  iii,  311.  "The  legate,  after  preaching  a  discourse,  granted  all 
orcsent  a  full  remission  of  the  pains  of  purgatory  for  two  hundred  years." 
Protestants  should  reat,"  our  catechism  sCt  least,  if  nothing  more  ! 


THE  EMPEROR  CHARLES  V.  307 

ufactories  were  everywhere  in  successful  operation ;  and 
Bruges,  Liege,  and  Valenciennes  were  then,  what  Manchester, 
Birmingham,  and  Leeds  now  are.  Commerce  also  flourished ; 
every  sea  was  whitened  with  the  sails  of  the  adventurous 
Netherlanders,  whose  soil  was  too  confined  for  their  industry 
and  enterprise.  "  Their  fleets  were  to  be  found  on  every  sea. 
In  the  Euxine  and  in  the  Mediterranean  they  were  rivals  of 
the  Venetians  and  the  Genoese,  and  they  contended  with  the 
English,  and  even  with  the  Spaniards,  for  superiority  on  '  the 
narrow  seas'  and  the  great  ocean."* 

Antwerp  was  then  the  great  commercial  and  banking  cap- 
ital of  Europe.  Merchants  from  all  nations,  even  from  Turkey, 
flocked  thither  for  purposes  of  commerce.  The  city  had  one 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  while  London  had  only  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  at  the  same  time,  "  Antwerp,  in 
short,  became  the  banking-house  of  Europe ;  and  capitalists, 
the  Rothschilds  of  their  day;  whose  dealings  were  with  sov- 
ereign princes,  fixed  their  abode  in  Antwerp,  which  was  to 
the  rest  of  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century  what  London 
is  in  the  nineteenth, — the  great  heart  of  commercial  circula- 
tion."f  In  manufactures  particularly,  the  Flemings  long 
preceded  the  English  ;  for  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  the  great  woollen  factories  were  located  at  Bruges 
and  other  Flemish  towns,  and  the  Flemings,  who  emigrated 
at  that  early  period  to  England,,  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
present  great  English  manufactories-^  ^ 

This  flourishing  condition  of  commerce  and  manufactures 
necessarily  brought  into  the  Netherlands  strangers  from  Ger- 
many and  other  adjoining  countries,  into  which  the  doctrines 
of  the  "new  gospel"  had  already  penetrated.  The  immi- 
grants brought  with  them  their  newly  conceived  religious 
notions;  and  the  infection  was  still  further  spread  in  these 
provinces  through  the  custom  which  had  prevailed,  of  send- 
mg   the   Flemish    youth    to    the  colleges  of    Germany  and 

•  Prescott,  Philip  TI.,  i,  369-370.         +  Ibid.,  p.  371.         t  I^id-,  P-  369. 


308  REFORMATION    IN   THE    NETHERLANDS. 

Geneva  for  the  purpose  of  receiving  a  higher  education.  The 
result  was  that  the  new  doctrines  were  introduced  exten- 
sively into  the  country,  at  an  early  period  of  the  sixteenth 
century. 

The  emperor  Charles  V.,  himself  a  native  of  the  Nether- 
lands, then  held  the  sovereignty.  He  was  specially  attached 
to  his  countrymen,  who  warmly  reciprocated  the  feeling.  He 
rightly  viewed  the  Netherlands  as  the  most  choice  portion  of 
his  vast  domains,  and  he  spared  no  pains  to  develop  the 
industry,  and  to  stimulate  the  commerce  of  his  dear  Flem- 
ings. At  this  period  of  his  career,  particularly,  he  was  a 
very  worldly-minded  prince,  and  he  was  generally  prompted 
more  by  political  than  by  religious  motives.  It  was  chiefly 
in  the  light  of  sound  political  policy,  that  he  viewed  the  rise 
of  the  new  doctrines  among  this  people  with  distrust  and  un- 
easiness; and  that  he  accordingly- determined  to  adopt  at 
once  measures  of  severity,  to  check  or  prevent  the  further 
spread  of  the  new  opinions,  which  had  already  obtained  a 
strong  foothold  in  French  Flanders,  as  well  as  in  the  more 
northern  provinces. 

Valenciennes,  the  capital  of  Hainault,  was  a  favorite  re- 
sort of  the  French  Huguenots,  whenever  they  desired  to 
escape  the  difficulties  in  which  their  habitual  turbulence 
involved  them  in  their  own  country.  "  Thus  the  seeds  of  the 
Reformation,  whether  in  the  Lutheran  or  in  the  Calvinistic 
form,  were  scattered  wide  over  the  land,  and  took  root  in  a 
congenial  soil.  The  phlegmatic  temperament  of  the  northern 
provinces,  particularly,  disposed  them  to  receive  a  religion 
which  addressed  itself  so  exclusively  to  the  reason ;  while 
they  were  less  open  to  the  influences  of  Catholicism,  which, 
with  its  gorgeous  accessories,  appealing  to  the  passions  (!),  is 
better  suited  to  the  lively  sensibilities  and  kindling  imagina- 
tions of  the  South."* 

Charles  v.,  dreading  "this  innovation  no  less  in  a  temporal 


*  Prescott,  Philipp  TL,  ;,  374. 


HIS    POLICY    OF    REPRESSION.  309 

than  in  a  religious  point  of  view,"  resolved  to  adopt  a  severe 
policy  of  repression.  From  March,  1520,  to  September,  1550. 
he  issued  edict  after  edict  against  the  professors  and  preachers 
of  the  new  gospel,  until  the  whole  number  of  such  edicts 
reached  eleven.*  The  frequent  renewal  of  the  edicts  proved 
how  very  feebly  they  were  executed,  or  rather  that  they 
were  scarcely  executed  at  all ;  as  Prescott  himself  freely  ad- 
mits.f  The  odious  name  of  inquisition  was  given  by  the 
indignant  Flemings,  both  JProtestant  and  Catholic,  to  the 
tribunal  established  by  the  emperor  for  the  checking  of  the 
growing  heresy ;  though  Prescott  himself  proves  that  it  was 
totally  different  from  the  odious  Spanish  Inquisition,  and 
that  the  severities  to  which  it  gave  rise  were  very  greatly  ex- 
aggerated.J  The  measures  adopted  were  in  themselves,  in- 
deed, arbitrary  enough  ;  but  not  being  enforced,  they  proved* 
entirely  ineffectual  towards  arresting  the  progress  of  the  new 
opinions.  During  the  last  year  of  his  reign,  Charles  V.  con- 
fessed with  regret  "  the  total  failure  of  his  endeavors  to  stay 
the  progress  of  heresy  in  the  Netherlands."§  His  edicts  were 
intended  more  to  frighten,  than  really  to  coerce  by  actual 
punishment  the  propagators  of  the  new  gospel. 

At  any  rate,  in  spite  of  them,  the  Netherlands  continued 
to  flourish  under  the  administration  of  Charles.  "His  edicts 
in  the  name  of  religion  were,  indeed,  written  in  blood.     But 

*  Prescott,  Ibid.,  i,  p.  375 ;  yet  p.  381,  he  says  that  these  edicts  were  re- 
newed nine  times.  f  Ibid.,  p.  381. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  379-380.  Some  violent  partisan  historians  have  asserted,  that 
no  less  than  fifty  thousand  persons  perished  in  the  Netherlands  for  conscience' 
sake  under  the  reign  of  Charles  V. !  "  This  monstrous  statement,"  says  our 
historian,  "has  been  repeated  by  one  historian  after  another,  with  apparently 
as  Uttle  distrust  as  examination.  It  affords  one  among  many  examples  of 
the  facility  with  which  men  adopt  the  most  startling  results,  when  conveyed 
in  the  form  of  numerical  estimates.  There  is  something  which  strikes  the 
imagination  in  a  numerical  estimate,  which  settles  a  question  so  summarily, 
in  a  form  so  precise  and  so  portable.  Yet  whoever  has  had  occasion  to 
make  researches  into  the  past — that  land  of  uncertainty — will  agree  tha» 
there  is  noth'ng  less  entitled  to  couridence."  ^  Ibid.,  p.  383 

51 


310  REFORMATION    IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

the  frequency  of  their  repetition  shows,  as  tUready  remarked, 
the  imperfect  manner  in  which  they  were  executed.  This 
was  still  further  proved  by  the  prosperous  condition  of  the 
people,  the  flourishing  aspect  of  the  various  branches  of  in- 
dustry, and  the  great  enterprises  to  facilitate  commercial  in- 
tercourse and  foster  the  activity  of  the  country.  At  the  close 
of  Charles'  reign,  or  rather  at  the  commencement  of  his  suc- 
cessor's, in  15G0,  was  completed  the  great  canal  extending 
from  Antwerp  to  Brussels,  the  construction  of  which  had  con- 
sumed thirty  years,  and  one  million  eight  hundred  thousand 
florins."* 

On  the  accession  of  Philip  II.,  the  Reformation  had  already 
made  considerable  progress  in  the  Netherlands,  while  in  more 
than  a  third  of  Europe  it  had  boasted  of  having  achieved 
triumphs  which  seemed  to  augur  the  coming  downfall  of  the 
old  Church.  Prcscott  thus  graphically  describes  the  reli- 
gious attitude  of  Europe  at  this  period  : 

"  The  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  presented  one  of  those  crises,  which 
have  occurred  at  long  intervals  in  the  history  of  Europe,  when  the  course  of 
events  has  had  a  permanent  influence  on  the  destiny  of  nations.  Scarcely 
forty  years  had  elapsed  since  Luther  had  thrown  down  the  gauntlet  to  the 
Vatican,  by  publicly  burning  the  Papal  bull  at  Wittenberg.  Since  that 
time  his  doctrines  had  been  received  in  Denmark  and  Sweden.  In  England, 
after  a  vacillation  for  three  reigns,  Protests) ntism,  in  the  peculiar  form  which 
it  still  wears,  was  become  the  established  religion  of  the  state.  The  fiery 
crossf  had  gone  over  the  hills  and  valleys  of  Scotland,  and  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands  had  gathered  to  hear  the  word  of  life  from  the  lips  of  Knox. 
The  doctrines  of  Luther  were  spread  over  the  noriliern  parts  of  Germany, 
and  freedom  of  worship  was  finally  guarantied  there  t)y  the  treaty  of  Passau. 
The  Low  Countries  were  the  '  debatable  land,'  on  which  the  various  sects  of 
reformers,  the  Lutheran,  the  Calvinist,  the  English  Protestant,  contended 
for  mastery  with  the  established  Church.  Calvinism  was  embraced  by  some 
of  the  cantons  of  Switzerland,  and  at  Geneva  its  apostle  had  fixed  his  head- 
quarters.    His  doctrines  were  widely  circulated  through  France,  till  the 

*  Prescott,  Philip  IL,  i,  p.  474-5. 

f  As  we  have  already  seen,  it  was  surely  "Jtery"  enough,  though  it  was 
scarcely  the  "cross,"  unless,  perhaps,  in  the  sense  of  the  corresponding  ad- 
jective ! 


THE   REFORMATION    AND    LIBERTY.  311 

divided  nation  was  prepared  to  plunge  into  that  worst  of  all  wars,  in  which 
the  hand  of  brother  is  raised  against  brother.  The  cry  of  reform  had  passed 
even  over  the  Alps,  and  was  heard  under  the  walls  of  the  Vatican.  It  had 
crossed  the  Pyrenees.  The  king  of  Navarre  declared  himself  a  Protestant; 
and  the  spirit  of  the  lleformation  had  insinuated  itself  secretly  into  Spain, 
and  had  taken  hold,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the  middle  and  southern  provinces 
of  the  kingdom."* 

Wheresoever  the  lleformation  had  penetrated,  and  had  up- 
lifted its  "fiery  cross,"  popnhir  tumults  and  riots,  resulting 
often  in  protracted  civil  wars,  had  everywhere  marked  its 
progress,  and  blood  shed  by  brother  armed  against  brother, 
in  fratricidal  strife,  had  everywhere  stained  the  soil  of  Europe. 
Its  career  might  have  been  traced  by  the  dismantled  or  burning 
churches,  the  ruined  monasteries,  and  the  smoking  libraries, 
which  it  usually  left  behind  it, — the  dismal  trophies  of  its 
victory  over  the  old  religion.  It  had  unsettled  society,  and 
it  threatened  the  change  or  destruction  of  existing  dynasties. 
No  government  any  longer  rested  on  a  secure  foundation ; 
what  was  strong  to-day,  inight  be  tottering  to  its  fall  on  to- 
morrow. And  the  new  political  order  which  was  to  rise  on 
the  ruins  of  the  old,  how  flattering  soever  to  popular  liberty 
were  its  promises,  did  not  really  result,  at  least  in  the 
vast  majority  of  cases,  in  any  greater  extension  of  popular 
freedom. 

The  political  tendency  was  rather,  on  the  contrary,  in  the 
opposite  direction.  To  strengthen  their  paity,  the  reformers 
almost  everywhere  threw  themselves,  body  and  soul,  into  the 
arms,  or  rather  under  the  feet  of  the  new  kings  and  princes 
who  had  acquired  riches  by  the  spoliation  of  the  old  Church, 
and  had  obtained  increased  political  consequence  and  power 
by  the  protection  oi  the  new  gospelers.  This  protection 
generally  consisted  in  that  utter  enslavement  of  religion, 
which  so  often  results  from  the  union  of  church  and  state, 
and  which  is  almost  always  a  necessary  result  whenever  the 
spiritual  as  well  as  the  temporal  power  is  lodged  in  the  same 


*•  Prescott,  Ibid.,  i,  p.  469,  470. 


312  REFORMATION    IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

hands.*  This  was  invariably  the  case  wherever  the  Refor 
mation  triumphed  in  Europe  !f  As  the  learned  Guizot — 
himself  a  son  of  the  Huguenots  and  a  Calvinist,  so  far  as  he 
has  any  religious  opinions — tersely  observes:  "The  emanci- 
pation of  the  human  mind  (through  the  Reformation !)  and 
absolute  monarchy  triumphed  at  the  same  moment  over 
Eun^pe  in  general."J 

There  can  be  but  little  doubt,  for  instance,  that  the  assump- 
tion of  absolute  power  by  Philip  II.  himself,  was  owing  to 
the  progress  of  the  Reformation,  and  the  apprehensions  which 
its  turbulence  everywhere  generated  in  the  public  mind.  The 
Spanish  cortes,  so  remarkable  for  their  independent  spirit 
and  their  resistance  to  tyranny  in  the  good  old  Catholic  times, 
would  scarcely  have  so  readily  laid  down  their  beloved  and 
time-honored  privileges — or  Fueros — at  the  foot  of  his  throne, 
had  they  not  been  led  to  believe  that  the  arm  of  the  executive 
should  be  strengthened,  on  account  of  the  unsettled  condition 
of  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century.  They  feared  that  unless 
strong  measures  of  prevention  against  the  entrance  of  the 
new  doctrines  were  adopted  in  Spain,  it  would  become,  like 

*  We  know  of  but  one  exception  to  this  reinark;  and  this  is  in  the  case 
of  the  mild  sway  which  the  Roman  Pontiffs  have  held  over  their  small 
territory  for  more  than  a  thousand  years.  The  cliief  fault  of  the  papal 
government  is,  that  it  is  generally  too  lenient  and  paternal.  This  is  so  well 
understood,  that  a  mere  handful  of  tiery  revolutionists,  stimulated  by  foreign 
influence,  and  encouraged  by  the  hope  of  impunity  or  pardon,  can  there  so 
easily  succeed  in  stirring  up  civil  commotions ;  as  the  events  of  the  last  ten 
years  strikingly  prove.     The  lenity  of  the  Pontiff  is  abused  by  the  wicked. 

f  It  was  the  case  in  England,  Ireland,  Germany,  as  we  think  we  have 
already  sufficiently  shown,  and  it  was  so  afterwards  in  the  Netherlands  them- 
selves, as  we  shall  see.  Nor  can  Switzerland  and  Scotland,  where  the  new 
gospelers  boasted  most  of  their  freedom,  be  pleaded  as  exceptions  to  the 
general  rule.  As  we  have  already  proved,  the  freedom  which  the  Swiss 
and  Scottish  Protestants  claimed,  was  that  to  persecute  and  crush  out  all 
religions  opponents  by  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm,  to  which  they  were  them- 
selves wholly  subsei'vient. 

I  Lectures  on  Civilization,  etc.,  lect.  xiii,  p.  300,  American  edition,  in  one 
v^olume  12  mo. 


CHARACTER    OF   PHILIP    II.  313 

many  other  European  countries,  a  prey  to  internal  dissensions ; 
m  the  midst  of  which  the  monarchy,  towards  whicli  they 
cJierished  feelings  of  filial  reverence  and  veneration,  might 
be  weakened,  if  not  destroyed.  Accordingly,  we  find  that 
during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  while  otii'ir 
European  governments  declined  in  power,  because  distracted 
and  divided  by  civil  wars  originating  in  religious  dissensions, 
Spain,  united  under  one  strong  government  and  professing 
but  one  religion,  became  the  greatest  power  in  the  civilized 
world. 

It  can  scarcely  be  thought  that  so  sagacious  a  prince  as 
Philip  II.  was  not  fully  aware  of  this  obvious  political  tend- 
ency of  the  Reformation;  and  it  could  hardly  be  expected 
that  a  sovereign  so  stern  and  despotic  in  his  disposition  would 
look  with  unconcern  upon  the  inroads  which  the  new  gospelers 
were  making  into  his  wide-spread  dominions.  He  was  the 
most  powerful  monarch  of  his  time,  and,  unlike  his  father, 
he  was  a  Spaniard,  with  all  the  hereditary  feelings  of  his 
race,  both  religious  and  political,  strong  in  his  bosom. 

"  The  Romish  (!)  faith  may  be  said  to  have  entered  into  the  being  of  the 
Spaniard.  It  was  not  merely  cherished  as  a  form  of  religion,  but  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  honor.  It  was  part  of  the  national  history.  For  eight  centuries 
the  Spaniard  had  been  fighting  at  home  the  battles  of  the  Church.  Nearly 
every  inch  of  soil  in  his  own  country  was  won  by  arms  from  the  infidel. 
His  wars,  as  I  have  often  had  occasion  to  remark,  were  all  wars  of  religion. 
He  carried  the  same  spirit  across  »the  waters.  There  he  was  still  fighting 
the  infidel.  His  life  was  one  long  crusade.  How  could  this  champion  of 
the  Church  (Philip  II.)  desert  her  in  her  utmost  need?"* 

Regardless  of  the  lesson  taught  him  by  the  utter  failure  of 
his  father  to  repress  by  strong  measures  the  growth  of  the 
new  doctrines  in  the  Netherlands,  Philip  II.  decided  at  once 
to  become  the  determined  and  uncompromising  opponent  of 
the  Reformation,  and  even  to  stake  his  crown  on  the  result. 
He  came  to  this  resolution,  as  much  at  least  from  political  as 
from  religious  motives ;  the  two  sets  of  motives  seem,  in  fact, 

*  Prescott,  Philip  II.,  i,  472. 

VOL.  II. — 27 


314  REFORMATIO^    IN    THE    NETHERLANDS. 

to  lun^e  been  blended  into  one  in  his  mind.  Accoidingly,  he 
revived  the  edicts  of  his  father  fur  the  suppression  and  pun- 
ishment of  heresy,  and  for  the  re-establishment  of  the  inqui- 
Bition ;  and  he  ordered  tliat  henceforth  those  laws,  which  had 
been  so  long  inoperative,  should  be  strictly  executed.*  When 
his  Flemish  subjects  subsequently  rose  up  in  arms  in  conse- 
quence of  this  severity,  he,  while  consenting  that  the  inquisi- 
tion should  be  abolished  in  the  Netherlands,  and  that  their 
other  chief  grievances  should  be  redressed,  disclosed  his  stern 
sentiments  as  follows — according  to  our  historian  :  ""  He  de- 
precated fjrce,  as  that  would  involve  the  ruin  of  the  country. 
Still,  (if  after  his  concessions  they  would  not  submit)  he 
would  march  in  person,  without  regard  to  his  own  peril,  and 
employ  force,  though  it  should  cost  the  ruin  of  the  provinces, 
but  he  would  bring  his  vassals  to  submission.  For  he  would 
sooner  lose  a  hundred  lives,  and  every  rood  of  empire,  than 
reign  a  lord  over  heretics."! 

Again,  when  the  emperor  Maximilian  ventured  to  expostu- 
late with  him  on  the  horrid  cruelties  perpetrated  in  the 
Netherlands  by  his  lieutenant,  the  stern  duke  of  Alva,  he 
furnished  the  probable  key  to  his  entire  policy  in  the  reply 
he  made  to  his  imperial  relative :  "  What  I  have  done  has 
been  for  the  repose  of  the  provinces,  and  for  the  defense  of 
the  Catholic  faith.  If  I  had  respected  justice  less,  I  should 
have  dispatched  the  whole  business  in  a  single  day.  No  one 
acquainted  with  the  state  of  affairs  will  find  reason  to  censure 

*  Prescott  tells  us  that  he  revived  the  Edicts  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the 
language  of  his  father,  and  that  the  inquisition  which  he  re-established  was 
that  tribunal  which  Charles  had  established,  not  the  dreaded  Spanish  Inqui- 
sition, the  terrible  phantom  of  which  so  long  haunted  the  minds  and  imagi- 
nations of  the  Netherlanders  :  "Notwithstanding  the  name  of  "inquisitors," 
the  new  establishment  bore  faint  resemblance  to  the  dread  tribunal  of  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  with  which  it  has  been  often  confounded."    Vol.  i,  p.  377. 

+  Prescott,  Philip  II.,  vol.  ii,  p.  49.  Prescott  labors  to  prove,  that  Philip 
was  not  sincere  in  making  these  concessions,  but  only  granted  them  as  a 
temporary  expedient. 


HIS   WAR    WITH   THE   POPE.  315 

my  severity.  Nor  would  I  do  otherwise  tlian  I  have  done, 
though  I  should  risk  the  sovereignty  of  the  Netherlands — no, 
though  the  world  should  fall  in  ruins  around  me  !"* 

We  certainly  have  no  mission  to  defend  the  stern  policy  of 
Philip  IL,  much  less  the  barbarous  atrocities  of  Alva.  But 
it  would  not  be  fair  or  just,  to  hold  the  Church  responsible 
for  the  harsh  despotism  or  cruel  measures  of  Catholic  sover 
eigns,  even  though  these  should  set  themselves  up  as  hei 
chosen  champions,  and  should  profier  their  aid  for  the  extir- 
pation of  heresy.  Philip  II.,  though  a  strong  Catholic,  and 
though  he  occasionally  consulted  with  the  Pontiffs,  neverthe- 
less seems  to  have  followed  the  advice  of  the  latter,  only  when 
it  tallied  with  his  own  humor,  or  forwarded  his  own  interests. 
His  political  ambition  often  carried  it  over  his  religious  ortho- 
doxy. He  was  an  obedient  child  of  the  Church,  only,  or 
chiefly,  when  obedience  comported  with  his  inclinations,  or 
seemed  likely  to  promote  his  stern  and  despotic  policy.  His 
very  first  war  was  declared  and  waged  with  fierceness  against 
the  Pope.f     In  this,  he  seems  to  have  inherited  the  spirit  of 

*  Prescott,  Philip  IL,  vol.  ii,  p.  235. — There  was  a  touch  of  the  sublime  in 
this  stern  attitude.  Prescott  gives  us,  as  usual,  the  original  Spanish  of 
the  dispatch,  which  he  remarks  is  almost  a  literal  version  from  Horace's 

"justum  et  tenacem  :" — 

"  Si  fractus  illabatur  orbis  : — 
Impavidum  ferient  ruinte." 

f  See  a  full  account  of  it  in  Prescott's  first  volume.  He  thinks  that  the 
Pontiff  was  the  aggressor,  and  that  the  war  was  forced  on  Philip.  The 
facts  and  authorities,  however,  which  he  alleges,  scarcely  prove  this.  Speak- 
mg  of  Philip,  he  says  :  "From  his  position,  Philip  stood  at  the  head  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  princes.  He  was  in  temporal  matters  what  the  Pope  was 
in  spiritual.  In  the  existing  state  of  Christendom,  he  had  the  same  interest 
as  the  Pope  in  putting  down  that  spirit  of  religious  reform  which  had  begun 
to  show  itself,  in  public  or  in  private,  in  every  corner  of  Europe.  He  was 
the  natural  ally  of  the  Pope.  He  understood  this  well,  and  would  have 
acted  on  it.  Yet,  strange  to  say,  his  very  first  war,  after  his  accession,  wan 
with  the  Pope  himself.    It  was  a  war  not  of  Philip's  seeking." — Vol.  i,  p.  146. 

Now,  it  appears  from  the  facts,  even  as  alleged  by  Prescott  himself,  that 
Pope  Paul  IV. — formerly  Caraffa,  not  a  Venitian,  as  Mackintosh    mistakes 


316  REFORMATION    IN   THE    NETHERLANDS. 

his  father,  who  had  not  only  gone  to  war  with  the  Pope,  but 
had  sent  a  body  of  fierce  Lutherans  under  the  command  of 
the  reckless  Constable  De  Bourbon,  to  storm  Rome,  to  des- 
poil and  sack  it  worse  than  it  had  ever  been  sacked  by  Goth 
or  Vandal,  and  to  scatter  its  religious  and  classic  glories  to 
the  winds.  Nay  more,  he  had  seized  on  the  venerable  person 
of  the  Pontiff  himself,  and  held  him  a  close  prisoner,  until  he 
was  compelled  by  political  motives  to  release  him  ! 

Still  less  is  the  Church   fairly  responsible  for  the  alleged 
horrors  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  under  Philip  II.  in  Spain, 

(in  his  History  of  England),  but  a  Neapolitan — really  wished  to  have  the 
Spaniards  driven  from  Naples,  and  entered  into  an  alliance  with  France  for 
this  purpose ;  but  that  Alva,  Philip's  lieutenant  in  Naples,  actually  began 
hostilities. — Ibid.,  p.  166.  The  desire  of  the  PontiflF  to  have  the  Spaniards 
driven  out  of  Italy,  where  they  clearly  had  little  or  rather  no  right  to  hold 
sway,  was  natural  enough.  Foreigners  to  the  Italian  soil,  whether  Spaniards, 
French,  or  Austrians,  have  always  been  the  bane  of  Italy  ;  and  the  Pontiifs, 
as  the  oldest  and  most  influential  of  the  Italian  princes,  were  naturally  op- 
posed to  all  this  foreign  domination  ;  and  they  had  struggled  against  it  for 
centuries.  Paul  IV.,  'though  a  very  austere  and  holy  man,  as  Prescott  does 
not  deny,  was  still  an  Italian  prince,  of  the  fiery  Neapolitan  temperament — 
somewhat  Vesuvian ;  and  it  is  barely  possible,  that  he  may  have  spoken 
words  to  indicate  a  strong  wish — not  "  sworn  "  as  Prescott  says — "  to  drive 
the  barbarians  from  Italy."  Alva's  manifesto,  before  beginning  the  war,  was 
a  piece  of  dignified  bravado  and  sham  ;  and  his  procedure  after  capturing  the 
Papal  towns — putting  up  a  scutcheon  "  with  a  placard  announcing  that  he 
held  it  only  for  the  college  (of  cardinals),  until  the  election  of  a  new  Pon- 
tiff"— was  evidently  a  political  manoeuver  for  "exciting  feelings  of  distrust  be- 
tween the  Pope  arid  the  cardinals." — (See  Ibid.,  p.  168.)  Philip  had  previously 
threatened  to  have  a  general  council  convened,  in  order  to  have  the  Pontiff 
deposed,  and  a  new  one,  more  pliant  to  his  stern  policy,  elected.  All  honor, 
say  we,  as  Americans,  to  the  aged,  yet  "fiery,"  but  certainly  patriotic  Caraffa. 
(he  was  over  eighty),  for  seeking  to  drive  the  "barbarians  "  out  of  Italy  ;  whethei 
these  were  Spaniards,  French,  or  Germans !  All  honor  to  him,  especially, 
for  daring  openly  to  brave  the  mighty  Philip  II.,  the  most  powerful  sover- 
eign of  Europe.  The  warfare,  as  it  was  conducted,  was  almost  all  on  one 
Bide.  Alva's  veterans  overran  the  Papal  territory  with  little  or  very  slight 
opposition.  It  was  the  war  of*  a  giant  with  a  feeble  old  man,  whose  soul 
was,  however,  much  greater  than  that  of  his  adversary. 


CASE    OF   CARANZA.  317 

or  for  the  stern  purpose  which  was  attributed  to  him,  of  in- 
troduciug  this  dread  tribunal  into  the  Netherlands**  How 
little  the  imperious  monarch  really  cared  for  the  opposition 
of  the  Pope,  or  even  for  that  of  the  whole  Catholic  Church, 
was  rendered  quite  apparent  to  the  world  in  the  memorable 
case  of  Caranza,  archbishop  of  Toledo  and  primate  of  Spain. 
On  the  22d  of  August,  1559,  this  venerable  man  was  dragged 
from  his  bed,  at  the  hour  of  midnight,  by  the  emissaries  of 
the  Inquisition,  who  conducted  him  to  the  prisons  of  the  ter- 
rible tribunal  at  Valladolid.  There  he  was  kept  in  close  con- 
finement for  two  years,  under  the  suspicion  of  heresy.  At 
first,  he  was  afraid  to  appeal  to  the  Pope,  with  whom  Philip 
had  been  so  lately  at  war ;  and  this  apprehension  continued 
even  after  he  had  learned  the  news  of  the  death  of  Paul  IV., 
Philip's  late  antagonist.^  So  little  safety  was  there  in  Spain, 
at  this  particular  epoch,  even  for  the  highest  dignitaries  of 
the  Church,  and  even  for  men  who,  like  Caranza,  had  before 
stood  highest  in  the  royal  confidence,  if  the  mere  imputa- 
tion of  heresy  happened  to  be  fastened  on  them  by  the  officials 
of  the  Inquisition  !     Says  Preseott : 

"  At  length  the  Council  of  Trent  (then  in  session)  sharing  in  the  indigna- 
tion of  the  rest  of  Christendom,  called  on  Philip  to  interfere  in  his  behalf 
and  to  remove  the  cause  to  another  tribunal.  But  the  king  gave  little  heed 
to  the  remonstrance,  which  the  inquisitors  treated  as  a  presumptuous  inter- 
ference (!)  with  their  authority." J 

*  Philip,  during  the  early  part  of  his  reign — in  1561 — after  having  first 
sought  and  obtained  the  sanction  of  the  Pontiff,  carried  out  his  measure — "in 
itself  a  good  one,  and  demanded  by  the  situation  of  the  country  " — of  ad- 
ding thirteen  new  bishoprics  to  the  four  previously  existing  in  the  Nether- 
lands. The  change  was,  however,  regarded  with  suspicion,  "as  part  of  a 
great  scheme  for  introducing  the  Spanish  Inquisition  into  the  Netherlands." 
"  However  erroneous  these  conclusions,"  Preseott  continues,  "  there  is  little 
reason  to  doubt  they  were  encouraged  by  those  who  knew  their  fallacy." — 
Vol.  i,  p.  496-7. — There  were  politicians,  it  would  seem,  in  those  days 
very  similar  to  our  own. 

f  This  PontifiF  died  on  the  18th  of  August,  1559,  four  days  before  the 
arrest  of  Caranza.  |  Preseott,  Philip  II.,  vol.  i,  p.  441. 


318  REFORMATION    IN   THE    NETHERLANDS. 

And  it  was  only  after  a  rigid  confinement  of  seven  years, 
and  after  Pope  St.  Pius  V. — himself  a  Dominican  like  Ca- 
ranza — had  "  menaced  both  king  and  inquisitor  with  excom 
munication,"  that  the  prisoner  was  at  length  released  and  sent 
under  a  guard  to  Rome  !* 

Thouffh  an  obedient  son  of  the  Church,  when  it  suited  hia 
purpose,  Philip  made  no  scruple  of  warring  with  the  Pope, 
even  in  matters  which  seemed  clearly  to  belong  to  the  sphere 
of  the  papal  prerogative.  In  Spain,  as  well  as  in  his  Italian 
dominions,!  he  claimed  and  exercised  the  right  of  nominating 
to  the  vacant  bishoprics  and  benefices  in  spite  of  the  papal 
protest.  He  evidently  wished  to  keep  the  bishops  and  clergy 
wholly  subservient  to  himself;  and  thus,  without  encroaching 
precisely  on  the  domain  of  faith  or  denying  the  Primacy  of 
the  Holy  See,  to  rule  supreme  both  in  Church  and  State. 

"  There  was  no  more  effectual  way  to  secure  his  favor,  than  to  show  a 
steady  resistance  to  the  usurpations  (!)  of  Rome.  It  was  owing,  in  part  at 
least,  to  the  refusal  of  Quiroga,  the  bishop  of  Cuen^a,  to  publish  a  papal 
bull  without  the  royal  assent,  that  he  was  raised  to  the  highest  dignity  in 
the  kingdom,  as  archbishop  of  Toledo.  Philip  chose  to  have  a  suitable 
acknowledgment  from  the  person  on  whom  he  bestowed  a  fiivor ;  and  once 
when  an  ecclesiastic,  whom  he  had  made  a  bishop,  went  to  take  possession 
of  his  see  without  first  expressing  his  gratitude,  the  king  sent  for  him  back, 
to  remind  him  of  his  duty.  Such  an  acknowledgment  was  in  the  nature 
of  an  homage  rendered  to  his  master  on  his  preferment.  Thus  gratitude 
for  the  past  and  hopes  for  the  future  were  the  strong  ties  which  bound 
every  prelate  to  his  sovereign.  In  a  difference  with  the  Roman  See,  the 
Castilian  churchman  was  sure  to  be  found  on  the  side  of  his  sovereign, 
rather  than  on  that  of  the  Pontiff.  In  his  own  troubles,  in  like  manner,  it 
was  to  the  king,  and  not  to  the  Pope,  that  he  was  to  turn  for  relief  The 
king,  on  the  other  hand,  when  pressed  by  those  embarrassments  with  which 

*  Philip  yielded  with  great  reluctance  ;  while  the  grand  inquisitor  Val- 
dez,  "  loth  to  lose  his  prey,  would  have  defied  the  power  of  Rome,  as  he 
had  done  that  of  the  Council  of  Trent." — Prescott,  Philip  II.,  vol.  i,  p.  442. 

f  He  held  the  duchy  of  Milan  in  the  north,  as  well  as  the  kingdom  of 
Naples  and  Sicily  in  the  south.  His  claim  to  nominate  to  vacant  benefices 
in  his  Ihilian  possessions  was  strongly  but  vainly  resisted  by  Pope  St.  Pius  V., 
who  seems  to  have  yielded  only  for  fear  of  greater  evils. — Ibid.,  vol.  u\ 
page  445. 


CHU:  CH    NOT   KESPONSIBLE.  319 

he  was  too  often  surrounded,  looked  for  aid  to  the  clergy,  who  for  the  most 
part  rendered  it  cheerfully  and  in  liberal  measure.  Nowhere  were  the 
clergy  so  heavily  burdened  as  in  Spain.  It  was  computed  that  at  least  one- 
third  of  their  revenues  was  given  to  the  king. — Thus  completely  were  the 
different  orders,  both  spiritual  and  temporal,  throughout  the  monarchy, 
under  the  control  of  the  sovereign."* 

This  is  another  remarkable  instance  of  a  great  truth,  which 
strikes  us  in  all  modern  history ;  that  royal  encroachment  on 
the  liberty  of  the  Church  is  usually  accompanied  with  or  fol- 
lowed by  the  weakening,  if  not  the  destruction  of  political 
freedom,  which  generally  marches  hand  in  hand  with  its 
twin-sister,  religious  liberty.  The  most  despotic  monarchs  of 
Europe  were  those  precisely,  who  resisted  most  persistently 
and  successfully  the  authority  of  the  Popes  and  of  the  Church. 
.Fhilip  11.  was  a  man  of  far  more  steady  morals  and  of  much 
better  princij)les  than  Henry  VIII.,  but  if  he  was  not  so 
ruthless  a  tyrant  as  his  English  brother,  it  was  mainly  be- 
cause he  did  not  so  fully  enslave  the  Church  of  God,  and 
because  he  still  retained,  along  with  the  belief  in  the  Primacy 
of  the  Pope,  some  wholesome  apprehension  of  the  dread 
thunders  of  the  Vatican.f 

And  yet  this  is  the  man,  who  is  constantly  held  up  to  our 
view  by  a  certain  class  of  modern  popular  historians,  as  the 
fittest  representative  of  the  Catholic  principle,  and  as  the 
Church's  chosen  champion  in  the  sixteenth  century!  And 
the  Church  which  he  enslaved,  and  the  Popes  with  whom  he 

*  Prescott,  Philip  II.,  vol.  iii,  pp.  446-7.  In  thus  usurping  the  right  to 
control  the  nominations  to  Church  dignities,  Philip  did  but  follow  the  example 
set  him  by  his  father,  Charles  V.,  of  whom  Prescott  writes :  "  Thus  in 
time  the  sovereign  claimed  the  right  of  nominating  all  the  higher  clergy." — 
Ibid.,  vol.  i,  page  365. 

f  We  do  not  wish  to  be  understood,  as  here  instituting  a  comparison 
between  these  two  sovereigns  in  any  thing  else  except  in  their  absolutism. 
Both  a.s  a  man  and  a  sovereign,  and  particularly  in  his  moral  character, 
Philip  was  a  saint  when  compared  with  the  English  monster ; — viewing  the 
former  even  in  the  unfavorable  light  in  which  our  great  American  historias 
presents  him. 


320  REFORMATION    IN   THE    NETHERLANDS. 

warred,  are  still  to  be  held  responsible  for  his  despotic,  if  not 
cruel  administration !  This  is  historic  justice,  after  the  modern 
Protestant  type ! 

"We  confess  that  we  have  never  entertained  any  partiality 
for  the  political  character  of  Philip  IL*  We  loathe  despotism 
wherever  we  find  it,  whether  the  despot  be  Catholic  or  Prot- 
estant. And  in  the  long  contest  between  the  Netherlands 
and  the  Spanish  monarch,  our  sympathies  have  always  been 
enlisted  in  favor  of  the  former.  Philip  had  succeeded  in 
destroying  all  political  liberty  in  Spain ;  he  signally  failed 
in  the  attempt  to  destroy  it  in  the  Netherlands.  The  sturdy 
and  prosperous  burghers,  who  inhabited  the  wealthy  provinces 
composing  this  portion  of  his  dominions,  could  illy  brook  the 
violation  of  those  ancient  liberties,  which  had  come  down  to 
them  unimpaired  from  the  good  old  Catholic  middle  ages ;  a 
period  when  people  were  fortunately  not  yet  sufiiciently 
enlightened,  to  relish  the  more  modern  luxury  of  absolute 
monarchies  upheld  by  vast  standing  armies ! 

Each  province  of  the  Netherlands  had  its  own  special 
franchises  and  its  own  local  deliberative  assemblies;  while 

*  With  all  his  despotism,  Philip  had  some  great  and  noble  qualities. 
He  was  grand  in  his  views,  sober  in  victory,  and  imperturbable  in  misfor- 
tune. When  intelligence  of  the  miscarriage  and  almost  total  loss  of  the 
Invincible  Armada  reached  him,  he  changed  not  a  muscle  nor  twitched  a 
nerve,  but  calmly  thanked  God  that  he  was  able  with  his  resources  to  equip 
another !  He  seems  to  have  generally  acted,  with  stern  tenacity,  on  what 
he  believed  to  be  principle.  As  the  consort  of  Mary  of  England,  he  appears 
to  have  complied  faithfully  with  the  stipulations  of  the  treaty  drawn  up  by 
Gardiner  for  securing  English  independence.  Throughout  his  life,  in  fact, 
he  seems  to  have  been  habitually  governed  by  conscience.  As  monarchs 
went,  in  his  days,  he  was  probably  more  than  ordinarily  moral  and  religiousi 
in  his  conduct  and  deportment.  The  most  poignant  grief  of  his  heart  was 
no  doubt  the  imbecility  or  raging  insanity  of  his  son  and  presumptive  heir, 
Don  Carlos ;  but  there  is  no  satisfactory  evidence  that  he  had  any,  at  least 
direct  agency  in  the  early  death  of  Carlos.  He  was  naturally  reserved  and 
stern,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  was  wantonly  cruel.  His  enemies 
generally  exaggerated  or  fabricated  his  fiiults,  and  concealed  his  virtues; 
thus  deepening  the  shades  and  striking  out  the  lights  of  his  portrait 


THE   STRUGGLE   BEGINS.  321 

the  whole  confederation  was  controlled  by  a  general  congress, 
called  that  of  the  States  General.  Centralization  of  power, 
with  merely  nominal  and  down-trodden  parliaments,  were 
hitherto  happily  almost  unknown  to  them.  Throughout  the 
reign  of  their  beloved  Charles  V.,  they  had  struggled  steadily 
for,  and  had  substantially  maintained  their  original  rights. 
Tlie  contest  waxed  fiercer  still  under  his  successor,  Philip  II.; 
until  it  finally  broke  out  into  actual  rebellion,  and  resulted, 
after  many  vicissitudes,  in  a  part  of  the  provinces  throwing 
off  entirely  the  Spanish  yoke,  and  securing  their  independence 
from  all  foreign  control.  And  but  for  the  truculent  fanaticism 
of  the  Protestant  party,  the  whole  of  the  country  would  have 
become  independent  of  Spain.  This  we  shall  show  in  the  sequel. 
During  the  earlier  period  of  this  memorable  struggle  the 
Catholics  took  as  active  a  part  against  Philip,  as  did  the 
Protestants.  The  Catholic  nobles  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder 
in  the  contest  with  those  who  were  suspected  to  be  favorable 
to  the  new  opinions,  or  were  open  advocates  of  them;  and 
the  former  heartily  joined  with  the  latter  in  protesting  against 
the  execution  of  the  renewed  edicts  against  the  new  religion- 
ists, as  well  as  against  the  re-establishment  of  the  Flemish 
inquisition.  In  the  general  objects  of  the  successive  popular 
movements,  designated  respectively  as  the  Compromise  and 
the  Confederacy,  they  heartily  sympathized  with  their  non- 
Catholic  brethren ;  though  they  did  not  go  to  the  extremes 
into  which  Brederode  and  the  more  radical  leaders  of  the 
movement  were  precipitated,  nor  did  they  choose  to  join 
in  the  maddening  popular  shout  of  this  faction — "Yivent 

LES    GUEUX!"* 

*  "  Long  live  the  beggars ! "  Prescott  gives  us  an  interesting  account 
of  the  origin  of  this  celebrated  party-cry  (vol.  ii,  p.  12,  seqq.).  It  arose  from 
the  circumstance,  that  when  Margaret  of  Parma,  the  regent  of  the  Nether- 
lands, expressed  her  apprehensions  at  the  meeting  of  the  Confederates,  Bar- 
laimont,  her  prime  minister,  re-assured  her,  and  declared  that  no  danger  waa 
to  be  apprehended,  as  "they  were  nothing  but  beggars."  This  remark  waa 
overheard,  and  hence  what  was  meant  as  a  reproach  was  taken  up  by  the 
leaders  as  a  stirring  motto  for  rallying  the  multitude. 


322  REFORMATION    IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

If  their  patriotic  feelings  in  favor  of  what  they  considered 
the  national  cause  were  subsequently  greatly  cooled  down,  it 
was  owing  to  the  horrible  excesses  in  which  the  radical  section 
of  the  Protestant  party  indulged;  even  after  the  excellent 
and  able  regent — Margaret  of  Parma — had  already  favorably 
received  the  petition  for  redress  of  grievances  which  the 
Confederates  had  presented,  and  after  she  had  promised  to 
use  her  influence  with  her  royal  brother  to  have  all  their 
reasonable  demands  granted.*  Whether  there  was  hope  or 
.not,  that  Philip  would  finally  acquiesce  in  the  earnestly  ex- 
pressed wishes  of  the  regent,  they  should  surely  have  had  a 
little  patience  and  awaited  his  decision.  But  they  did  ncit 
choose  to  wait.  They  temporarily  injured  their  own  cause 
by  precipitating  matters,  and  by  a  course  of  disgraceful  vio- 
lence, the  particulars  of  which  we  shall  be  pardoned  for 
borrowing,  at  some  length,  from  our  American  historian,  who 
furnishes  the  details  with  his  usual  graphic  elegance.f  It 
will  be  seen  that  he  tells  the  whole  story  of  the  rise  and 
early  progress  of  the  Reformation  in  the  Netherlands,  with 
its  various  agencies,  its  violence,  and  its  popular  tumults : — 

"While  Philip  was  thus  tardily  coming  to  concessions,  which  even  th'm 
were  not  sincere,]:  an  important  crisis  had  arrived  in  the  affiiirs  of  the  Neth- 
erlands. In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  troubles,  all  orders,  the  nobles,  the  com- 
mons, even  the  regent,  had  united  in  the  desire  to  obtain  the  removal  of 
certain  abuses,  especially  the  inquisition  and  edicts.  But  this  movement,  in 
which  the  Catholic  joined  with  the  Protestant,  had  far  less  reference  to  the 
interests  of  religion  than  to  the  personal  rights  of  the  individual.  Under 
the  protection  thus  afforded,  however,  the  Reformation  struck  deep  root  in 
the  soil.  It  flourished  still  more  under  the  favor  shown  to  it  by  the  confed- 
erates, who,  as  we  have  seen,  did  not  scruple  to  guaranty  security  of  religious 
worship  to  some  of  the  sectaries  who  demanded  it. 

"  But  the  element  which  contributed  most  to  the  success  of  the  new  re- 
ligion was  the  public  preachings.  These  in  the  Netherlands  were  what  the 
Jacobin  clubs  were  in  France,  or  the  secret  societies  in  Germany  and  Italy,— 


♦  By  a  curious  mfstake,  Alzog  in  his  Church  History  calls  Margaret  the 
sister  of  Charles  V.  (p.  585,  sup.  cit.)  She  was  his  natural  daughter  by  a 
noble  Flemish  mother,  and  was  therefore  the  half-sister  of  Philip  II. 

■V  Prescott,  Philip  II.,  vol.  ii,  p.  52,  seqq.  J  So  he  thinka 


THE   ICONOCLASTS.  323 

an  obvious  means  for  bringing  together  such  as  were  pledged  to  a  common 
hostility  to  existing  institutions,  and  thus  affording  them  an  opportunity  for 
consulting  on  their  grievances,  and  for  concerting  the  best  means  of  redress. 
The  direct  object  of  these  meetings,  it  is  true,  was  to  listen  to  the  teachings 
of  the  minister.  But  that  functionary,  far  from  confining  himself  to  spiritual 
exercises,  usually  wandered  to  more  exciting  themes,  as  the  corruptions  of 
the  Church  and  the  condition  of  the  land.  He  rarely  failed  to  descant  on 
the  forlorn  circumstances  of  himself  and  his  flock,  condemned  thus  stealthily 
to  herd  together  like  a  band  of  outlaws,  with  ropes,  as  it  were,  about  their 
necks,  and  to  seek  out  some  solitary  spot  in  which  to  glorify  the  Lord,  while 
their  enemies,  in  all  the  pride  of  a  dominant  religion,  could  offer  up  their 
devotions  openly  and  without  fear,  in  magnificent  temples. 

"  The  preacher  inveighed  bitterly  against  the  richly  beneficed  clergy  of  the 
rival  Church,  whose  lives  of  pampered  ease  too  often  furnished  an  indifferent 
commentary  on  the  doctrines  they  inculcated.  His  wrath  was  kindled  by 
the  pompous  ceremonial  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  so  dazzling  and  attractive 
to  its  votaries,  but  which  the  reformer  sourly  contrasted  with  the  naked  sim- 
plicity of  the  Protestant  services.  Of  all  abominations,  however,  the  greatest 
in  his  eyes  was  the  worship  (!)  of  images,  which  he  compared  to  the  idolatry 
that  in  ancient  times  had  so  often  brought  down  the  vengeance  of  Jehovah 
on  the  nations  of  Palestine ;  and  he  called  on  his  hearers,  not  merely  to  re- 
move idolatry  from  their  hearts,  but  the  idols  from  their  sight.  It  was  not 
wonderful  that,  thus  stimulated  by  their  spiritual  leaders,  the  people  should 
be  prepared  for  scenes  similar  to  those  enacted  by  the  reformers  in  France 
and  Scotland ;  or  that  Margaret,  aware  of  the  popular  feeling,  should  have 
predicted  such  an  outbreak.  At  length  it  came,  and  on  a  scale  and  with 
a  degree  of  violence  not  surpassed  either  by  the  Huguenots  or  the  disciples 
of  Knox. 

"  On  the  fourteenth  of  August,  the  day  before  the  festival  of  the  Assump- 
tion of  the  Virgin,  a  mob  some  three  hundred  in  number,  .armed  with  clubs, 
axes,  and  other  implements  of  destruction,  broke  into  the  churches  around 
St.  Omer,  in  the  province  of  Flanders,  overturned  the  images,  defaced  the 
ornaments,  and  in  a  short  time  demolished  whatever  had  any  value  or 
beauty  in  the  buildings.  Growing  bolder  from  the  impunity  which  attended 
their  movements,  they  next  proceeded  to  Ypres,  and  had  the  audacity  to 
break  into  the  cathedral,  and  deal  with  it  in  the  same  ruthless  manner. 
Strengthened  by  the  accession  of  other  miscreants  from  the  various  towns, 
they  proceeded  along  the  banks  of  the  Lys,  and  fell  upon  the  churches  of 
Menin,  Comines,  and  other  places  on  its  borders.  The  excitement  now 
spread  over  the  country.  Everywhere  the  populace  was  m  arms.  Churches, 
chapels,  ai  d  convents  were  involved  in  indiscriminate  ruin.  The  storm,  afler 
sweeping  over  Flanders,  and  desolating  the  flourishing  cities  of  Valenciennes 


324        REFORMATION  IN  THE  NETHERLANDS. 

and  Tournay,  descended  on  Brabant.     Antw^erp,  the  great  commercial  capi 
tal  of  the  country,  was  its  first  mark. 

"  The  usual  population  of  the  town  happened  to  be  swelled  at  this  time  by 
the  influx  of  strangers  from  the  neighboring  country,  who  had  come  up  to 
celebrate  the  great  festival  of  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin.  Fortunately, 
the  Prince  of  Orange  was  in  the  place,  and  by  his  presence  prevented  any 
molestation  to  the  procession,  except  what  arose  from  the  occasional  groans 
and  hisses  of  the  more  zealous  spectators  among  the  Protestants.  The 
priests,  however,  on  their  return,  had  the  discretion  to  deposit  the  image  in 
the  chapel,  instead  of  the  conspicuous  station  usually  assigned  to  it  in  the 
cathedral,  to  receive  there  during  the  coming  week  the  adoration  (!)  of  the 
faithful. 

"  On  the  following  day,  unluckily,  the  prince  was  recalled  to  Brussels.  In 
the  evening  some  boys,  who  had  found  their  way  into  the  church,  called  out 
to  the  Virgin,  demanding  '  why  little  Mary  had  gone  so  early  to  her  nest, 
and  whether  she  were  afraid  to  show  her  face  in  public' (!!).  This  was  fol- 
lowed by  one  of  the  party  mounting  into  the  pulpit,  and  there  mimicking 
the  tones  and  gestures  of  the  Catholic  preacher.  An  honest  waterman  who 
was  present,  a  zealous  son  of  the  Church,  scandalized  by  this  insult  to  his 
religion,  sprang  into  the  pulpit,  and  endeavored  to  dislodge  the  usurper. 
The  lad  resisted.  His  comrades  came  to  his  rescue :  and  a  struggle  ensued, 
which  ended  in  both  parties  being  expelled  from  the  building  by  the  officers. 
This  scandalous  proceeding,  it  may  be  thought,  should  have  put  the  magis- 
trates of  the  city  on  their  guard,  and  warned  them  to  take  some  measures 
of  defense  for  the  cathedral.     But  the  admonition  was  not  heeded. 

"On  the  following  day,  a  considerable  number  of  the  reformed  party 
entered  the  building,  and  were  allowed  to  continue  there  after  vespers,  when 
the  rest  of  the  congregation  had  withdrawn.  Left  in  possession,  their  first 
act  was  to  break  forth  into  one  of  the  Psalms  of  David.  The  sound  of  their 
own  voices  seemed  to  rouse  them  to  fury.  Before  the  chant  had  died  away, 
they  rushed  forward,  as  by  a  common  impulse,  broke  open  the  doors  of  the 
chapel,  and  dragged  forth  the  image  of  the  Virgin.  Some  called  on  her  to 
cry  '  Vivent  les  Oaeux ! '  while  others  tore  oflF  her  embroidered  robes,  and 
rolled  the  dumb  idol  in  the  dust,  amidst  the  shouts  of  the  spectators. 

"  This  was  the  signal  for  havoc.  The  rioters  dispersed  in  all  directions 
on  the  work  of  destruction.  Nothing  escaped  their  rage.  High  above  the 
great  altar  was  an  image  of  the  Saviour,  curiously  carved  in  wood,  and 
placed  between  the  effigies  of  the  two  thieves  crucified  with  him.  The  mob 
contrived  to  get  a  rope  round  the  neck  of  the  statue  of  Christ,  and  dragged 
it  to  the  ground.  They  then  fell  upon  it  with  hatchets  and  hammers, 
and  it  was  soon  broken  into  a  hundred  fragments.  •  The  two  thieves,  it 
was    remarked,  were  spared,  as  if  to    preside  over    the   work  of  rapine 


AWFUL    DESOLATION.  325 

below ! " — (An  admirable  satire,  this,  on  the  destructive  zeal  of  these  new 
gospelers !) 

"  Their  fury  now  turned  against  the  other  statues,  which  were  quickly 
overthrown  fi-om  their  pedestals.  The  paintings  that  lined  the  walls  of  the 
cathedral  were  cut  into  s-hreds.  Many  of  these  were  the  choicest  specimens 
of  Flemish  art,  even  then,  in  its  dawn,  giving  promise  of  the  glorious  day, 
which  was  to  shed  a  luster  over  the  land. 

"  But  the  pride  of  the  cathedral,  and  of  Antwerp,  was  the  great  organ, 
renowned  throughout  the  Netherlands,  not  more  for  its  dimensions  than  its 
perfect  workmanship.  With  their  ladders  the  rioters  scaled  the  lofty  fabric, 
and  with  their  iniuk'nients  soon  converted  it,  like  all  else  they  laid  their 
hands  on,  into  a  heap  of  rubbish. 

"The  ruin  was  now  universal.  Nothing  beautiful,  nothing  holy,  was 
spared.  The  altars — and  there  were  no  less  than  seventy  in  the  vast  edi- 
fice— were  overthrown  one  after  another ;  their  richly-embroidered  coverings 
rudely  rent  away ;  their  gold  and  silver  vessels  appropriated  by  the  plunder- 
ers. The  sacramental  bread  was  trodden  under  foot ;  the  wine  was  quaffed 
by  the  miscreants,  in  golden  chalices,  to  the  health  of  one  another,  or  of  the 
Gueux ;  and  the  holy  oil  was  profanely  used  to  anoint  their  shoes  and  san- 
dals. The  sculptured  tracery  on  the  walls,  the  costly  oiferings  that  enriched 
the  shrines,  the  screens  of  gilded  bronze,  the  delicately  carved  wood-work 
of  the  pulpit,  the  marble  and  alabaster  ornaments,  all  went  down  under  the 
fierce  blows  of  the  Iconoclasts.  The  pavement  was  strewed  with  the  ruined 
splendors  of  a  church,  which  in  size  and  magnificence  was  perhaps  second 
only  to  St.  Peter's  among  the  churches  of  Christendom. 

"  As  the  light  of  day  faded,  the  assailants  supplied  its  place  with  such 
light  as  they  could  obtain  from  the  candles  which  they  snatched  from  the 
altars.  It  was  midnight  before  the  work  of  destruction  was  completed. 
Thus  toiling  in  darkness,  feebly  dispelled  by  tapers,  the  rays  of  which  could 
scarcely  penetrate  the  vaulted  distances  of  the  cathedral,  it  is  a  curious 
circumstance — if  true — that  no  one  was  injured  by  the  heavy  masses  of  tim- 
ber, stone,  and  metal  that  Avere  everywhere  fixUing  around  them.  The  whole 
number  engaged  in  this  work  is  said  not  to  have  exceeded  a  hundred  men, 
women,  and  boys — women  of  the  lowest  description,  dressed  in  men's  attire. 

"When  their  task  was  completed,  they  sallied  forth  in  a  body  from  the 
doors  of  the  cathedral,  some  singing  the  Psalms  of  David,  others  roaring 
out  the  fanatical  war-cry  of  'Vivent  les  Guetjx  !'  Flushed  with  success 
and  joined  on  the  way  by  stragglers  like  themselves,  they  burst  open  the 
doors  of  one  church  after  another ;  and  by  the  time  morning  broke,  the 
principal  temples  in  the  city  had  been  dealt  with  in  the  same  ruthless  man- 
ner as  the  cathedral , 

"  No  attempt  all  this  time  was  made  to  stop  these  proceedings,  on  the 
62 


326  REFORMATION    IN   THE    NETHERLANDS. 

part  of  mao-istrates  or  citizens.  As  they  behold  from  their  windows  th« 
bodies  of  armed  men  hurrying  to  and  fro  by  the  gleam  of  their  torches,  and 
listened  to  the  sounds  of  violence  in  the  distance,  they  seem  to  have  been 
struck  with  a  panic.  The  Catholics  remained  within  doors,  fearing  a  general 
rising  of  the  Protestants.  The  Protestants  feared  to  move  abroad,  lest  they 
should  be  confounded  with  the  rioters.  Some  imagined  their  own  turn 
might  come  next,  and  appeared  in  arms  at  the  entrance  of  their  houses, 
prepared  to  defend  them  against  the  enemy. 

"  When  gorged  with  the  plunder  of  the  city,  the  insurgents  poured  out  at 
the  gates,  and  fell  with  the  same  violence  on  the  churches,  convents,  and 
other  religious  edifices  in  the  suburbs.  For  three  days  these  dismal  scenes 
continued,  without  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants.  Amidst  the 
ruin  in  the  cathedral,  the  mob  had  alone  spared  the  ro3'al  arms  and  the 
escutcheons  of  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  emblazoned  on  the  walls. 
Calling  this  to  mind,  they  now  returned  into  the  city  to  complete  the  work, 
But  some  of  the  knights,  who  were  at  Antwerp,  collected  a  handful  of  their 
followers,  and,  with  a  few  of  the  citizens,  forced  their  way  into  the  cathe- 
dral, arrested  ten  or  twelve  of  the  rioters,  and  easily  dispersed  the  remainder ; 
while  a  gallows  erected  on  an  eminence  admonished  the  oflenders  of  the 
fate  that  awaited  them.  The  facility  with  which  the  disorders  were  repressed 
by  a  few  resolute  men  naturally  suggests  the  inference,  that  many  of  the 
citizens  had  too  much  sympathy  with  the  authors  of  the  outrages  to  care  to 
check  them,  still  less  to  bring  the  culprits  to  punishment.  An  orthodox 
chronicler  of  the  time  vents  his  indignation  against  a  people  who  were  so 
much  more  ready  to  stand  by  their  hearths  than  by  their  altars. 

"  The  fate  of  Antwerp  had  its  effect  on  the  country.  The  tiames  of 
fanaticism,  burning  fiercer  than  ever,  quickly  spread  over  the  northern,  as 
they  had  done  over  the  western  provinces.  In  Holland,  Utrecht,  Friesland, 
— everywhere,  in  short,  with  a  few  exceptions  on  the  southern  borders, — 
mobs  rose  against  the  churches.  In  some  places,  as  Rotterdam,  Dort,  Haar- 
lem, the  magistrates  were  wary  enough  to  avert  the  storm  by  delivering  up 
the  images,  or  at  least  by  removing  them  from  the  buildings.  It  was  rare 
that  any  attempt  was  made  at  resistance.  Yet  on  one  or  two  occasions  this 
so  far  succeeded  that  a  handful  of  troops  sufficed  to  rout  the  Iconoclasts. 
At  Auchyn,  four  hundred  of  the  rabble  were  left  dead  on  the  field.  But  the 
soldiers  had  no  relish  for  their  duty,  and  on  other  occasions,  when  called  on 
to  perform  it,  refused  to  bear  arms  against  their  countrymen.  The  leaven 
of  heresy  was  too  widely  spread  among  the  people. 

"  Thus  the  work  of  plunder  and  devastation  went  on  vigorously  through- 
out the  land.  Cathedral  pa\(\  chapel,  monastery  and  nunnery,  religious 
houses  of  every  description,  even  hospitals,  were  delivered  up  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  the  reformers.     The  monks  fled,  leaving  liehind   tiiem  treasures 


FOUR    HUNDRED    CHURCHES   SACKED.  327 

of  manuscripts  and  well-stored  cellars,  which  latter  the  invi  lers  sood 
emptied  of  their  contents,  while  they  consigned  the  former  to  the  flames. 
The  terrified  nuns,  escaping  half  naked,  at  dead  of  night,  from  their  con- 
vents, were  too  happy  to  find  a  retreat  among  their  friends  and  kinsmen  in 
the  city.  Neither  monk  nor  nun  ventured  to  go  abroad  in  the  conventual 
garb.  Priests  might  sometimes  be  seen  hurrying  away  with  some  relic  or 
sacred  treasure  under  their  robes,  which  they  were  eager  to  save  from  the 
spoilers.  In  the  general  sack  not  even  the  abode  of  the  dead  was  respected ; 
and  the  sepulchres  of  the  counts  of  Flanders  were  violated,  and  laid  open  to 
the  public  gaze. 

"  The  deeds  of  violence  perpetrated  by  the  Iconoclasts  were  accompanied 
by  such  indignities  as  might  exjiress  their  contempt  for  the  ancient  faith. 
They  snatched  the  wafer,  says  an  eye-witness,  from  the  altar,  and  put  it 
into  the  mouth  of  a  parrot.  Some  huddled  the  images  of  the  saints  to- 
gether, and  set  them  on  fire,  or  covered  them  with  bits  of  armor,  and, 
shouting  '  Vivent  les  Qaeux,''  tilted  rudely  against  them.  Some  put  on  the 
vestments  stolen  from  the  churches,  and  ran  about  the  streets  witli  tiiem  in 
mockery.  Some  basted  the  books  with  butter,  that  they  might  burn  the 
more  briskly.  By  the  scholar,  this  last  enormity  will  not  be  held  light 
among  their  transgressions.  It  answered  their  purpose,  to  judge  by  the 
number  of  volumes  that  were  consumed.  Among  the  rest,  the  great  library 
of  Vicogne,  one  of  the  noblest  collections  in  the  Netherlands,  perished  in 
the  flames  kindled  by  these  fanatics. 

"The  amount  of  injury  inflicted  during  this  dismal  period  it  is  not  possible 
to  estimate.  Four  hundred  churches  were  sacked  by  the  insurgents  in 
Flanders  alone.  The  damage  to  the  Cathedral  of  Antwerp,  including  its 
precious  contents,  was  said  to  amount  to  not  less  than  four  hundi-ed  thou- 
sand ducats.  The  loss  occasioned  by  the  plunder  of  gold  and  silver  plate 
might  be  computed.  The  structures  so  cruellj^  defaced  might  be  repaired 
by  the  skill  of  the  architect.  But  who  can  estimate  the  irreparable  loss 
occasioned  by  the  destruction  of  manuscripts,  statuary',  and  paintings?  It 
is  a  melancholy  fact,  that  the  earliest  efforts  of  the  reformers  were  ever}'- 
where  directed  against  those  monuments  of  genius,  which  had  been  created 
and  cherished  by  the  generous  patronage  of  Catholicism.  But  if  the  first 
step  of  the  Reformation  was  on  the  ruins  of  art,  it  can  not  be  denied  that  a 
compensation  has  been  found  in  the  good  which  it  has  done  by  bi'eaking  the 
fetters  of  the  intellect,  and  opening  a  free  range  in  those  domains  of  science 
to  which  all  access  had  been  hitherto  denied  (!). 

"  The  wide  extent  of  the  devastation  was  not  more  remarkable  than  the 
time  in  which  it  was  accomplished.  The  whole  work  occupied  less  than  a 
fortnight.  It  seemed  as  if  the  destroying  angel  had  passed  over  the  land, 
tnd  at  a  blow  had  consigned  its  noblest  edifices  to  ruin !     The  method  and 


328  REFORMATION    m    THE    NETHERLANDS. 

discipline,  if  I  may  so  say,  in  the  movements  of  the  Iconoclasts,  were  as 
extraordinary  as  their  celerity.  Thej^  would  seem  to  have  been  directed 
by  some  other  hands  than  those  which  meet  the  eye.  The  quantity  of 
gold  and  silver  plate  purloined  from  the  churches  and  convents  was  immense 
Though  doubtless  sometimes  appropriated  by  individuals,  it  seems  not 
unfrequently  to  have  been  gathered  in  a  heap,  and  delivered  to  the  minister, 
who,  either  of  himself,  or  by  direction  of  the  consistory,  caused  it  to  be 
melted  down,  and  distributed  among  the  most  needy  of  the  sectaries.  We 
may  sympathize  with  the  indignation  of  a  Catholic  writer  of  the  time,  who 
exclaims,  that  in  this  way  the  poor  churchmen  were  made  to  pay  for  the 
scourges  with  which  they  had  been  beaten." 

This  account  of  the  sacrilegious  enormities  perpetrated  by 
the  first  champions  of  the  Reformation  in  the  Netherlands  is 
80  very  graphic  and  complete,  that  we  could  not  consent  to 
its  abridgment.  The  immediate  and  natural  result  of  all  this 
eacrilegious  violence  was,  to  alienate  the  Catholic  nobles  from 
the  Confederation,  to  cool  down  the  zeal  of  William  of  Orange 
himself,  as  well  as  that  of  his  associate  Protestant  princes, 
and  to  produce  a  general  reaction  in  favor  of  the  regent,  and 
even  of  Philip,  whose  tardy  concessions  had  been  thus  cruelly 
requited.  While  horrible  sacrilege  was  thus  running  riot 
throughout  the  Netherlands  under  the  mask  of  religion,  and 
while  all  social  and  civil  order  was  thus  openly  threatened 
with  destruction  by  an  anarchy  growing  out  of  the  fiercest 
religious  fanaticism,  it  was  obviously  no  suitable  time  to  dis- 
cuss the  nice  questions  of  civil  and  religious  rights.  The 
nobles,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  rallied  at  once  to  the 
standard  of  the  regent ;  and  not  only  were  the  religious  tu- 
mults stopped,  and  the  leading  rioters  arrested  and  punished, 
but  a  formidable  insurrection  which  soon  afterwards  broke  out 
was  successfully  quelled. 

The  arm  of  the  executive  was  thus  strengthened  by  the 
fanatical  excesses  committed  under  the  alleged  auspices  of 
Margaret's  opponents ;  the  edicts  were  renewed ;  and  the 
favorable  solution  of  the  great  political  difficulty  in  the  Neth 
erlands  seemed  now  further  ofi'  than  ever.  People  could  no\% 
see,  at  a  glance,  wl  at  was  the  real  aim  of  the  new  gospelere 


THE   SEQUEL ALVA.  329 

and  what  was  the  real  meaning  they  attached  to  the  magic 
cry — "VivENT  LEs  GuEux!" — and  to  that  religious  freedom 
concerning  which  they  declaimed  with  so  much  impassioned 
eloquence.  The  "beggars"  wished  to  ruin  every  thing  that 
had  been  previously  held  dear,  both  in  Church  and  State ;  and 
the  religious  freedom  so  loudly  claimed  consisted,  in  reality, 
in  the  liberty  to  insult  the  religion,  demolish  the  churches, 
and  trample  down  the  sacred  rights  of  better  men  than  them- 
selves !  It  was  precisely  the  same  species  of  liberty,  which 
John  Knox  claimed  in  Scotland,  and  the  Huguenots  in 
France. 

On  the  stern  mind  of  Philip  the  intelligence  of  these  hor- 
rible excesses  produced  an  impression,  which  may  be  readily 
imagined.  He  had  tried — tardily  indeed,  and  insincerely  if 
you  will — the  way  of  concession,  and  he  now  saw  to  what 
concessions  were  likely  to  lead.  He  did  not  work  himself 
into  a  passion — he  never  did* — but  he  quietly,  yet  sternly 
resolved  to  act.  His  whole  action  may  be  stated  in  one  short 
but  terrible  word — Alva!  Margaret  of  Parma  was  super- 
seded in  the  regency,  and  Alva  appointed,  with  a  strong  vet- 
eran force  to  sustain  him  in  the  government.  And  if  any 
thing  can  excuse  or  palliate  the  horrible  atrocities  committed 
by  this  man,  it  would  be  the  still  more  horrible  atrocities 
which  had  been  previously  perpetrated  by  those  whom  he 
came  to  put  down  and  to  punish  with  the  strong  arm.  And 
it  is  this  view  of  the  case — as  one  of  retributive  justice — which 
Philip  no  doubt  took,  when  he  replied  to  the  expostulations 
of  the  emperor  Maximilian  in  the  decided  language  which  we 
have  already  quoted. 

But  there  was  one  atrocity  committed  by  Alva,  and  fully 
sanctioned,  if  not  expressly  commanded  by  Philip,  which  no 
consideration  can  ever  excuse  or  even  palliate  in  the  slightest 


*  Prescott  is  inclined   to  discredit  the  statement,  that  when  the  news 
reached  him,  he  exclaimed  :  "  It  shall  cost  them  dear ;  by  the  soul  of  my 
fe,ther  I  swear  it,  it  shall  cost  them  dear  ! " — Ibid.,  vol.  ii,  p.  80. 
VOL.   IL — 28 


330  REFORMATION   IN    THE    NETHERLANDS. 

degree;  and  which,  at  the  same  time,  goes  further,  perhaps, 
towards  explaining  the  real  nature  and  the  true  motives  of 
Philip's  stern  policy,  than  any  thing  else  in  the  entire  history 
of  this  memorable  struggle  in  the  Netherlands.  We  refer  to 
the  judicial  murder  of  the  brilliant,  the  noble,  the  chivalric 
Catholic  Count  Egmont,  and  of  the  two  noble  Catholic  broth- 
ers of  the  honored  family  of  Montmorency,  Counts  Hoorne 
and  Montigny.  The  two  former,  the  very  first  Catholic 
nobles  of  the  Netherlands,  were  executed  at  Brussels  under 
Alva ;  while  Montigny,  who  had  been  sent  by  Margaret  on 
an  important  embassy  to  Spain,  was  there  detained  for  sev- 
eral years  by  Philip,  and  was  finally  secretly  executed  by  or- 
der of  the  implacable  monarch,  on  his  hearing  of  the  outbreak 
of  the  religious  fanatics.* 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  the  only  nobles  of  the  Nether- 
lands who  were  executed  at  this  time  of  fearful  reaction  in 
popular  feeling,  and  of  still  more  fearful  retribution  on  the 
part  of  the  government,  should  have  been  zealous  and  devoted 
Catholics.  William  of  Orange  and  his  brother  Louis  would 
probably  have  shared  the  same  fate,  had  they  coveted  the 
crown  of  political  martyrdom.  But  William  wisely  judged, 
that  vulgar  discretion  was  far  better,  at  least  safer,  than  heroic 
but  unprofitable  valor.  Accordingly,  the  "  Silent  One,"  to- 
gether with  his  brother,  fled  at  the  first  apprehension  of  dan- 
ger, thus  leaving  his  noble  Catholic  associates  to  bear  the 
brunt  of  the  king's  indignation  and  that  of  his  lieutenant  who 
was  approaching.  Tliis  was  prudent,  it  was  certainly  not 
very  generous  or  even  creditable  conduct.  The  modern 
Protestant  historian  of  Germany — Wolfgang  Menzel — tells 
us  the  incident  of  the  flight  of  Orange  in  the  following  words : 

"  He  vainly  warned  his  friends  of  the  danger  they  incurred.  The  Counts 
Egmont  and  Iloorne  remained  incredulous,  and  WiUiam,  unable  to  persuade 
the  States  to  make  a  resolute  opposition,  before  the  mask  was  openly  dropped 


*  A  full  and  highly  interesting  account  of  these  executions  is  furnished 
by  Prescott,  who  throws  a  new  and  somewhat  romantic  light  over  the  hith 
erto  mysterious  fate  of  Montigny.     Vol.  ii. 


THE   WAR    OF   INDEPENDENCE.  331 

by  the  king,  resolved  to  secure  his  safety  by  flight.  On  taking  leave  of  Eg- 
mont  he  said,  'I  fear  you  will  be  the  first  over  whose  corpse  the  Spaniards 
will  march  !'  Some  of  the  nobles  mockingly  calling  after  him,  as  he  turned 
away,  'Adieu,  Prince  Lackland!' — he  rejoined,  'Adieu,  headless  Sirs!'"* 

These  facts  clearly  establish  two  things :  First,  that  the 
Catholics  of  the  Netherlands  were  fully  as  much  opposed  to 
the  encroachments  of  Philip  on  Flemish  rights  and  franchises 
as  were  the  Protestants,  and  that,  in  the  first  stage  of  the 
struggle  at  least,  the  Catholic  nobility  and  influential  men 
suffered  fully  as  much  for  the  cause  of  national  liberty,  if  not 
even  much  more,  than  their  brethren  who  favored  the  new 
gospel ;  and  second,  that  the  contest  was  regarded  by  Philip 
in  a  political,  fully  as  much  at  least  as  in  a  religious  light. 
He  could  never  pardon  Egmont  and  Hoorne  the  crime  of  hav- 
ing contended  so  stoutly  for  the  ancient  Catholic  liberties  of 
the  Netherlands,  against  his  attempt  to  destroy  them.  Hence 
their  tragical  death,  as  traitors  to  the  country — that  is,  to  him- 
self. 

Neither  our  limits  nor  our  purpose  in  this  chapter  permit 
or  demand,  that  we  should  enter  into  lengthy  details  in  re- 
gard to  the  great  subsequent  struggle  for  independence  in  the 
Netherlands.  This  struggle  began  in  earnest  soon  after  the 
bloody  career  of  Alva,  and  it  continued,  with  occasional  inter- 
ruptions, for  about  forty  years.  We  can  merely  glance  at 
some  of  the  principal  events  in  the  contest,  and  we  will  then 
close  with  some  general  remarks  on  its  religious  aspect  and 
bearing.f 

1.  As  we  have  elsewhere  stated,  Elizabeth  of  England,  in 
time  of  profound  peace  with  Philip  H.,  seized  on  the  Spanish 
ships  which  were  bearing  treasure  and  supplies  to  Alva  in 
the  Netherlands.     This  was  of  a  piece  with  her  usual  tortuous 

*  History  of  Germany,  ii,  291.     Bohn's  Edition,  sup.  cit. 

f  So  far  as  the  Netherlands  are  concerned,  Prescott's  history  terminates 
with  Alva's  administration.  This  is  deeply  to  be  regretted,  as  the  world 
would  have  been  much  interested  in  an  account,  from  his  graphic  pen,  of  one 
among  the  most  important  struggles  for  independence  in  the  annals  of  history 


332  REFORMATION    IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

aud  dishonest  policy ;  and  as  the  end  cannot  justify  the 
means,  it  was  really  but  little  better  than  higliway  robbery, 
or  rather  piracy.  Its  immediate  result  was  not  merely  eni' 
barrassing  to  Alva,  but  highlj  injurious  and  oppressive  to  the 
Flemings  themselves.  The  troops  naturally  murmured  at 
not  receiving  their  pay,  and  Alva  felt  constrained  to  quarter 
them  on  the  people,  who  were  thus  compelled  not  only  to 
bear  the  burden  of  supporting  the  Spanish  soldiers,  but  also 
to  endure  their  rudeness  and  insults.  General  popular  dis- 
content necessarily  ensued ;  which  was  still  further  aggrava- 
ted by  the  arbitrary  imposition  of  new  taxes  by  Alva,  without 
obtaining  the  previous  consent  of  the  States  General.  A  sullen 
humor  seized  upon  all  classes.  Catholic  no  less  than  Protest- 
ant ;  the  shops  were  closed  in  the  principal  cities  and  towns ; 
and  the  Netherlands  were  shrouded  in  the  darkness,  and 
hushed  in  the  silence  of  the  t-^mb!  It  was  an  ominous  calm, 
preceding  a  dreadful  storm. 

Meantime  privateers,  fitted  out  by  tiie  Flemish  malcontents, 
cr-Tissd  in  the  British  channel  against  Spanish  ships,  armed 
with  commissions  from  the  prince  of  Orange.  The  count  La 
Marque  directed  their  operations  from  his  headquarters  at 
Dover  in  England,  though  Elizabeth  was  still  a  friend  of 
Fi-lip  !  She  subsequently,  however,  "  on  the  remonstrance 
of  Philip,  or  in  connivance  with  La  Marque,  ordered  this 
oflBcer  to  quit  her  dominions."*  In  1572,  the  privateers  made 
a  descent  on  the  Belgian  Island  of  Hom,  and  surprised  the 
fortress  of  Brille ;  on  the  battlements  of  which  the  standard 
of  Flemish  independence  was  unfurled.  The  inhabitants  of 
Flushing  shortly  afterwards  expelled  the  Spanish  garrison, 
and  sought  and  obtained  aid  from  the  French  Huguenots  and 
from  the  English  government.  The  former  sent  them  a  large 
body  of  troops,  the  latter  ten  thousand  pounds  in  money ; 
which  seasonable  succor  was  soon  followed  by  a  large  body 
of  English  volunteers,  with  a  goodly  supply  of  ammunition 


Lingard  History  of  England,  vol.  viii,  p.  107. — He  quotes  Murdin,  210 


NETHERLANDS  AN  EUROPEAN  BATTLE  GROUND.     333 

and  cannon.  Many  of  the  neighboring  towns,  under  this  en- 
couragement, soon  threw  oli'  the  Spanish  yoke ;  and  the  war 
of  independence  was  now  fairly  begun.* 

2.  Alva  was  recalled  in  1573,  and  he  was  succeeded  by 
Requesens,  Commendator  of  Castile,  and  a  veteran  diplomat 
ist.  The  new  governor,  after  having  first  checked  the  insur 
gents,  entered  upon  a  new  line  of  policy,  widely  different  from 
that  which  had  been  pursued  by  his  cruel  predecessor.  He 
sought  to  conciliate  the  malcontents,  and  he  secured  the 
kindly  offices  of  Elizabeth  to  accomplish  this  purpose.  But 
it  was  too  late.  The  war  had  commenced,  and  Orange  would 
heed  neither  the  advice  nor  the  remonstrances — real  or  feigned 
— of  the  English  queen  ;  so  long  at  least  as  the  civil  war  con- 
tinued to  rage  in  France,  and  he  could  nourish  a  reasonable 
hope  of  obtaining  succor  from  the  French  Huguenots.  After 
his  hope  of  aid  from  this  quarter  had  become  faint  from  the 
untoward  course  of  events  in  France,  he  sought  to  conciliate 
Elizabeth,  and  even  promised  to  confer  upon  her  the  protec- 
torship of  Holland  and  Zealand ;  an  offer  which,  after  suitable 
deliberation,  she  deemed  it  impolitic  to  accept.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  a  communication  to  the  Dutch  deputies,  she  promised 
them  her  good  ofiices,  to  reconcile  them  with  their  offended 
sovereign. f 

3.  Requesens  died  in  1576,  and  he  was  succeeded,  in  the 
following  year,  by  the  brilliant  Don  John  of  Austria,  the 
hero  of  Lepanto,  and  natural  son  of  Philip's  father.  In  the 
interval  between  the  death  of  Requesens  and  the  arrival  of 
Don  John,  great  events  occurred  in  the  Netherlands.  The 
badly  paid  and  discontented  Spanish  army  broke  through  all 
bounds  of  discipline,  and  sacked  Antwerp.  Whereupon  all 
classes  of  the  outraged  people  determined  to  adopt  at  once 
effectual  measures  to  provide  for  their  own  safety.  Catholics 
and  Protestants  combined  as  one  man  in  the  common  cause. 


*  Lingard,  Ibid.,  vol.  viii,  p.  107. 

f  Camden,  Murdin,  and  Lodge,  apud  Lingard,  viii,  110. 


334  REFORMATION    IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

"Representatives  from  the  clergy, nobility, cities,  and  districts 
of  all  the  Catholic  provinces,  but  Luxemburg,  met  the  depu 
ties  of  the  two  Protestant  states  of  Holland  and  Zealand ;  and 
a  confederacy,  called  the  Pacification  of  Ghent,  was  formed, 
by  which,  without  renouncing  their  allegiance  to  Philip,  they 
bound  themselves  to  expel  all  foreign  soldiers,  to  preserve  the 
public  peace,  to  aid  each  other  against  every  opponent,  and 
to  restore  to  its  pristine  vigor  the  constitution  enjoyed  by 
their  fathers."* 

Don  John,  with  the  full  approbation  of  Philip,  subsequently 
ratified  the  Pacification,  and  dismissed  the  Spanish  soldiery. 
But  the  prince  of  Orange  was  not  satisfied  with  this  ratifica- 
tion, which  was  known  by  the  name  of  "  the  Perpetual  Edict:" 
it  clashed  with  the  dream  of  ambition  which  "  the  Silent  One" 
had  long  indulged,  of  being  called  to  rule  as  sovereign  over 
an  independent  people.  In  consequence  of  this  and  of  other 
symptoms  of  disaflfection,  the  governor  recalled  his  troops, 
and  the  war  recommenced. 

4.  The  contest  now  increased  in  dimensions  and  swelled  in 
importance,  and  the  soil  of  the  Netherlands  became,  what  it 
has  frequently  been  since,  the  battle-ground  of  Europe. 
Hitherto  the  struggle  had  been  mainly  political,  and  Catho- 
lics and  Protestants  had  cheerfully  united  in  the  cause  of 
national  freedom  against  Spanish  oppression.  The  Catholics 
were  still  vastly  in  the  majority ;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  fif- 
teen Catholic  and  only  two  Protestant  provinces  were  repre- 
sented at  the  meeting  which  ratified  the  Pacification  of  Ghent. 
Now  the  lines  between  the  two  religious  denominations  were 
to  be  drawn,  and  Catholicity  and  Protestantism  were  to  strug- 
gle for  the  mastery.  Elizabeth,  though  she  still  wore  the  mask 
of  friendship  to  Spain,  secretly  promised  a  large  loan  and  an 
army  of  six  thousand  troops  to  the  insurgents.  The  duke  of 
Anjou,  though  a  Catholic,  brought  to  the  aid  of  the  States  an 

*  Camden,  Murdin,  and  Lodge,  apud  Lingard,  Ibid.,  vol.  viii,  p.  110.  Du 
Mont,  V,  279. 


ALEXANDER    FARNESE.  335 

urmy  of  ten  thousand  men,  under  the  promise  that,  if  success- 
ful, he  would  be  permitted  to  carve  out  for  himself  an  inde- 
pendent state  in  French  Flanders.  He,  however,  failed  to 
accomplish  any  thing,  and  his  army  was  soon  disbanded. 

But  the  most  formidable  auxiliary  of  the  prince  of  Orange 
was  Casimir,  brother  of  the  elector  Palatine.  He  crossed  the 
Rhine  with  twelve  thousand  German  troops,  mostly  Luther- 
ans, who  marched,  like  an  army  of  Huns,  over  the  Catholic 
provinces,  striking  terror  into  the  hearts  of  the  inhabitants, 
filling  the  country  with  desolation  and  carnage,  and  leaving 
burning  churches,  ruined  altars,  and  wailing  widows  and 
orphans  in  the  track  of  their  barbarous  invasion.*  The  native 
Protestants  united  heartily  with  this  ruthless  foreign  soldiery 
in  discharging  what  their  ministers  had  taught  them  was  their 
sacred  duty — putting  down  "•popish"  idolatry,  and  thereby 
securing  to  themselves  the  precious  boon  of  religious  liberty ! 
By  the  side  of  the  barbarities  committed  against  the  Catholics 
at  this  time  and  during  subsequent  periods  of  the  great  strug- 
gle, those  of  Alva  himself,  which  were  committed  with  rare 
impartiality  upon  Catholics  and  Protestants  alike,  are  almost 
forgotten,  or  they  are  at  least  fairly  counterpoised.  This  we 
hope  to  establish  by  incontestable  evidence,  a  little  further  on. 

5.  John  of  Austria  died  in  1578,  and  he  was  succeeded  by 
the  great  Alexander  Farnese,  son  of  Margaret  of  Parma,  the 
first  regent  of  the  Netherlands  under  Philip.  He  was  as  able 
in  the  cabinet  as  he  was  brilliant  in  the  field.  He  adroitly 
availed  himself  of  the  loud  complaints  of  the  outraged  Catho- 
lic provinces,  and  solemnly  renewed  the  Perpetual  Edict 
approving  the  Pacification  of  Ghent,  in  May,  1579.  This,  it 
will  be  remembered,  secured  to  them  full  religious  liberty, 
together  with  the  preservation  of  the  ancient  constitution  of 
the  States ;  while  the  foreign  troops  were  to  be  replaced  by 
a  native  army.     The  Walloon  or  French    provinces  gladly 

*  These  ruthless  soldiers  were  in  the  pay  of  England,  and  this  was  th« 
manner  in  which  Elizabeth  served  her  good  brother  of  Spain  !  See  Lingard, 
Ibid.,  viii,  p.  113. 


336  REFORMATION    IN   THE    NETHERLANDS. 

accepted  the  boon,  and  became  thenceforth  firmly  attached  to 
Spain.  Meantime  William  of  Orange  now  detached  the  north- 
ern from  the  southern  provinces,  through  a  meeting  of  the 
States  convened  at  Utretcht.* 

6.  The  war  still  went  on  with  but  slight  interruption. 
In  1580,  under  the  able  leadership  of  Farnese,  the  fortune? 
of  Philip  were  once  more  in  the  ascendant,  and  the  latter  pub 
lished  his  famous  ban  against  William  of  Orange,  denouncing 
him  as  a  traitor,  and  oflering  a  large  reward  for  his  head,  or 
for  the  possession  of  his  person.  Orange  replied  by  openly  re- 
nouncing his  allegiance,  and  inducing  the  Northern  States 
to  issue  a  formal  declaration  of  independence.  Four  years 
later  he  was  assassinated  at  Delft  by  Girard,  a  Burgundian 
adventurer,  who  was  impelled  to  the  atrocious  deed  by  the 
hope  of  the  promised  reward,  as  well  as  by  a  certain  fanati- 
cism of  royalty,  which  caused  him,  even  amidst  the  most 
excruciating  tortures  of  the  rack,  to  glory  in  having  thus  sum- 
marily executed  one  whom  he  deemed  a  traitor. f 

7.  We  will  here  pause  in  our  rapid  narrative,  in  order  to 
make  good  our  assertion  that  the  atrocities  committed  against 
the  Catholics  daring  this  memorable  contest  fully  equaled,  if 
they  did  not  greatly  overbalance  the  cruelties  of  Alva  per- 
petrated, as  we  have  already  shown,  upon  Catholics  as  well 
as  Protestants.  We  will  for  this  purpose  allege  in  evidence 
the  testimony  of  two  Protestant  historians,  the  one  German, 
the  other  American ;  both  of  whom  are  bitterly  opposed  to 
the  Catholic  Church,  and  take  little  pains  to  conceal  their 
prejudice.     We  refer  to  Menzel  and  Motley. J     Their  testi- 

*  Du  Mont,  p.  322,  350.     Lingard,  ibid.,  p.  114-5. 

f  Philip  seems  to  have  shed  some  tears  over  the  man  who  had  sacrificed 
his  life  in  his  service.     Lingard,  ibid.,  p.  125. 

I  In  his  late  work,  "  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic."  As  an  histonan, 
though  not  wantmg  in  industry  and  research,  Motley  is  immeasurably 
behind  Prescott.  He  is  a  partisan  of  the  most  decided  character.  He 
writes,  it  would  seem,  more  to  sustain  a  favorite  thesis  than  to  vindicate  the 
"iober  truth  of  history.     His  readers  have  very  little  opportunity  to  see  the 


DUTCH    CATHOLICS    EXTERMINATED.  337 

monj  will  scarcely  be  impeached;  the  less  so,  as  it  appears 
to  be  given  only  incidentally,  and  with  apparent  reluctance. 
"We  begin  with  the  German  historian.  Speaking  of  the  rise 
of  the  Dutch  Republic,  after  the  relief  of  Leyden  in  1575, 
Menzel  says: 

"  Holland  was  henceforth  free.  William  was  elected  stadtholder  by  the 
people,  but  still  in  the  name  of  their  obnoxious  monarch ;  and  the  Calvin- 
istic  tenets  and  form  of  worship  were  re-established,  to  the  exclusion  of  those 
of  the  Gatholica  and  Lutlmrans.  As  early  as  1574,  the  reformed  preachers 
had,  in  the  midst  of  dangei',  opened  their  first  church  assembly  at  Dordrecht. 
The  cruelties  practiced  by  the  Catholics  were  equaled  hij  those  inflicted  on  the 
opposing  party  hy  the  reformers.  William  of  Orange  endeavored  to  repress 
these  excesses,  threw  William  Van  der  Mark,  his  lawless  rival,  into  prison, 
where  he  shortly  afterwards  died,  it  is  said,  by  poison,*  and  occupied  the 
wild  soldiery,  during  the  short  peace  that  ensued,  in  the  re-erection  of  the 
dikes  torn  down  in  defense  of  Leyden.  The  most  horrid  atrocities  were, 
nevertheless,  perpetrated  by  Sonoi,  hy  7vhom  the  few  Catholics  remaining  in 
Holland  were  exterminated,^  A.  D.  1577.  A  violent  commotion  also  took 
place  in  Utrecht,  but  ceased  on  the  death  of  the  last  of  her  archbishops, 
Frederick  Schenck  (cup-hearer)  Van  Tautemburg,  A.  D.  1580."|: 

After  mentioning  the  defeat  of  the  Dutch  army  under 
Mathias  and  Orange  at  Gemblours  in  1578,  by  the  bravery 
and  skill  of  Alexander  Farnese,  Menzel  adds : 

other  side,  though  every  one  knows  that  most  historical  questions  have  two 
aspects,  which  the  professed  historian  should  give,  or  at  least  refer  to.  With 
Prescott  prejudice  is  the  exception;  with  Motley  it  is  the  rule.  The  works 
of  the  latter  may  have  an  ephemeral  reputation ;  those  of  the  former  are 
probably  destined  to  immortality  in  our  literature. 

*  Who  had  him  poisoned  ?  Was  it  owing  to  his  cruelties  against  the 
Catholics,  or  to  the  fact  of  his  being  William's  "rival,"  that  he  was  im- 
prisoned and  poisoned  ?  We  strongly  suspect  that  the  latter  was  the  real 
motive. 

f  The  infiimous  Sonoi  or  Sonoy  was  a  far  more  cruel  and  a  much  worse 
man  than  Alva;  the  atrocities  of  the  Spaniard  pale  before  those  of  the 
Dutchman.  The  number  of  Catholics  "exterminated"  in  Holland  by  Sonoi 
was  not  small,  but  immense,  for  the  Protestants  had  opened  their  "first 
church  assembly"  but  three  years  before;  unless,  indeed.  Van  der  Mark, 
the  predecessor  of  Sonoi,  had  already  well-nigh  completed  the  cruel  butchery, 
leaving  only  a  gleaning  of  the  bloody  harvest  to  his  successor. 

X  History  of  Germany,  sup.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  p.  296 
VOL.  II. — 29 


338  REFORMATION    IN    THE   NETHERLANDS. 

"  Tnis  misfortune  again  bred  dissension  and  disunion  among  the  Dutch  j 
Mathias  lost  courage,  and  endeavored  by  his  promises  to  induce  the  Catho 
lies  to  abandon  the  Spaniards,  whilst  the  citizens  of  Ghent,  with  increased 
insolence,  again  attacJceJ  monasteries  and  churches,  committed  crucifixes  and 
pictures  of  the  saints  to  the  flames,  and  burnt  six  Minorites  (Catholic  friars) 
accused  of  favoring  the  enemy  alive."  Again :  "  The  return  of  the  Catholic 
priests  to  Ghent  was  a  signal  for  a  fresh  popular  outbreak,  and  the  treaty  so 
lately  concluded  was  infringed."* 

Vain  were  all  the  efforts  of  William  of  Orange  to  tame 
the  ferocity  of  the  Protestants  at  Ghent,  Bruges,  and  other 
cities  of  the  southern  provinces ;  they  claimed  it  as  their  in- 
defeasible right,  and  as  one  of  the  essential  elements  of 
religious  liberty  according  to  the  new  gospel  light,  to  murder 
Catholic  priests  on  sight,  to  destroy  churches  and  monas- 
teries, and  forcibly  to  put  down  Catholic  worship.  Of  course, 
this  persistent  cruelty  and  persecution  compelled  the  Catholics 
to  throw  themselves,  against  their  inclination,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Farnese,  Philip's  governor,  under  whose  govern- 
ment they  could  hope  to  enjoy  the  boon  of  life  and  of 
religious  freedom.  But  for  this  ferocious  bigotry  of  the 
Protestant  faction,  William  might,  in  all  probability,  have 
accomplished  his  darling  object  of  seeing  all  the  thrifty- 
provinces  of  the  Netherlands  again  united  in  stern  opposition 
to  Spanish  despotism. 

To  show  the  spirit  which  animated  the  Dutch  during  the 
struggle,  we  may  remark,  on  Menzel's  authority,  that  Wil- 
liam's sailors  —  or,  as  they  were  called,  Water  Geuses  or 
Gueux-\ — wore  on  their  broad-brimmed  hats  "a  half  moon 
with  the  inscription:  '  Liever  Turcx  dan  Pausch' — Better 
Turkish  than  Popish! "J 

The  Lutheran  Protestants  of  Germany  were  not,  it  would 

*  History  of  Germany,  sup.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  p.  299. 

f  "  Water-Beggars  " — corresponding  with  the  Gueux  on  land  ;  the  Dutch 
■eemed  specially  fond  of  the  name. 

I  Ibid.j  p  296. — The  acts  of  these  men  and  of  those  whom  they  served 
were  often  accordingly  more  Turkish  than  Christian. 


THE   CATHOLIC    RELIGION    SUPPRESSED.  339 

seem,  very  enthuBiastic  in  their  sympathy  with  their  Calvin- 
istic  brethren  in  Holland.     Says  Menzel: 

"  The  rest  of  Germany  beheld  the  great  struggle  in  the  Netherlands  with 
almost  supine  indifference.  The  destruction  of  the  Calvinistic  Dutch  was 
not  unwillingly  beheld  by  the  Lutherans.  The  demand  for  assistance 
addressed  (A.  D.  1570)  by  the  Dutch  to  the  diet  at  Worms  received  for 
reply,  that  Spain  justly  punished  them  as  rebels  against  the  principle, 
cujus  REGio,  EJUS  RELiGio — '  The  religion  belongs  to  him  who  owns  the 
territory.'  "* 

What  kind  of  religious  liberty  the  reformers  of  the  Neth- 
erlands really  sought  after,  is  apparent  from  the  entire  reli- 
gioso-political  struggle  which  resulted  in  the  establishment  of 
the  Dutch  republic.  Whenever  and  wherever  the  new  gos- 
pelers  were  able  to  gain  the  ascendency,  even  partially  and 
for  a  time  only,  they  invariably  established  Calvinism  as  the 
law  of  the  land,  and  suppressed,  first  by  violence,  and  then 
by  legislation,  the  ancient  worship. 

Thus,  according  to  Motley,  in  April,  1575,  even  before  the 
declaration  of  independence,  "certain  articles  of  union  be- 
tween Holland  and  Zealand  were  proposed,  and  six  commis- 
sioners appointed  to  draw  up  an  ordinance  for  the  govern- 
ment of  the  two  provinces.  This  ordinance  was  accepted  in 
general  assembly  of  both.  It  was  in  twenty  articles."  The 
prince  of  Orange  was  invited  to  assume  the  government  in 
the  king's  name,  as  count  of  Holland,  and  he  was  invested 
by  the  Estates  with  ample  powers  for  this  purpose.  Among 
the  twenty  articles  of  the  confederated  provinces  one  provided 
that  "he  was  to  protect  the  exercise  of  the  Evangelical  Re- 
formed religion,  and  to  suppress  the  exercise  of  the  Roman 
Religion^  without  permitting,  however,  that  search  should  be 
made  into  the  creed  of  any  person."f  With  the  exercise  of 
the  "Roman  Religion"  suppressed  by  law,  the  last  clause  was 
evidently  of  no  benefit  whatever  to  Catholics,  and  it  was  at 

*  History  of  Germany,  sup.  cit.,  vol.  ii,  p.  308. 

f  Motley,  Rise  of  the  Dut/;h  Republic,  in  three  volume.^,  8vo,  Harper  and 
Brothers,  New  York,  1859.     Vol.  iii,  p.  19-20. 


340  RErORMATION    IN    THE   NETHERLANDS. 

best  a  mere  idle  form,  strongly  tinctured  with  hypocrisy.  So 
also  was  the  amended  clause,  cunningly  introduced  by  Or- 
ange on  accepting  the  office  of  governor,  in  which  he  sub- 
stituted for  the  "Roman  Religion"  "the  Religion  at  variance 
with  the  gospel ;"  which  practically  meant  the  same  thing, 
and  was  so  understood.* 

Thus  again,  he  tells  us,  that  in  1581  "Edicts  were  pub- 
lished in  Antwerp,  in  Utrecht,  and  in  different  cities  of  Hol- 
land, suspending  the  exercise  of  the  Roman  worship.  .  .  . 
They  were  excited  to  these  stringent  measures  by  the  noisy 
zeal  of  certain  Dominican  monks  in  Brussels,  whose  extra- 
vagant discourses  were  daily  inflaming  the  passions  of  the 
Catholics  to  a  dangerous  degree.  The  authorities  of  the  city 
accordingly  thought  it  necessary  to  suspend,  by  proclamation, 
the  public  exercise  of  the  ancient  religion,  assigning  as  their 
principal  reason  for  this  prohibition,  the  shocking  jug- 
glery (!)  by  which  simple-minded  people  were  constantly 
deceived.'"! 

It  is  rare,  indeed,  that  persecutors  do  not  find  some  motive 
for  their  atrocious  proceedings.  In  the  present  case,  gross 
insult  and  glaring  calumny  were  wantonly  superadded  to  the 
violation  of  the  most  sacred  rights,  which  the  Catholics  had 
inherited  unchallenged  from  their  forefathers  for  nearly  a 
thousand  years.  The  pretext  that  the  "prince  of  Orange 
lamented  the  intolerant  spirit  thus  showing  itself,"J  is  all  a 
mere  sham.  If  his  lamentation  was  sincere,  why  did  he  not 
use  his  all  powerful  influence  with  his  co-religionists  to  pre- 
vent these  systematic  outbreaks  of  intolerant  fanaticism? 
Why  did  he  confine  his  pretended  opposition  to  mere  idle 
words,  which  savored  more  strongly  of  hypocritical  cant  than 
of  honest  intent  ?  We  are  in  the  habit  of  judging  of  men 
more  by  their  acts  than  by  their  loords. 

Estimated  by  this  unerring  standard,  we  fear  that  the 
prince  of  Orange  will  not  appear  to  have  been  so  much  the 

*  Motley,  Ibid.,  iii,  p.  20.  f  Ibid,  p.  503-4.  %  Ibid. 


THE    BUTCHER    BONOY.  341 

immaculate  hero  and  noble  champion  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  as  Motley  delights  to  paint  him.  His  '  Rise  of 
the  Dutch  Republic"  Ib,  in  fact,  little  more  than  an  expanded 
biography  and  an  elaborate  eulogy  of  Orange ;  though  he 
Bays,  "  this  history  is  not  the  eulogy  of  Orange,  although  in 
describing  his  character  it  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  monotony 
of  panegyric."*  Where  he  can  not  praise  his  hero  without 
qualification,  he  takes  special  pains  to  excuse  his  conduct  or 
his  motives,  even  v^hen  the  former  is  disgraceful  and  the  lat- 
ter are  transparent.  Thus,  he  excuses,  as  a  pardonable  strata- 
gem of  war,  the  conduct  of  this  prince  in  suborning  John  de 
Castillo,  private  secretary  of  Philip  II.,  to  send  him  copies  of 
the  most  secret  letters  of  the  Spanish  monarch  If  Thus  again, 
he  openly  defends  the  atrocious  conduct  of  Orange  in  marry- 
ing Charlotte  of  Bourbon,  an  ex-nun  and  ex-abbess  of  Jouarrs, 
while  his  lawful  wife,  Anne  of  Saxony,  was  still  living ! J 

Orange  was,  in  many  respects,  a  great  man,  and  he  has  in 
the  main  our  sympathies  in  his  protracted  struggle  for  the 
independence  of  his  country  of  Spanish  domination.  But 
that  he  was  a  man  of  tortuous  policy,  and  of  little  moral  or 
religious  principle,  we  believe  can  be  established  by  the  acts 
of  his  life.  As  to  his  religion,  it  was  moulded  to  the  political 
exigencies  of  his  situation.  If  he  finally  became  a  zealous 
Calvinist,  it  seems  to  have  been,  because  the  Dutch  had 
embraced  that  particular  form  of  the  new  gospel,  and  he 
could  not  hope  to  rule  them  without  professing  their  religious 
opinions,  which  brooked  no  dissent.  Bentivoglio  paints  his 
religious  character  in  very  few  but  graphic  words :  "  He  ap- 

*  Motley,  Ibid.,  p.  623.  f  Ibid. 

I  Ibid.,  p.  21,  seqq.  The  unfortmate  Anne  of  Saxony  was  imprisoned 
for  two  years  in  the  electoral  palace  of  Saxony,  "  in  a  chamber  where  tho 
windows  were  walled  up  and  a  small  grating  let  into  the  upper  part  of  the 
door.  Through  this  wicket  came  her  food,  as  well  as  the  words  of  the  holy 
man  appointed  to  preach  daily  for  her  edification." — (Ibid.)  This  "holy 
man "  was  a  good  Protestant  minister  !  No  wonder  she  died  a  raving  man- 
iac, two  years  after  Orange  had  repudiated  her ! 
63 


342  REFORMATION    IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

peai'8  to  cliange  his  religion  according  to  the  fluctuations  oi 
interest.  From  a  child  he  was  a  Lutheran  in  Germany. 
Having  passed  into  Flanders  he  exhibited  himself  as  a  Cath- 
olic. At  the  beginning  of  the  insurrection  he  declared  him- 
self a  favorer  of  the  new  sects,  without  becoming  an  open 
professor  of  any;  until  at  length  he  thought  it  best  to  follow 
that  of  the  Calvinists,  as  being  the  one  most  opposed  to  the 
Catholic  religion  sustained  by  the  king  of  Spain."* 

Motley  furnishes  us  an  account  of  some  of  the  barbar- 
ous atrocities,  perpetrated  in  1575,  against  the  Catholics  of 
North  Holland  by  the  Protestant  governor,  Diedrich  Sonoy.f 
But,  as  usual,  he  seeks  to  exonerate  the  prince  of  Orange, 
who,  he  says  condemned  these  cruelties,  and  could  not  be 
"omnipresent."  But  when  some  of  the  remaining  victims 
of  Sonoy's  barbarity  were  released  by  the  Pacification  of 
Ghent,  and  thereupon  instituted  legal  proceedings  against 
the  monster,  why  did  they  fail  to  secure  justice?  Let  our 
American  historian  give  us  the  reason  of  this  strange  denial 
of  justice.  "  The  process  languished,  however,  and  was  finally 
abandoned,  for  the  powerful  governor  had  rendered  such 
eminent  services  in  the  cause  of  liberty,  that  it  was  thought 
unwise  to  push  him  to  extremity."^  We  will  furnish  an 
extract  showing  in  what  these  unpunished  cruelties  consisted: 

"Sonoy,  to  his  eternal  shame,  was  disposed  to  prove  that  liuman  ingenuity 
to  infiict  torture  liad  not  been  exhausted  in  the  chainhers  of  the  blood  coun- 
cil (of  Alva),  for  it  was  to  be  shown  that  reformers  were  capable  of  giving 
a  lesson  even  to  inquisitors  in  this  diabolical  science.  Kopp,  a  man  advanced 
in  years,  was  tortured  during  a  whole  day.  On  the  following  morning  he 
was  again  brou.iili',  to  the  rack,  but  the  old  man  was  too  weak  to  endure  all 
the  agonies  whicli  his  tormentors  had  provided  for  hiili.  Hardly  had  he 
been  placed  upon  the  bed  of  torture  than  he   calmly  ex()ired,  to   the  great 

*  Guerra  di  Fiandra,  p.  11,  1.  ii,  276,  quoted  by  Motley,  iii,  624,  note. 
He  endeavors  to  show  that  the  prince's  changes  of  religion  were  not  prompted 
by  interest,  but  liis  reasoning  will  convince  no  one  who  is  not  predeter- 
mined to  regard  Grange  as  a  hero  and  a  saint. 

+  Motley,  Ibid,  iii,  28,  seqq.  \  Ibid.,  p.  32. 


UNHEARD    OF   BARBARITIES.  343 

indignation  of  the  tribunal.  '  The  devil  has  broken  his  neck  and  carried 
him  off  to  hell,'  cried  they  ferociously.  'Nevertheless  that  shall  not  prevent 
him  from  being  hung  and  quartered.'  This  decree  of  impotent  vengeance 
was  accordingly  executed.  The  son  of  Kopp,  however,  Nanning  Koppezoon, 
was  a  man  in  the  fall  vigor  of  his  j  ears.  He  bore  with  perfect  fortitude  a 
series  of  incredible  tortures,  after  which,  with  his  body  singed  from  head  to 
heel,  and  his  feet  almost  entirely  flayed,  he  was  left  for  six  weeks  to  crawl 
about  his  dungeon  on  his  knees.  He  was  then  brought  back  to  the  torture- 
room,  and  again  stretched  upon  the  rack,  while  a  large  earthen  vessel,  made 
for  the  purpose,  was  placed  upon  his  naked  body.  A  number  of  rats*  were 
introduced  under  this  cover,  and  hot  coals  were  heaped  upon  the  vessel,  till 
the  rats,  rendered  furious  by  the  heat,  gnawed  into  the  very  bowels  of  the 
victim,  in  their  agony  to  escape.  The  holes  thus  torn  in  his  bleeding 
flesh  were  filled  with  red-hot  coals.  He  was  afterwards  subjected  to  other 
tortures  too  foul  to  relate  ;  nor  was  it  till  he  had  endured  all  this  agony, 
with  a  fortitude  which  seemed  supernatural,  that  he  was  at  last  discovered 
to  be  human.  Scorched,  bitten,  dislocated  in  every  joint,  sleepless,  starving, 
perishing  with  thirst,  he  was  at  last  crushed  into  a  false  confession  by  a 
promise  of  absolute  forgiveness.  He  admitted  every  thing  brought  to  his 
charge,  confessing  a  catalogue  of  contemplated  burnings  and  beacon-firings 
of  which  he  had  never  dreamed,  and  avowing  himself  in  league  with  other 
desperate  Papists  still  more  dangerous  than  himself. 

"  Notwithstanding  the  promises  of  pardon,  Nanning  was  then  condemned 
to  death.  The  sentence  ordained  that  his  heart  should  be  torn  from  his 
living  bosom  and  thrown  in  his  face,  after  which  his  head  was  to  be  taken 
off"  and  exposed  on  the  church  steeple  of  his  native  village.  His  body  was 
then  to  be  cut  in  four,  and  a  quarter  fastened  upon  difierent  towers  of  the 
city  of  Alkmaar ;  for  it  was  that  city,  recently  so  flimous  for  its  heroic  resist- 
ance to  the  Spanish  army,  which  was  now  sullied  by  all  this  cold-blooded 
atrocitj\  When  led  to  execution,  the  victim  recanted  indignantly  the  con- 
fession forced  from  him  by  weakness  of  body,  and  exonerated  the  persons 
whom  he  had  falsely  accused.  A  certain  clergyman  (Calvinist)  named 
Jurian  Epeszoon,  endeavored  by  loud  praying  to  drown  his  voice,  that  the 
people  might  not  rise  with  indignation  ;  and  the  dying  prisoner  with  his 
last  breath  solemnly  summoned  this  unworthy  pastor  of  Christ  to  meet  him 
within  three  days  before  the  judgment-seat  of  God.  It  is  a  remarkable  and 
authentic  fact,  that  the  clergyman  thus  summoned  went  hoine  pensively 
from  the  place  of  execution,  sickened  immediately,  and  died  upon  the  ap- 
pointed day."f 

*  "The  rats  were  sent  by  th3  governor  himself" — Motley,  Ibid,  p.  30 
note  t  Ibid,  iii,  30-1. 


344  REFORMATION    IN   THE    NETHERLANDS. 

Such  were  the  cruelties  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  rehgion 
and  liberty,  by  a  monster  whom  Orange  screened  from  punish 
ment.  Another  one  of  his  captains,  the  chief  of  the  Sea- 
Beggars  or  Gueux  de  Mer,  William  Yan  der  March,*  if  not 
more  cruel  than  Sonoy,  made  even  more  victims.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  in  a  single  year,  1572,  this  inhuman  monster 
*'  killed  with  unheard  of  tortures  more  peaceable  citizens  and 
Catholic  priests,  than  the  duke  of  Alva  had  executed  of 
rebels  in  the  whole  course  of  his  administration."f  He  was 
towards  the  Catholics  of  Holland  what  the  ferocious  French 
Huguenot  chieftain,  D'Adrets,  was  towards  the  unfortunate 
Catholics  of  France,  who  fell  into  his  hands  during  the  civil 
wars  of  that  kingdom. 

Another  Protestant  historian,  Kerroux,  in  his  abridged  His- 
tory of  Holland,  takes  a  very  different  view  from  that  pre- 
sented by  Motley  in  regard  to  the  responsibility  for  these 
barbarous  atrocities.  Speaking  of  the  blood  council  estab- 
lished by  Sonoy,  he  candidly  says : 

"  It  is  vain  to  seek  for  motives  to  excuse  the  proceedings  of  this  horrible 
board  of  commissioners,  which  have  left  an  eternal  stain  on  the  Dutch 
name ;  and  though  Sonoy,  the  principal  author  of  these  bloody  tragedies, 
was  a  stranger,  yet  the  nation  which  dared  not  oppose  him  or  punish  him 
for  their  commission,  will  never  free  itself  from  the  reproach  of  barbarism 
with  which  it  voluntarily  covered  itself  in  the  face  of  all  Europe.  It  is 
pretended  that  whatever  was  then  done  was  only  to  take  away  forever  from 
the  Catholics  all  pretext  and  desire  of  introducing  a  change  into  the  govern- 
ment. It  was  an  atrocious  means,  which  no  reason  of  state  could  ever  jus- 
tify ;  no  more  than  it  can  excuse  the  unheard  of  cruelties  perpetrated  against 
people  who  were  entirely  innocent  of  the  crimes  of  which  they  were  accused, 


*  By  the  French  writers  his.  name  is  written  De  la  March,  or  De  la  Marque. 
He  commanded  one  among  the  first,  if  not  the  very  fii-st  fleet  of  privateers, 
which  sailed  under  letters  of  Marque,  in  modern  times. — Is  the  term  derived 
fr  )m  his  name  ? — If  so,  it  had  a  very  ignoble  origin. 

f  See  Feller's  Historical  Dictionary,  article  Ferdinand  de  Toledo.  Van 
der  Marck  died  afterwards  from  the  bite  of  a  mad  dog ;  "  an  end  not  inap- 
propriate to  a  man  of  so  rabid  a  disposition." — Motley  ;  ibid.,  ii,  4  TS,  Men- 
zel,  as  we  have  seen  above,  says  that  he  died,  "it  is  said  of  poison"  in  prison 
At  any  rate,  he  died  a  horrible  death. 


PROSPERITY    OF   BELGIUM.  345 

the  frightful  details  of  which  we  can  not  read  without  a  shudder  of  horror, 
and  without  feeling  emotions  of  indignation  and  hatred."* 

8.  The  struggle  at  length  closed  in  1609,  with  a  twelve  years" 
amnesty  between  the  parties,  which  practically  resulted  in  a 
permanent  peace ;  thus  securing  the  independence  of  the 
United  Provinces.  So  far  as  religion  is  concerned,  the  result 
was  only  a  very  partial  triumph  for  Protestantism,  which, 
after  all  its  boasting  and  all  its  violence,  did  not  succeed  in 
finally  winning  over  to  the  banner  of  its  republic  probably 
more  than  one-half — if  eveh  half — of  the  original  provinces 
of  the  Netherlands,  and  not  half  the  population.  Even  at 
the  present  day,  considerably  more  than  two-thirds  of  the 
population  comprised  within  the  original  limits  of  the  country 
still  remain  Catholic.  Nearly  half  the  population  of  the  seven 
northern  provinces  themselves,  now  constituting  the  kingdom 
of  Holland,  is  Catholic ;  while  almost  all  the  inhabitants  of 
the  remaining  ten  original  provinces  have  always  remained 
firm  in  their  adherence  to  the  ancient  faith. 

And  now,  if  we  should  be  asked  to  point  out,  on  the  map 
of  Europe,  the  most  thrifty  and  flourishing  population,  we 
would  instantly  designate  the  kingdom  of  Belgium,  and  the 
neighboring  Catholic  territory  which  belonged  to  the  original 
seventeen  provinces  of  the  Netherlands.  There  is  more  gen- 
eral thrift,  and  more  widely  diflused  comfort  among  all  classes 
of  the  population,  and  there  is  consequently  less  suffering 
among  the  masses  ;  and  we  will  add,  there  is  much  more  real 
popular  liberty  there,  than  in  any  other  kingdom  in  Europe. 
Catholic  Belgium  is  generally  admitted  to  be  now  in  a  far 
more  flourishing  condition  than  its  immediate  neighbor,  Prot- 
estant Holland.  The  Belgians  still  cling  tenaciously  to  the 
ancient  Catholic  liberties  of  the  old  Netherland  Confedera- 
tion, of  which  Flanders  was  the  center  and  very  heart;  while 
Holland  has,  more  than  once,  resigned  these  liberties  in  favor 
of  absolute  monarchy. 

*  Abrege  de  1'  Histoire  d'  HoUande  par  Kerroux ;  a  Leyden,  1778,  vol.  ii, 
p,  350.     Quoted  by  Feller,  loco  citato. 


846  REFORMATION    IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

We  conclnde  the  present  chapter  with  the  following  geI^ 
eral  remurks  on  the  entire  struggle  and  its  results,  viewed 
more  particularly  from  the  religious  stand-point. 

1.  During  the  greater  and  more  important  portion  of  the 
contest  for  independence,  the  Catholics  cordially  united  and 
co-operated  with  the  Protestant  party;  and  the  first  and 
noblest  victims,  and  the  only  victims  of  the  highest  rank, 
inmiolated  on  the  shrine  of  national  freedom,  were  the  very 
brightest  flowers  of  Catholic  nobility  and  Catholic  chivalry. 
This  we  have  seen. 

2.  So  far  as  Keligion  was  concerned,  the  Catholic  party 
generally  stood  on  the  defensive,  while  the  other  party  as- 
sumed the  aggressive.  The  Catholics  stood  uj)  for  their 
churches  and  their  altars,  which  had  been  in  their  peaceable 
possession  for  nearly  a  thousand  years ;  while  the  new  gos- 
pelers  sought  to  oust  them  by  violence,  and  to  suppress  what 
they  slanderously  and  insolently  called  idolatry^  by  destroy- 
ing churches  and  altars,  or,  by  appropriating  them  to  their 
own  use,  after  having  first  purified  them  by  pillage  and  fire. 
This  too  we  have  already  sufiiciently  shown. 

3.  The  atrocities,  taking  into  account  even  those  of  the 
cruel  Alva  who  raged  against  Catholics  as  well  as  Protestants, 
were,  at  the  most  moderate  calculation,  very  nearly  balanced ; 
or  if  there  was  any  difference,  it  was  certainly  in  favor  of  the 
Catholic  party.  This  also  we  think  will  be  freely  admitted 
by  all  who  have  read  the  facts  stated— most  of  them  on  Prot- 
estant authority — in  the  foregoing  sketch. 

4.  The  result  of  the  struggle  was,  that  wheresoever  the 
Protestant  party  gained  the  power,  the  Catholics  were  imme- 
diately robbed  of  their  churches  and  church  property,  and 
were  themselves  generally  persecuted  by  the  intolerant  ma- 
jority. Those  Avho  raised  such  a  cry  about  religious  liberty, 
while  they  were  in  the  minority,  had  no  sooner  gained  the 
ascendency,  than  they  clearly  proved  hj  their  «(?^s,what  kind 
of  religicds  liberty  they  were  aiming  to  secure.  In  Holland 
they  estublished  Calvinism,  as  the  compulsory  religion  of  the 


RELIGIOUS    LIBERTY    AMONG    CALVINISTS.  347 

government,  and  they  waged  a  terrible  war  of  persecutioL 
against  all  dissenters,  not  merely  Catholic  but  Protestant 
also !  All  who  are  even  slightly  acquainted  with  the  relig- 
ious history  of  Holland,  since  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, know  this  to  have  been  the  case.  All  readers  of  history 
have  learned  the  stirring  incidents  in  the  fearful  contest  be- 
tween the  Gomarists  and  the  Arminians  *  and  know  how 
very  bitterly  the  former  persecuted  the  latter,  because,  exer- 
cising their  conceded  right  of  private  judgment,  these  could 
not  see  the  doctrine  of  predestination  in  the  same  strong  Cal- 
vinistic  light  as  their  more  clear-sighted  Protestant  brethren. 
The  Protestant  Arminians  were  put  down,  and  were  not  only 
strongly  denounced,  but  condemned  to  the  most  severe  pun- 
ishment, by  the  famous  Calvinistic  Synod  of  Dort — or  Dor- 
drecht— held  in  1G19.  This  was  a  sort  of  general  council  of 
Calvinism,  which  has  never  yet  been  known  to  tolerate  dis- 
senters from  its  own  rigid  creed — whether  these  were  Protest- 
ants or  Catholics — whersoever  and  whensoever  it  has  had  the 
power  to  crush  out  opposition  by  the  strong  arm.f  This  synod 
was  attended  by  delegates  from  the  Calvinistic  churches  of  Ge- 
neva, the  Palatinate,  and  Scotland,  besides  two  Anglican  bish- 
ops sent  out  by  James  I.,  "  the  English  Solomon  and  Defender 
of  the  Faith !  "J  The  assembled  ministers  condemned  the 
leading  Arminians — including  such  men  as  Grotius,  Vorstius, 
Hagerbets,  and  Barneveldt — and  not  merely  their  doctrines  but 
their  persons.  Grotius  and  Hagerbets  were  sentenced  to  im- 
prisonment for  life;  and  "seven  hundred  families  of  Armin- 

*  The  latter,  named  after  the  distinguished  Protestant  theologian  Armin- 
ius,  were  also  called  the  Remonstrants ;  while  those  of  the  other  religious 
fiction  were  called  anti-Remonstrants. 

•f  This  was  fully  established,  on  incontestable  Protestant  evidence,  m  the 
Oral  Discussion  between  Hughes  and  Breckinridge,  which  see. 

I  Janes  took  a  singular  part  in  the  synod.  He  sided  with  the  Gomar- 
ists, and  even  made  orthodoxy  a  test  of  his  political  amity  with  the  States ! 
His  two  bishops  must  have  been  sadly  embarrassed  in  an  assembly,  which 
denounced  prelacy  to  the  full  as  strongly  as  it  did  Arminianism. 


348  REFORMATION   IN   THE   NETHERLANDS. 

ians  were  driven  into  exile  and  reduced  to  beggary."*  Gro 
tius  luckily  escaped ;  but  not  so  Barneveldt,  one  of  the  princi 
pal  patriots  and  heroes  of  the  war  of  independence,  and  the 
reputed  leader  of  the  Arminians.  He  was  arrested  shortly 
after  the  council  by  order  of  his  rival  Maurice,  prince  of 
Orange,  who  aspired  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  Netherlands ; 
and  after  a  secret  trial,  in  which  he  was  no  doubt  falsely  ac- 
cused of  treachery  to  his  country  by  favoring  Spanish  domi- 
nation during  the  late  war,  he  was  beheaded  ! 

Such  was  religious  liberty,  as  it  was  understood  in  that 
portion  of  the  Netherlands  in  which  Protestantism  gained 
the  ascendency  If 

*  See  Lingard,  History  of  England,  ix,  131. 

f  See  Bi-andt,  (Protestant)  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Holland.  He 
is  often  quoted  by  Prescott  and  Lingard.  He  gives  a  detailed  account  of 
the  terrible  persecution  of  their  brother  Protestants  by  the  Calvinists  of 
Holland. 


flISTOIlY  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REFORMATION. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE  — THE    HUGUENOTS. 

The  whole  history  of  the  French  Reformation  told  in  two  sentences — Origin 
of  the  Huguenots — Calvin  the  founder  and  father  of  French  Protestantism 
— Leopold  Kanke's  History  of  the  French  Civil  Wars  reviewed  in  this 
chapter — Lefevre  d'Estaples  the  first  forerunner  of  Eeformation — A 
Humanist,  like  Erasmus — Ranke's  portraiture  of  him — Ranke  an  intense 
Protestant — William  Briqonnet,  bishop  of  Meaux — The  University  of  the 
Sorbonne — The  delegation  for  examining  matters  of  faith — Francis  I. — 
His  volatile  character  encourages  the  Humanists  and  the  reformers — The 
Anabaptists  in  Paris — The  state  policy  of  Francis  tortuous  and  unprinci- 
pled— His  sister,  Queen  Margaret  of  Navarre,  an  open  friend  of  the  new 
gospelers — Her  poetry  and  writings — The  Concordat — And  the  grievous 
abuses  which  grew  out  of  its  perversion  by  the  court — Court  patronage, 
the  real  source  of  the  evil — Ranke's  testimony — Remarks  on  the  great 
question  of  Investitures — Henry  II.,  Francis  II.,  and  Henry  III. — The 
queen  regent  Catherine  de  Medicis — Henry  of  Navarre — Calvin  intriguing 
from  Geneva — And  Elizabeth  from  England — The  contest  fairly  begins — 
Plots,  intrigues,  and  threatened  insurrections — Tortuous  and  unprincipled 
policy  of  Catherine — Conspiracy  of  Amboise — Account  of  Lingard  and 
Ranke — Calvin's  agency  examined — Elizabeth  at  the  bottom  of  it — 
Throckmorton's  interview  with  Antoine  de  Bourbon — Ranke's  statement 
examined — Confirmation  of  Lingard's  statement  by  Morley,  in  his  Life  of 
"Palissy  the  Potter" — Lingard's  authorities — Ranke  substantially  con- 
firms  Lingard  and  Morley — The  conspiracy  defeated  by  Guise,  and  the 
Huguenot  leaders  executed — Elizabeth's  double  policy — Singular  declara- 
tion 0? peace! — Warlike  attitude  of  Conde — The  more  the  Huguenots 
gain,  the  more  they  ask — Their  liberty  secured,  but  they  wish  to  crush 
that  of  others — Who  began  the  war  ? — Affair  at  Vassy — Ranke  on  the 
duke  of  Guise — The  civil  war  breaks  out — Elizabeth  aids  the  Huguenots, 
who  deliver  up  to  her  Havre  and  Dieppe — First  campaign — Battle  of 
Dreux — The  two  commanding  generals  taken  prisoners — Guise  and  Co- 
ligny — Siege  of  Orleans — Assassination  of  the  duke   of  Guise,  brought 

(349) 


350  REFORMATION    IN   FRANCE THE   HUGUENOTS. 

about  bj'^  Coligny — Sudden  pacification — Elizabeth  foiled — The  pacifica- 
tion broken  by  the  Huguenftts — Attempt  to  seize  the  king  at  Monceaux— 
Its  failure — The  English  ambassador  implicated — Treaty  of  Bayonnc  a 
fabrication — Lingard,  Hallam,  Ranke,  and  Mackintosh  alleged — Second 
civil  war — The  third  one — Third  general  pacification — Marriage  concluded 
between  the  king  of  Navarre,  and  the  sister  of  Charles  IX.  of  France — 
Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew — Lingard's  account — And  Ranke's — Dis- 
patches of  the  papal  nuncio  at  Paris  settle  the  question  of  premeditation 
— Number  of  victims — Religion  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  massacre — 
The  Pope — The  Catholic  bishops  and  clergy — Previous  atrocities  commit- 
ted by  Huguenots — The  Muhelade — The  ferocious  Baron  d'Adrets — His 
barbarities  against  Catholics — Events  succeeding  the  massacre — The  Hu- 
guenots seize  Rochelle — Renewed  pacifications — And  new  civil  wars — 
The  Huguenot  Confederacy — And  the  Catholic  League  — Assassination  of 
Henry  III. — And  accession  of  Henry  IV. — He  becomes  a  Catholic  on  the 
advice  of  the  Huguenots  ! — Publishes  the  Edict  of  Nantes — Its  revocation 
by  Louis  XIV. — Motives  for  the  revocation — Did  it  impair  the  prosperity 
of  France  ? — Number  of  Huguenot  exiles — Testimony  of  the  duke  of 
Burgundy  and  of  Caveirac — Atrocities  on  both  sides — Those  of  Hugue- 
nots began  at  an  early  period — Dr.  Maitland — The  Wool-comber  Leclerc 
— Recapitulation — The  French  Reformation  and  the  French  Revolution. 

The  whole  history  of  the  Reformation  in  France  may  be 
related  in  two  sentences :  The  Calvinists  sought  by  intrigue 
and  by  force  of  arms  to  gain  the  ascendency  and  to  establish- 
their  new  religion  on  the  ruins  of  the  old ;  but  after  a  long 
struggle  they  signally  failed,  and  France  was  preserved  to  the 
Church.  Long  and  terrible  was  the  contest  between  the 
turbulent  Protestant  minority  and  the  determined  Catholic 
majority,  to  settle  the  momentous  question  which  should 
finally  control  the  destinies  of  France ;  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years  civil  war,  rendered  still  fiercer  by  the  infusion  of  the 
element  of  religious  zeal  and  fanaticism,  raged  with  but  brief 
intervals  of  pacification  throughout  the  country,  which  it  dis- 
tracted and  rendered  desolate.  Finally,  the  Catholics,  meeting 
intrigue  with  intrigue  and  repelling  force  by  force,  remained 
in  the  ascendant,  and  the  Protestant  party,  once  so  aspiring, 
dwindled  down  into  an  insignificant  fraction  of  the  popula- 
tion.   This  is  the  whole  story  briefly  summed  up;  as  we 


ORIGIN    OF   THE   HUGUENOTS LEFEVRE   d'eSTAPLES„      351 

think  will  be  sui£ciently  proved  by  the  facts  contained  in  the 
present  chapter. 

The  Calvinists  of  France  were  called  Huguenots^  probably 
from  the  name  taken  by  their  brethren  in  Switzerland  and 
Geneva,  when  these  banded  together  by  oath  against  the  duke 
of  Savoy  and  the  Swiss  Catholics,  and  were  thence  called 
Eidgenossen — or  bound  together  by  oath — a  name  which  the 
French  changed  into  Eguenots  or  Egnots^  and  later  into 
Huguenots.*  The  name  itself  thus  marked  the  Genevan 
origin  of  the  sect.  Calvin,  himself  a  Frenchman  and  a  ref- 
ugee in  Switzerland,  may  be  justly  regarded  as  the  founder 
and  father  of  the  French  Huguenots.  From  his  home  at 
Geneva,  he  sent  out  his  missionaries  into  France,  eagerly 
watched  their  progress,  encouraged  them  by  frequent  letters, 
directed  and  controlled  their  movements ;  in  a  word,  his  rest- 
less activity  and  over-shadowing  influence  was  felt  every- 
where ;  and  he  continued  to  be  the  very  life  and  soul  of 
French  Calvinism  till  his  death,  in  May,  15G3.  This  is  freely 
admitted  by  Ranke,f  who,  however,  says  that  Calvin  did  not 
encourage  violence,  but  rather  recommended  prudent  and 
forbearing  zeal.  This  may  have  been,  and  probably  was  the 
case  during  the  earlier  period  of  the  movement,  when 
caution  was  the  best  policy,  and  violence  would  have  wholly 
defeated  the  purpose  of  the  shrewd  and  calculating  reform- 
er ;  it  certainly  was  not  the  policy  recommended  and  adopted 
after  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  new  re- 
ligionists had  already  become  sufficiently  powerful  to  enter  the 
lists  with  their  adversaries,  through  political  intrigues  in  the 


♦See  Lingard,  History  of  England,  vii,  308,  note,  and  other  historians 
passim.  Other  origins  of  the  name  are  given,  but  this  seems  the  most 
probable. 

f  Civil  Wars  and  Monarchy  in  France,  in  the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth 
Centuries ;  a  History  of  France  chiefly  during  that  period.  By  fjeopold 
Ranke,  translated  by  M.  A.  Garvey.  One  vol.,  12mo,  New  York,  Harper 
and  Brothers,  1853.  The  title  is  a  misnomer,  so  fiir  as  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury is  concerned,  the  present  volume  embracing  only  the  sixteenth. 


3b'2  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE THE    HUGUENOTS. 

cabinet  or  open  force  in  the  field.  This  we  shall  see  in  the 
proper  place. 

According  to  Ranke,  Master  Jacob  Lefevre  d'Estaples 
"  may  be  regarded  as  the  patriarch  of  the  Reformation  in 
France."*  He  had  studied  in  Italy,  and  he  belonged  to  the 
same  school  as  Erasmus,  being  like  him  a  Humanist.  With 
this  literary  sect,  an  elegantly  turned  Latin  or  Greek  sentence, 
or  a  refined  classical  witticism,  was  regarded  as  vastly  prefer- 
able to  an  orthodox  definition  or  a  sober  declaration  of  faith 
clad  in  homely  language ;  and  the  special  objects  of  theii 
aversion  were  the  barbarous  Latin  and  the  severe  dialectic 
method  adopted  by  the  Schoolmen.  The  recent  revival  of  the 
ancient  Latin  and  Greek  learning  in  Italy  had  originated  this 
new  school,  and  given  prominence  and  influence  to  its  leading 
spirits.  The  weapon  which  the  Catholic  Church  had  disin- 
terred from  the  rubbish  of  ages,  and  which  she  had  burnished 
in  her  own  armory,  was  thus  eagerly  seized  upon  by  her  ad- 
versaries, and  turned  against  her  own  bosom.  Even  such  of 
the  men  of  the  new  learning  as  did  not  openly  abandon  her 
fold  and  join  the  ranks  of  her  opponents,  often  inflicted  on 
her  more  extensive  injury  than  those  who  were  her  declared 
enemies.  By  the  freedom  of  their  writings,  and  by  their 
covert  or  open  sneers  at  her  religious  observances,  couched  in 
epigrammatic  periods  and  elegant  language,  they  paved  the 
way  for  bolder  s'drits  who  halted  not  half-way,  but  openly 
threw  otf  her  yoke,  and  set  up  a  new  religion  for  themselves. 
Such  a  forerunner  of  the  Reformation  was  Erasmus,  the 
philosopher  of  Rotterdam,  and  such  also,  we  suppose,  was 
Lefevre  of  France.  Neither  seems  to  have  formally  aban- 
doned the  Church.    Says  Ranke : 

"  Lefevre  wa-s  a  man  of  insignificant,  almost  despicable  appearance ;  but 
the  extent  and  solidity  of  his  acquirements,  his  moral  probity,  and  the  mild- 
ness and  gentleness  which  breathed  throughout  his  whole  being,  invested  him 
wMh  a  higher  dignity.  When  he  looked  around  upon  the  world,  it  appeared 
to  him,  both  near  and  far,  to  be  covered  with   the  deep  gloom  of  supersti- 

*  Ranke,  Civil  Wars  in  France,  etc.,  p.  132. 


BISHOP   BRICONNET FRANCIS    I.    OF   FRANCE.  353 

tion  (!),  but  that  with  the  study  of  the  original  records  of  the  faith,  there 
was  associated  a  hope  of  reformation,  which  he  told  his  most  trusted  pupils 
they  would  live  to  witness.  He  himself  proceeded  in  his  course  with  a  cir- 
cumspection, amounting  almost  to  hesitancy.  He  could  not  wean  himself 
from  the  practice  of  kneeling  before  the  figures  of  the  saints,  and  sought  for 
arguments  to  defend  the  doctrine  of  purgatory  :  in  the  province  of  learning 
alone  had  he  courage  ;  there  in  a  critical  dispute,  he  ventured  first  to  re- 
nounce  a  tradition  of  the    Latin   Church  in  favor  of  the  opinions  of  the 

Greek ; even  in  the  most  advanced  age  which  man  is  permitted  to 

attain,  he  commenced  a  translation  of  the  Bible,  which  forms  the  basis  of 
the  French  version  of  the  Scriptures ;  when  he  wrote  it,  he  had  already 
passed  his  eightieth  year."* 

According  to  our  historian,  William  Briconnet,  bishop  of 
Meaux  in  France,  was  an  old  friend  of  Lefevre,  whom  he  wil- 
lingly entertained  in  his  episcopal  palace,  together  with  Farel, 
Houssel,  and  Aranda,  Lefevre's  favorite  disciples.  These  men 
of  the  new  opinions  succeeded  in  stirring  up  the  bishop  to 
disembarrass  himself  of  the  regular  parish  priests  and  of  "  the 
chattering  monks,"  and  to  engage  instead  of  them  their  own 
services  in  the  sacred  ministry.  This  violent  displacement 
of  the  old  and  intrusion  of  the  new  pastors  created,  of  course, 
a  great  commotion  among  the  people,  and  caused  an  appeal 
to  be  made  to  the  higher  ecclesiastical  courts.  The  new  opin- 
ions thus  broached  at  Meaux,  together  with  the  new  pastoral 
arrangements  growing  out  of  them,  were  referred  to  the  ad- 
judication of  the  celebrated  Parisian  university  of  the  Sor 
bonne,  which  had  already  condemned  the  errors  of  Luther, 
and  had  stood  forth  for  more  than  two  centuries  as  one  of  the 
most  unflinching  champions  of  Catholic  orthodoxy.  A  spe- 
cial committee,  or  delegation  for  matters  of  faith,  was  soon 
appointed  by  the  Sorbonne,  to  examine  and  report  on  the  new 
opinions. 

"  This  delegation  continued,  with  many  renewals,  for  more  than  half  a 
century,  and  offered  to  Protestantism  an  opposition  little  less  important  than 

*  Ranke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.     It  will  be  seen  that  Ranke  is  a  thorough  Prot- 
estant, which  renders  his  testimony  to  fiicts  favorable   to   the  Church  the 
more  unexceptionable  ;  a  circumstance  we  beg  the  reader  to  bear  in  mind, 
as  we  shall  have  fre(iuent  occasion  to  quote  him  in  this  chapter. 
VOL.   II. — 30 


354  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE THE   HUGUENOTS. 

that  of  the  Papacy  at  Rome  itself.  Their  efficiency  was  owing  to  the  fad 
that  heresy  was  regarded  as  a  civil  crime  ;  and  that  the  parliament  which 
exercised  the  criminal  jurisdiction,  held  the  judgment  of  the  Sorbonne,  in 
relation  to  heretics  and  heretical  books,  as  decisive  and  final.  Lefevre,  al- 
ready suspected  on  account  of  the  Greekish  tendency  of  his  opinions,  was 
now  in  addition  looked  upon  as  a  Lutheran.  He  retired  to  Meaux,  in  order 
to  escape  being  treated  as  a  heretic  ;  but  there  his  activity  and  that  of  his 
discijiles  was  not  to  be  endured.  The  monks,  who  complained  of  the 
bishop,  found  attention  to  their  complaints  in  the  parliament.  The  Sorbonne 
condemned  some  of  the  articles,  as  connected  with  the  innovation  which  had 
been  adopted  there,  and  demanded  their  recall.  The  society  of  the  reform- 
ers could  not  long  withstand  their  united  power — it  was  totally  broken  up 
and  dispersed.  The  bishop  now  bethought  himself,  that  it  was  time  for  him 
in  some  measure  to  re-establish  his  reputation  as  a  faithful  Catholic,  and  for 
the  rest  he  took  shelter  in  his  mystic  obscurity."* 

Notwithstanding  this  temporary  check,  the  time  and  cir- 
cumstances were  very  propitious  for  the  diffusion  of  the  new 
opinions  in  France.  During  thirty-two  years  in  the  first  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century — from  1515  to  1547 — the  French 
throne  was  occupied  by  the  gay  and  brilliant  Francis  I. ;  a 
man  who  blended  but  little  religious  or  moral  principle  with 
that  dash  of  mediaeval  chivalry  which  distinguished  his  char 
acter.  A  zealous  patron  of  learning,  he  favored  the  Human- 
ists, and  at  first  cared  but  little  whether  their  religious  senti- 
ments were  orthodox  or  not.  He  "loved  neither  the  parlia- 
ment nor  the  Sorbonne,  with  which  he  had  a  fierce  dispute 
on  account  of  his  Concordat.  The  monks,  however,  he  liked 
least  of  all,  and  had  long  entertained  a  project  of  founding  a 
philosophical  institution,  and  placing  at  its  head  Erasmus, 
the  most  distinguished  opponent  of  their  method  of  thinking 
and  their  manner  of  teaching."!  He  accordingly  took  the 
men  of  the  new  opinions  under  his  special  protection  ;  and  it 

*  Ranko,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  135.  The  bishop  of  Meaux,  who  was  a 
Humanist  and  a  great  encourager  of  learning,  was  probably  surprised  into 
an  encouragement  of  the  new  religious  opinions ;  but  when  he  saw  their 
tendency,  he  retraced  his  steps,  and  continued  a  faithful  Catholic  prelate  to 
his  death.  t  Ibid. 


HIS   POLICY    UNPRINCIPLED.  355 

was  only  after  these  had  grown  bold  enough  to  attack  the 
warmly  cherished  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  real  presence  in 
holy  Eucharist,  and  to  affiliate  secretly  with  the  Anabaptists, 
who  had  recently  sprung  up  in  Paris  itself,  and  who  aimed 
at  nothing  less  than  the  total  subversion  of  the  existing  order 
of  things  both  in  Church  and  "State,  that  his  eyes  were  at 
length  opened,  and  he  abandoned  the  new  gospelers  to  the 
fate  which  awaited  them  in  accordance  with  existing  laws.* 

The  state  policy  of  Francis  I.  was  tortuous  and  unprinci- 
pled. He  scrupled  not  at  the  employment  of  almost  any 
means  which  were  deemed  most  efficacious  for  securing  his 
ends.  lie  inaugurated  that  mischievovs  French  policy — 
which  has  been  kept  up  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  to  the 
present  day — of  forming  alliances  with  the  German  Protest- 
ants, and  even  with  the  grand  Turk  himself,  against  Catholic 
sovereigns,  whenever  it  was  likely  that  a  temporary  advan- 
tage would  be  thereby  secured.  He  would  probably  have  had 
little  scruple  to  enter  into  a  league,  offensive  and  defensive, 
with  the  arch-enemy  himself,  if  he  had  thought  it  would  serve 
him  in  his  life-long  struggle  with  his  great  rival,  Charles  V.! 
This  reckless  policy  of  the  French  court  did  more  to  promote 
the  Reformation  in  Germany  and  elsew^here,  than  almost  any 
other  single  cause  with  which  we  are  acquainted. 

His  sister.  Queen  Margaret  of  Navarre,  was  a  still  more  un- 
disguised friend  and  patroness  of  the  men  of  the  new  doctrines. 
When  these  were  compelled  to  abandon  Paris  and  Meaux, 
she  gave  them  shelter  and  protection  in  her  own  court ; 
and  under  her  auspices,  the  new  gospel  was  rapidly  propa- 
gated throughout  the  territory  of  Beam.  The  queen  was  not 
only  a  patroness  of  the  Humanists,  but  she  was  herself 
an  authoress.  She  wrote  poems  of  mystic  import,  and  com- 
posed a  work  in  prose,  published  only  after  her  death,  which 
seems  to  have  been  much  more  elegant  in  diction  than  chaste 
in  language  or  sentiment.f     Such  as  she  was,  her  influence 

*  See  Ranke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  137-8. 

+  Her  poetry  was  in  the  style  of  that  of  Zinzendorflf  and  other  modem 


356  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE — THE   HUGUENOTS. 

was  thrown  entirely  into  the  scale  of  the  Reformation; 
though  it  does  nut  appear  that  she  formally  abandoned  th« 
communion  of  the  Church. 

The  abuses,  which  had  unfortunately  crept  into  the  church  of 
France  at  this  period,  afforded  a  fertile  theme  for  denunciation 
to  the  new  gospelers.  No  'doubt  these  abuses  are  greatly 
exaggerated  by  Ranke,  and  they  were  still  more  so  by  the 
fiery  preachers  who  clamored  for  reform.  Still  they  were 
grievous  enough,  though  the  Church  and  the  Papacy  were 
certainly  not  fairly  responsible  for  them.  They  grew  out  of 
the  Concordat,  which  Francis  had  wrung  from  the  reluctant 
Pontiff,  and  which  the  court  abused  for  its  own  vile  political 
purposes.  The  Sorbonne  protested  against  this  treaty  with 
the  Pope,  and  we  do  not  at  all  wonder  at  the  opposition  and 
indignation  which  all  good  Catholics  so  boldly  expressed,  on 
occasion  of  the  enormous  abuses  which  grew  out  of  it,  if  the 
following  picture  of  them  drawn  by  Ranke  be  correct ;  as  we 
fear  it  is — at  least  substantially : — 

"  The  Concordat  which  placed  the  presentation  of  the  ecclesiastical  bene- 
fices so  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  king,  produced  the  most  ruinous  and 
corrupt  effects.  The  king  rewarded  with  them  services  rendered  in  his  own 
house,  and  in  court  or  in  war,  and  gave  them  to  the  younger  children  of  the 
nobility  as  means  of  living ;  many  persons  received  them  in  the  name  of 
their  children ;  an  Italian  is  mentioned  who  drew  from  the  property  of  the 
Church  an  annual  income  of  ten  thousand  ducats  in  the  name  of  his  little 
son,  and  after  his  death  his  right  passed  to  his  wife.  All,  however,  did  not 
think  it  necessary  to  inscribe  in  another  name  the  benefices  which  they  re- 
ceived ;  there  were  soldiers  who  possessed  rich  abbacies  in  their  own  name, 
and  at  the  same  time  were  leading  their  companies  of  foot.  Many,  too,  who 
were  totally  unqualified  undertook  themselves  the  administration  of  the 
oflBces  they  had  obtained.  Men  who  5^esterday  were  engaged  in  mercantile 
affairs,  or  who  were  courtiers  or  soldiers,  were  seen  to-day  in  the  episcopal 
state  and  ornaments,  or  officiating  as  abbots.  Personal  merit,  a  good  moral 
reputation,  even  mere  scholarship,  were  not  required  or  looked  for  ;  all  de- 
pended upon  the  relation  in  which  men  stood  to  the  court.     What  was  to 

German  mystics,  hurtful  to  few,  because  well-nigh  unintelligible.  Her  prose 
— the  Heptameron,  or  seven  days — is  probably  as  gross  as  even  the  Decam- 
eron of  Boccaccio !    Ranke  very  discreetly  says  nothing  of  this  last  production 


HENRY    II.    AND    THE    CARDINAL   DE   LORRAINE.  357 

be  said,  when  ever:  the  mistress  of  the  king,  the  duchess  of  Valentinois,  had 
m  her  hands  the  di  stribution  of  the  ecclesiastical  benefices."* 

This  presents  another  striking  evidence,  out  of  the  hundreds 
which  ecclesiastical  history  exhibits  to  our  view,  to  establish 
the  important  ftict,  that  most  of  the  abuses  which  have  at 
various  times  atHicted  the  Church  have  grown  out  of  the 
usurpations  of  the  temporal  power,  which,  in  spite  of  the  Roman 
Pontiffs,  persisted  in  thrustingits  own  creatures  into  the  higher 
ecclesiastical  dignities.  And  yet,  it  is  fashionable  among 
our  modern  historians  to  blame  the  Church  and  the  Popes 
for  evils  which  these  not  only  did  not  sanction,  but  against 
which  they  protested  with  all  their  might !  The  proper  and 
only  effectual  remedy  for  the  abuses  complained  of  would  have 
been,  to  lay  the  axe  at  the  root  of  this  poisonous  tree  of  royal 
patronage — or  rather  usurpation — and  stoutly  to  uphold  the 
Pontiffs  in  the  exercise  of  their  legitimate  and  undoubted  pre- 
rogative, to  appoint  suitable  persons  to  the  principal  and  more 
responsible  ofhces  of  the  Church.  But  this  would  not  have 
suited  the  policy  of  those  fawning  worshipers  at  the  foot  of 
the  throne,  who,  in  their  blind  hatred  of  the  Papacy  and  their 
abject  servility  to  the  temporal  power,  seemed  practically  to 
have  adopted  the  principle,  that  the  king  can  never  do  wrong 
and  the  Pope  can  never  do  right.  Since  the  Popes  have  be- 
come comparatively  free  and  untrammelled  in  the  nomina- 
tions of  bishops,  the  Church  has  had  few  scandals  of  this  kind 
to  deplore,  and  the  great  body  of  the  Catholic  clergy  all  over 
the  world  have  been  generally  irreproachable  in  their  morals. 
This  fact  alone  speaks  whole  volumes. 

Francis  I.  died  March  1,  1547,  and  he  was  succeeded  by 
his  son  Henry  II.,  whose  wife  was  the  famous  Catherine  de 
Medicis.  Henry  took  a  decided  stand  in  favor  of  the  old 
Church,  and  he  was  throughout  his  reign  a  determined  op- 
ponent of  the  new  doctrines,  which,  however,  still  continued 

*  Eanke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  158-9.     He  quotes  Soranzo.     This  Concordat 
was  probably  the  successor  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  which  was  if  po.ssible, 
even  still  worse. 
64 


3&8  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE THE    IIUGl  L'NOTS. 

silently  to  advance,  especially  in  the  southern  and  western 
portions  of  the  kingdom.  Calvin  from  Geneva  became  much 
alarmed ;  when  suddenly  his  sorrow  was  turned  into  joy,  by 
the  sudden  death  of  the  king  from  an  accident  at  a  tourna- 
ment, on  the  i^Gth  of  July,  1559: — 

"The  Protestants  recognized  in  this  event  the  almost  visible  judgment  of 
God,  though  as  flir  as  they  were  concerned,  they  could  not  expect  that  ita 
consequences  would  be  llivorable  to  them.  The  successor  of  Henry,  Fran- 
cis II.,  who  was  still  a  boy,  gave  his  entire  power  into  the  hands  of  a  man 
whom  they  regarded  as  their  fiercest  adversary — the  cardinal  of  Lorraine, 
of  the  house  of  Guise."* 

The  cardinal,  however,  did  not  long  hold  his  responsible 
position.  Francis  11.  died  suddenly  at  the  close  of  the  fol- 
lowing year.f  Then  came  the  period  of  intrigue,  of  turbu- 
lence, and  of  civil  commotions,  which  marked  the  real,  it  not 
always  nominal  regency  of  Catherine,  the  queen  mother, 
under  the  reigns  of  her  two  remaining  sons  Charles  IX.  and 
Benry  III.  The  cardinal  of  Lorraine  soon  found  that  Cathe- 
rine would  not  brook  his  overshadowing  influence ;  and  the 
reformers,  who  had  been  busily  intriguing  against  him  at 
court,  soon  had  the  satisfaction  to  believe,  or  to  hope,  that 
they  had  achieved  a  triumph.     Says  Ranke  : 

"But  the  cardinal  had  miscalculated  still  more  upon  the  queen  mother. 
She  longed  for  the  moment  when  the  domination  of  the  Guises  should  come 
to  an  end;  it  was  barel}^  tolerable,  only  because  it  was  in  p-cordance  with 
the  wishes  of  Francis  II ,  and  therefore  not  to  be  avoiled.  She  intended  to 
show  the  Guises  that  the  public  hatred  excited  by  the  last  reign  was 
directed,  not  against  her,  but  against  themselves.  '  When  all  was  lost,'  said 
Beza,  'behold  the  Lord  our  God  aroused  himself'  An  alteration  followed 
in  the  aspect  of  affairs,  not  suddenly  but  by  degrees,  and  on  that  account 
the  more  decided.     The  idea  of  Calvin  prevailed  over  that  of  the  cardinal.''^ 

Catherine  now  appeared  before  the  council,  "leading  by 
the  hand  the  eldest  of  her  surviving  sons,  upon  whom  the 
succession  to  the  throne  had  devolved;  this  was  Charles  IX., 
who  was  then  in  his  eleventh  year.  .  .  .  The  council  resolved 

*  Ranke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  167.       f  Rec.  5th,  15G0.     t  I'^'c^.  :•  187. 


CATIIKRINE   DE   MEDICIS HER   TORTLOUS    POLICY.        359 

that  the  opinion  of  the  first  prince  of  the  blood,  the  king  of 
Navarre,  ought  to  be  heard  in  all  matters.  This  was  exactly 
what  Calvin  had  wished  for,  and  what  he  had  contemplated 
as  the  result  of  a  great  demonstration,  but  which  now  came 
to  pass  spontaneously."* 

The  king  of  Navarre,  afterwards  Henry  IV.,  was  looked 
up  to  as  the  natural  leader  and  protector  of  the  Huguenots, 
which  leadership  he  had  inherited  with  the  royal  blood  from 
his  mother  Queen  Margaret.  No  wonder  Calvin  was  rejoiced ; 
but  the  course  of  subsequent  events  did  not  come  up  to  his 
confident  expectations.  Many  and  intricate  were  the  plots 
and  counterplots,  the  conspiracies  and  civil  commotions, 
which  followed ;  persistent  and  violent  were  the  efforts  of  the 
Huguenot  chieftains  to  control  the  supreme  power  of  the 
kingdom.  For  this  purpose  they  resorted  without  scruple  to 
treasonable  intrigues  and  alliances  with  Elizabeth  of  England ; 
and  they  gladly  accepted  the  aid  in  men  and  money  which 
she  sent  them,  to  enable  them  to  come  off  victorious  in  their 
Btruggle  against  the  sovereign  and  government  of  their  own 
country.  In  the  end,  however,  they  were  completely  foiled, 
and  the  Catholic  party  remained  in  the  ascendant.  They 
inflicted  desperate  wounds  on  France ;  they  could  not  suc- 
ceed, even  with  the  aid  of  England  and  the  sympathy  and 
subsequent  assistance  of  their  brethren  in  Germany,  in  dis- 
membering it,  in  destroying  its  nationality,  or  even  in  per- 
manently revolutionizing  its  government. 

During  the  continuance  of  these  contests,  the  queen  mother 
Catherine  pursued  a  tortuous  and  unprincipled  policy.  She 
coquetted  alternately  with  the  leaders  of  both  parties,  now 
favoring  the  king  of  Navarre  and  his  associates  Conde  and 
Coligny,  now  upholding  the  cause  of  the  Guises  who  were 
the  principal  Catholic  champions.  Her  policy  seems  to  have 
been,  to  play  off  the  two  parties  against  each  other,  in  order 
thereby  to  strengthen  her  own  influence  and  to  retain  the 
supreme  power  in  her  own  hands. 

*  Kanke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  188. 


360  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE THE   HUGUENOTS. 

Our  limits  will  not  permit  us  to  go  into  lengthy  details  ir 
regard  to  the  exciting  transactions  which  marked  this  period 
of  French  history.  We  will  furnish  instead  the  terse,  succint, 
impartial,  and  accurate  account  of  them  given  by  the  great  his- 
torian of  England,  Dr.  Lingard,  together  with  his  authorities ; 
remarking  as  we  proceed  on  any  substantial  discrepancies 
which  may  be  found  between  his  statements,  and  those  of 
Ranke  and  of  other  historians  favorable  to  the  Huguenots.* 

1.  The  first  movement  in  the  politico-religious  drama, 
which  was  destined  to  drench  the  French  soil  in  the  blood  of 
its  citizens,  was  made  by  the  Huguenots  as  early  as  1550, 
during  the  reign  of  Francis  H.  It  is  known  in  history  as  the 
conspiracy  of  Amboise.  It  was  a  treasonable  attempt  of  the 
Huguenot  leaders  to  seize  on  the  government,  under  the  pretense 
of  resisting  the  usurpation  of  the  Guises.  It  was  probably  con- 
cocted at  Geneva  under  the  eye  of  Calvin ;  it  was  certainly 
instigated  by  Elizabeth  of  England.    Says  Lingard : 

"  The  principal  inducement  of  Elizabeth  to  intermeddle  with  French  af- 
fairs was  her  knowledge  of  the  projects  cherished  by  the  factions  in  France. 
Scarcely  was  the  corpse  of  Henry  II.  laid  in  the  grave,  when  Cecil  under- 
took to  excite  in  that  country  dissensions,  similar  to  those  which  he  had 
fomented  in  Scotland,  by  arming  the  princes  of  the  blood,  and  the  reform- 
ers, against  their  new  monarch,  Francis  II.  By  his  instructions,  Throck- 
morton solicited  a  private  interview  with  Antoine  de  Bourbon,  the  titular 
king  of  Navarre,  who  was  known  to  favor  the  reformed  doctrines.  They 
met  in  the  town  of  St.  Denis  at  the  hour  of  midnight.  The  ambassador,  in 
general  terms,  stated  to  the  king  '  the  esteem  of  the  queen  for  his  virtues, 
her  wish  to  form  an  alliance  with  him  for  the  honor  of  God  and  the  advance- 
ment of  true  religion,  and  her  hope  that,  by  mutuall}^  assisting  each  other, 
they  might  prevent  their  enemies  from  taking  any  advantage  against  God, 
or  his  cause  (!),  or  either  of  themselves  as  his  ministers  (!).  Though  Antoine 
understood  the  object  of  this  hypocritical  cant,  he  answered  with  caution  : 
'that  he  should  be  happy  to  have  so  illustrious  an  ally  in  so  sacred  a  cause, 
but  that  for  greater  security  he  would  correspond  directly  with  the  queen 

*  Lingard  goes  straight  to  the  point,  and  in  one  page  he  furnishes  more 
facts,  much  better  related  and  far  better  put  together,  than  Eanke  does  in 
five.  Ranke  is  somewhat  of  a  transcendental  philosopher,  and  he  must 
needs  give  us  his  often  tedious  reflections  as  he  proceeds  with  his  storj'. 


CONSPIRACY    OF    AMBOISE RAKKe's    VERSION.  361 

herself.'*  In  a  few  days  the  young  king  intrusted  to  the  duke  of  Guise  and 
the  cardinal .  of  Lorraine,  the  uncles  of  his  queen,  the  chief  offices  in  the 
government.  The  ambition  of  the  princes  of  the  blood  was  disappointed ; 
and  Antoine,  king  of  Navarre,  and  Louis,  prince  of  Conde,  Bourbons  of  the 
house  of  Vendome,  formed  an  association  with  Coligny,  admiral  of  France, 
d'Andelot,  colonel  of  the  French  infantry,  and  the  cardinal  of  Chatillon, 
three  nephews  of  the  Constable  Montmorency.  Together  they  could  com- 
mand the  services  of  about  three  thousand  men  of  family,  and  of  the  whole 
body  of  reformers  in  France,  to  whom  they  had  long  been  known  as  friends 
and  protectors. 

'  It  was  to  inform  the  queen  of  their  views  and  resources,  that  Throck- 
morton had  come  to  England  ;  and  he  was  followed  by  Renaudie,  a  gentle- 
man of  Perigord,  the  devoted  partisan  of  the  prince  of  Conde,  who,  to  save 
the  lives  of  the  chiefs  in  the  event  of  failure,  had  accepted  the  dangerous 
post  of  appearing  at  first  as  the  leader  of  the  insurgents.  That  adventurer 
soon  returned,  the  bearer  from  Elizabeth  of  wishes  for  their  success,  and 
promises  of  support ;  Calvin  from  Geneva  sent  emissaries  and  letters  to  his 
disciples  in  France  ;  men  were  secretly  levied  among  the  professors  of  the 
new  doctrines  in  every  province ;  and  a  day  was  appointed  when  they 
should  rendezvous  in  the  vicinity  of  the  court,  surprise  the  king  and  queen, 
the  cardinal  and  the  duke  of  Guise,  and  place  the  government  in  the  hands 
of  the  princes  of  the  blood."f 

Kanke  admits  the  fact  of  the  conspiracy,  and  also  that  the 
subject  was  discussed  by  Renaudie  and  the  other  Huguenot 
exiles  at  Geneva: J  but  he  affects  to  believe  that  considerable 
obscurity  rests  upon  the  nature  of  the  plot  itself,  and  the  pur- 
poses of  the  conspirators,  and  he  denies  that  Calvin  concurred 
in  the  movement.  Yet  he  admits  that  Renaudie,  on  his 
return  from  Geneva,  assured  his  followers,  that,  "according 
to  the  judgment  of  the  German  theologians  and  jurists,  the 
undertaking  was  perfectly  lawful."§     It  is  probable  that  Cal- 

*  Forbes,  i,  174,  212. 

f  Lingard,  History  of  England,  vii,  287-8. 

"  In  the  council  held  at  La  Ferte  it  was  deliberated  whether  they  should 
entirely  rid  themselves  of  the  royal  family  and  the  Guises ;  but  the  majority 
decided  that  assassination  would  throw  too  much  discredit  on  the  party,  and 
rouse  all  France  against  them.  Capefigue,  ii,  107.  He  quotes  Brulart's 
Journal.  Vie  de  Coligny,  20.  De  Thou,  i,  xxiv.  Matthieu,  i,  iv,  p.  213. 
Le  Labourer,  i,  512." 

f  Ranke,  Civil  \rars,  etc.,  p.  175,  seqq.  \  Ibid.,  p.  176, 

VOL.    II. 81 


362  REFORMATION    IN   FRAxNCK THE    HUGUENOTS 

vin's  oppositit)!!  was  an  after-thought — when  the  conspiracy 
had  failed, — or  that  he  played  as  usual  a  double  game.  The 
Huguenots  would  scarcely  have  ventured  on  so  important  a 
step  without  his  advice.  It  is  well  known,  that  they  consulted 
him  on  all  important  occasions,  and  that  they  generally  fol- 
lowed his  counsel.  He  was,  in  fact,  their  real  prime  minister, 
in  opposition  to  the  one  who  conducted  the  French  govern- 
ment at  home. 

As  Ilanke  asserts  roundly,  that  "  he  (Calvin)  and  his  fol- 
lowers (in  France)  might  have  wished  for  peace,"  but  "  their 
antagonists  (the  French  Catholics)  needed,  demanded,  and 
began  the  war  ;"*  the  origin  and  objects  of  this  conspiracy  of 
Amboise,  which  took  place  more  than  two  years  before  the 
actual  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  Wars  in  France,  assume  an 
historical  importance  which  would  not  otherwise  attach  to 
them.  Chance  has  thrown  in  our  way  an  interesting  and 
unexceptionable  testimony  upon  this  subject,  which  we  will 
be  pardoned  for  republishing  in  full.  It  is  interesting,  be- 
cause it  contains  a  graphic  picture,  drawn  by  a  friendly  hand, 
of  the  principal  Huguenot  leaders ;  and  unexceptionable,  be- 
cause furnished  by  a  warm  advocate  of  the  Huguenot  cause 
and  movements.  We  refer  to  Morley's  account,  in  his  Life 
of  Palissy,  the  Potter. 

"Whoever  might  head  the  great  party  of  malcontents  created  by  what 
was  called  the  usurpation  of  power  by  the  House  of  Guise,  the  men  to  whom 
the  Huguenots  looked  up  as  their  own  chiefs  were  the  three  brothers  Coligny, 
D'Andelot,  and  Chatillon.  Of  Coligny  and  D'Andelot  we  have  already 
spoken.  Admiral  Coligny  was  a  man  stubborn,  taciturn  and  inflexible  of 
purpose  ;  D'Andelot  was  not  less  steadfast  and  intrepid  and  only  a  few  de- 
grees less  sombre  and  reserved.  Both,  says  Brantome,  being  so  formed  by 
nature  that  they  moved  with  difficulty,  and  on  their  faces  never  any  sudden 
jhar)go  of  countenance  betrayed  their  thoughts.  Very  useful  to  them  there- 
fore was  the  alliance  of  their  brother,  who  possessed  by  nature  a  more  pli- 
able surface  to  his  character,  and  had  increased  its  elasticity  by  education. 
This  brother  Cardinal  de  Chatillon,  bishop  of  Beauvais,  had  a  mild,  engaging 


*  Ranke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  207. 


PALISSY,    THE    POTTER.  363 

■w&y,  and  so  much  tact  in  addressing  those  with  whom  he  had  to  deal  that 
he  knew  how  to  avoid  all  those  disagreeable  collisions  of  opinion,  which 
would  have  checked  the  course  of  his  more  hard-minded  associates.  When 
negotiation  was  required,  therefore,  Chatillon  with  his  insinuating,  courtlj 
habits  proved  a  most  efficient  helper  to  his  party. 

"At  La  Ferte,  on  the  frontier  of  Picardy,  the  malcontents  assembled  at  a 
chateau  belonging  to  the  prince  of  Conde  who  was  a  Bourbon,  brother  to 
Anthony,  king  of  Navarre.  The  prince  of  Conde  was  a  man  given  to  ease 
and  pleasure,  who  did  not  keep  one  mistress  the  less  for  having  adopted  the 
reformed  opinions  in  religion.  At  this  meeting,  Coligny  showed  that  there 
were  in  France  two  millions  of  reformers  capable  of  bearing  arms.  It  was 
resolved  to  strike  a  great  and  final  blow  at  the  dominant  Guise  faction. 
Troops  were  to  be  levied  secretly  throughout  France,  captains  were  to  be 
appointed  over  them,  and  they  were  to  be  brought  quietly  from  all  parts  to 
concentrate  at  Blois,  for  there  the  king  would  rusticate  in  the  succeeding 
spring  and  endeavor  to  recruit  his  feeble  health.  The  exact  service  to  be 
done  by  them  and  their  precise  destination  were  to  be  kept  secret  from  the 
troops ;  but  Calvinists  were  to  be  levied,  on  the  understanding  that  they 
were  to  strike  a  sure  blow  for  the  freedom  of  their  religion,  political  malcon- 
tents were  to  be  told  that  they  were  to  secure  the  triumph  of  their  party. 
The  real  intention  was  to  break  out  suddenly  at  Blois  with  overwhelming 
force,  to  decoy  the  Guises — the  king's  uncles  and  his  chosen  though  obnoxious 
ministers — out  of  the  royal  presence,  to  imprison  them,  and  institute  against 
them  public  prosecution.  The  princes  of  the  blood  and  the  ancient  officials, 
with  Montmorency  of  course  at  their  head,  were  thus  to  be  placed,  where 
they  believed  they  had  a  right  to  be,  at  the  head  of  state  affairs,  and  the 
party  of  the  Guises  would  be  most  effectually  crippled. 

"  This  plot  which  is  called  the  conspiracy  of  Amboise,  was  kept  duly  se- 
cret by  its  first  promoters.  None  of  them  would  venture  to  commit  him- 
self by  assuming  the  post  of  leader  in  an  enterprise  which,  even  when  seen 
through  the  mists  of  faction  in  those  days  of  enterprise,  could  not  have  appeared 
very  noble  to  an  honest  man.  An  ostensible  leader  was  required,  also,  who 
should  be  notoriously  bold  and  able,  while  at  the  same  time  he  was  not 
provided  with  a  set  of  principles  too  inconveniently  definite.  Captains  and 
soldiers  were  to  be  tempted  out  of  many  regions  of  opinion,  and  a  leader 
was  required  who  should  be  distasteful  to  none. 

"  The  required  chief  was  found  in  a  reckless  roving  soldier  named  Re 
naudie,  a  man  sprung  from  a  good  house  in  Perigord.  Renaudie  received  a 
detailed  plan  of  the  whole  enterprise,  in  which  provisions  had  been  made 
beforehand  for  a  long  series  of  contingencies.  He  was  instructed  to  say,  that, 
when  the  time  should  be  ripe,  the  prince  of  Conde  would  assume  the  lead 
of  the  movement,  to  which  the  people  were  invited.    The  name  of  the  queen 


304  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE THE    HUGUENOTS. 

mother  was  by  some  unfairl}^  used  as  a  consenting  party  to  the  enterpnau 
and  she,  it  was  said,  would  never  have  sanctioned  treason. 

"Finally,  to  prop  all  sinking  consciences,  theologians  and  juriconsults, 
chosen  judiciously,  were  requested  to  supply,  and  did  sujtplj^  attestations 
that  no  law  human  or  divine  would  be  violated  by  the  proposed  move  in  the 
game  of  politics."* 

2.  The  results  of  the  conspiracy  are  stated  by  the  English 
historian  as  follows, — and  the  statement  is  substantially  con 
firmed  by  llauke  : — 

"  In  a  few  days  the  conspiracy  in  France  burst  forth,  but  was  defeated  at 
Amboise  by  the  vigilance  and  rigor  of  the  duke  of  Guise.  Conde  and  Co- 
ligny,  to  escape  suspicion,  fought  against  their  own  party ;  Ilenaudie  per- 
ished in  the  conflict,  and  most  of  the  other  leaders  were  taken  and  executed. 
At  this  intelligence,  Elizabeth  began  to  waver  ;  and  her  hesitation  was  kept 
alive  by  the  arrival  of  Montluc,  the  French  ambassador ;  but  Throckmorton 
urged  her  not  to  forfeit  the  golden  opportunity  offered  by  the  prospect  of  a 
civil  war  in  France  ;  and  the  lords  of  the  council  solicited  permission  to 
commence  hostilities  on  the  following  grounds  :  because  it  was  just  to  repel 
danger,  honorable  to  relieve  the  oppressed,  necessary  to  prevent  the  union 
of  Scotland  with  France,  and  profitable  to  risk  a  small  sum  for  the  attain- 
ment of  that,  which  afterwards  must  cost  a  greater  price.f  The  day  after 
the  presentation  of  this  memorial  appeared  a  most  extraordinary  state  paper, 
entitled  a  declaration  of  peace,  but  intended  as  a  justification  of  war.  It 
made  a  distinction  between  the  French  king  and  queen,  and  their  ministers. 
The  former  were  the  friends  of  Elizabeth,  who  strictly  forbade  any  injury  to 
be  offered  to  their  subjects ;  the  latter  were  her  enemies ;  and  to  defeat 
their  ambitious  views,  she  had  taken  up  arms,  and  would  not  lay  them  down 
till  she  had  expelled  every  French  soldier  from  the  realm  of  Scotland."| 

*  "Palissy,  the  Potter,  by  Henry  Morley";  in  two  volumes,  12mo. 
Boston.  Ticknor,  Reed  &  Fields,  1853.  Vol.  i,  p.  268,  seqq.  Palissy 
was  one  of  the  most  zealous  among  the  early  Huguenot  saints,  and  Morley 
is  the  willing  defender  of  the  Huguenot  movements.  The  work  is  found 
in  the  select  and  extensive  private  library  of  Very  Rev.  E.  S.  Collins  of  Cin- 
cinnati, to  whom  we  have  been  more  than  once  indebted  for  valuable  refer 
ences  and  information. 

i  Forbes',  vol.  i.  p.  390,  396. 

t  Lingard,  History  of  England,  vii,  p.  289,  290.— Haynes',  vol.  i,  p.  268. 

"  It  is  a  poor  revenge  "  said  the  cardinal  of  Lorraine  to  Tlirockmorton  "that 
hath  been  used  of  late  by  your  proclamation  in  England  against  my  brother 
and  me  ;  but  we  take  it  that  it  is  not  the  queen's  doing,  but  the  persuasiaa 


WARLIKE   DEMONSTRATION    OF    CONDE.  3C5 

3.  Here  then  we  have,  on  the  most  unexceptionable  author- 
ity, a  solution  of  the  important  question — who  instigated,  and 
who  really  began  the  civil  wars  in  France.  Ranke  himself 
admits,  that  the  Huguenots  employed  the  arm  of  the  flesh  by 
allying  themselves  with  a  political  faction,  and  that  their 
haughty  bearing  and  open  menaces  contributed  greatly  to 
kindle  the  flames  of  civil  war ;  and  it  is  not  a  little  remark- 
able that  the  passage  occurs  immediately  before  that  in  which 
he  asserts  that  the  Catholic  party  "  needed,  demanded,  and 
hegan  the  war ! "     He  says  : 

"  The  essence  of  the  matter  is  misapprehended  by  those  who  attribute  the 
success  of  the  Protestant  movement  to  the  political  faction,  though  it  is  un- 
deniable, that  the  former  had  formed  a  union  with  the  latter,  and  was  en- 
couraged by  it,  and  wore,  so  to  speak,  its  colors.  This  was  seen  in  the 
support  which  the  prince  of  Conde,  the  most  distinguished  leader  of  the  re- 
formers, received  at  this  time  (before  the  outbreak  of  hostilities)  in  the  cap- 
ital. The  citizens  were  disarmed,  because  a  tumultuary  outbreak  was  appre- 
hended. The  prince  was  surrounded  with  armed  troops  of  his  co-religionists, 
who  accompanied  him  through  the  streets  (of  Paris)  in  rank  and  file,  as  he 
went  to  a  preaching  or  returned  from  one.  It  was  computed  that  there  were 
twenty  thousand  Huguenots  in  the  city,  and  it  was  feared  that,  in  union 
with  them,  he  would  endeavor,  by  a  sudden  coup  de  main,  to  make  himself 
master  of  it,  and  that  the  same  would  be  attempted  in  other  cities  also.  In 
all  probability  he  did  not  think  of  such  a  scheme,  yet  the  jealousy  of  his 
antagonists  was  so  powerfully  excited,  that  it  was  believed  and  asserted  that 
religious  zeal  and  political  antipathy  had  united  themselves  for  a  common 
hostihty."* 

When  the  Catholics  were  disarmed,  while  the  Protestants 
were  armed  and  paraded  the  streets  in  a  menacing  attitude, 
there  was  certainly  some  ground  for  the  jealousy  which  was 
aroused.  And  be  it  remembered,  that  at  this  very  time  the 
religious  rights  and  liberties  of  the  Huguenots  had  been  sol- 

of  three  or  foure  about  her  ;  and,  as  I  trust  to  see  shortlye  that  she  will  be 
better  advised,  so  we  hope  that  ere  it  be  long,  she  will  put  her  hand  to 
punysh  them  for  giving  her  such  advice." — Forbes,  i,  423. — "  The  original 
of  the  proclamation  is  in  Cecil's  hand  writing." — Lingard,  Ibid. 
*  Eanke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  206. 


366  REFORMATION   IN    FRANCE — THE    HUGUENOTS. 

emnly  guarantied  by  the  government,  so  that  they  had  no 
just  cause  for  complaint  or  hostility,* 

In  general,  it  may  be  remarked,  that  the  Huguenots  aa 
sumed"  the  most  hostile  attitude  precisely  at  the  time  when 
their  demands  had  been  most  fully  granted  by  the  dominant 
majority !  Every  successive  pacification,  which  healed  up 
for  a  time  the  nine  or  ten  civil  wars  which  they  successively 
stirred  up  in  France,  was  almost  sure  to  be  followed  by  an 
increase  of  haughtiness  in  the  bearing  of  the  Iluguenot  fac- 
tion. The  more  they  received,  the  more  they  claimed.  The 
fact  is,  that,  like  their  brother  Calvinists  elsewhere,  they 
understood  by  religious  liberty  the  right  of  seizing  on  or  des- 
troying Catholic  churches,  "  removing  the  monuments  of 
idolatry,"  and  ruling  supreme  both  in  Church  and  State  !  No 
one  can  carefully  read  the  history  of  France,  as  written  by 
men  of  all  shades  of  religious  opinion,  without  coming  to  this 
conclusion. 

Writers  favorable  to  the  Huguenots  usually  ascribe  the 
actual  breaking  out  of  hostilities  to  the  afiair  at  Vassy,  which 
occurred  on  the  first  of  March,  1562,  and  in  which  about  sixty 
of  the  Huguenots  were  slain  in  an  affray  by  the  followers  of  the 
duke  of  Guise.  But  those  who  maintain  this  position  entirely 
forget  the  previous  conspiracy  of  Amboise,  as  well  as  the  men- 
acing attitude  of  Conde  in  Paris,  to  omit  several  other  similar 
circumstances.  They  forget  also  that,  in  this  particular  affray, 
the  accidental  collision  between  the  two  parties  was  provoked 
by  the  Huguenots  themselves.  Kanke  himself  tells  us,  that 
the  duke  of  Guise,  passing  through  the  town,  wished  to  speak 
with  some  of  his  own  subjects  who  were  assembled  with  the 
Huguenots  in  a  religious  meeting ;  but  that,  as  he  declared 
in  his  letter  on  the  subject,  his  application  was  received  by 
the  enraged  religionists  with  a  volley  of  stones ;  whereupon 
the  deplorable  aliray  and  loss  of  life  ensued.f 

*  This  is  admitted  on  all  hands.  t 

.  Ranke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  211,  and  note. — In  the  text,  he  gives  a  dif 


WHO   BEGAN   THE    WAR?  367 

The  duke  of  Guise  was  an  impulsive,  but  a  generous  and 
chivalric  man,  not  disposed  to  wanton  cruelty.  "  In  himself 
this  gallant  soldier  was  not  disposed  to  deeds  of  violence.  He 
is  represented  as  rather  of  a  quiet  and  even  phlegmatic  temper- 
ament ;  he  was  praised  for  the  mildness  he  exhibited  towards 
conquered  enemies,  and  for  the  self-control  with  which  he  sought 
to  rectify  any  injustice  that  might  have  been  committed ;  and 
was  thought  to  know,  in  a  superior  degree,  the  duties  of  man 
to  man,  and  what  became  them."* 

4.  The  first  civil  war  broke  out  in  1562.  Its  principal 
causes  and  incidents  are  accurately  and  summarily  unfolded 
in  the  following  extract,  the  length  of  which  will  be  pardoned 
on  account  of  its  interest : 

"  The  failure  of  the  attempt  to  surprise  the  court  at  Araboise  had  broken 
their  projects  ;  and  the  origin  of  the  conspiracy  was  clearly  traced  to  the 
king  of  Navarre  and  his  brother  the  prince  of  Conde.  An  unexpected  event 
not  only  preserved  these  princes  from  punishment,  but  revived  and  invigor- 
ated their  hopes.  Francis  II.  died,  and  the  queen  mother  Catherine  of  Me- 
dicis,  being  appointed  regent  during  the  minority  of  her  son  Charles  IX., 
sought  their  aid  to  neutralize  the  ascendency  of  the  house  of  Guise.  The 
prince  of  Condc  vs^as  released  from  prison,  and  admitted  to  the  council ;  his 
brother,  the  king  of  Navarre,  obtained  the  office  of  lieutenant-general  of  the 
kingdom.  The  queen's  next  object  was  to  pacify,  if  she  could  not  unite, 
the  two  great  rehgious  parties  which  divided  the  population  of  France.  In 
this  she  was  ably  seconded  by  the  chancellor  de  1'  Hospital ;  and  the  edict 

erent,  but  obviously  inconsistent  and  self-refuting  statement ;  in  the  note, 
he  refers  to  the  letter  of  Guise.     Lingard  says : 

"  The  French  reformed  writers  generally  ascribe  the  war  to  an  affray, 
commonly  called  by  them  the  Massacre  of  Vassy,  in  which  about  sixty  men 
were  slain  by  the  followers  of  the  duke  of  Guise.  But  1st,  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  this  affray  was  accidental,  and  provoked  by  the  reli- 
gionists themselves.  See  La  Popelin,  vol.  iv.  p.  283  ;  and  the  declaration 
of  the  duke  on  his  death-bed,  preserved  by  Brantome,  who  was  present, 
both  at  Vassy  and  at  his  death.  2d.  The  affray  happened  on  March  1st ; 
yet  the  Calvinists  at  Nismes  began  to  arm  on  the  19th  of  Februar)',  at  the 
sound  of  the  drum.  They  were  in  the  field  and  defeated  De  Flassans  on 
March  6  th.  See  Menard,  Histoire  de  Nismes,  iv.  Preuves,  vi."  Lingard, 
vol.  vii,  p.  310,  note. 

*  Ranke.  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  210. 


368  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE THE    HUGUENOTS. 

of  January,  1562,  both  suspended  the  execution  of  all  penal  laws  on  the 
score  of  religion,  and  granted  to  the  Calvinists  ample  liberty  for  the  exercise 
of  their  worship.  But  the  minds  of  men  were  too  fiercely  exasperated  by 
mutual  injuries  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  moderation.  Nothing  less  than  the 
extirpation  of  what  they  termed  idolatry  could  satisfy  the  fanatics  among 
the  reformers  :  and  b}"  the  zealots  of  the  opposite  party  the  smallest  conces- 
sion to  the  new  religionists  was  deemed  an  apostasy  from  the  faith  of  their 
fathers.  It  was  impossible  to  prevent  these  factions  from  coming  into  colli- 
sion in  different  places  :  riots,  pillage,  and  bloodshed  were  generally  the  con- 
sequence ;  and  the  leaders  on  both  sides  began  to  prepare  for  the  great  con- 
flict which  they  foresaw,  hy  associations  within,  and  confederacies  without, 
the  realm. 

"  On  the  one  hand  Conde,  Coligny,  and  d'Andelot,  encouraged  by  the  ad- 
vice of  the  English  ambassador  Throckmorton,  who  continually  urged  them 
to  draw  the  sword  against  their  opponents,*  claimed  pecuniary  aid  of  Eliza- 
beth, and  dispatched  envoys  to  levy  reisters  and  lansquenets  among  their 
fellow  religionists  in  Germany  :  On  the  other,  Montmorency,  the  duke  of 
Guise,  and  the  Marshall  St.  Andre  entered  into  a  solemn  compact  to  support 
the  ancient  creed  by  the  extirpation  of  the  new  doctrines  ;  solicited  for  that 
purpose  the  co-operation  of  the  king  of  Spain  ;  and  sought  to  draw  to  their 
party  the  Lutheran  princes  of  Germany.  At  first  the  queen  regent,  more 
apprehensive  of  the  ambition  of  the  duke  of  Guise  than  of  that  of  the  prince 
of  Conde,  had  offered  to  the  latter  the  support  of  the  ro3ral  authority  ;  but 
the  king  of  Navarre  had  been  gained  over  to  the  Catholic  cause.  Cath- 
erine and  her  son  were  conducted  by  him  from  Fontainbleau  to  Paris; 
and  from  that  hour  they  made  common  cause  with  those  among  whom 
fortune  rather  than  inclination  had  thrown  them.  In  a  short  time  the 
flames  of  war  burst  out  in  every  province  in  France.  If  the  lieutenant- 
general  secured  Paris  for  the  king,  the  prince  of  Conde  fortified  Orleans  for 
the  insurgents.  Each  party  displayed  that  ferocious  spirit,  that  thirst  for 
vengeance,  which  distinguishes  civil  and  religious  warfiire  :  one  deed  of  un- 
justifiable severity  was  requited  by  another  ;  and  the  most  inhuman  atroci- 

*  "  Throckmorton  informs  us,  in  one  of  his  letters,  that  the  duke  charged 
him  to  his  face  with  being  '  the  author  of  all  the  troubles  ; '  and  therefore 
required  him  to  help  to  bring  them  out  of  trouble,  as  he  had  helped  to 
'  bring  them  into  it'    In  his  answer  the  ambassador  did  not  venture  to  deny 

the  charge.    Forbes  ii,  255-257 Nos  divisions,  lesquelles  Trockniorton 

avoit  fomentees  et  entretenues  longuement  par  la  continuelle  fre(iuentation 

et  intelligence  qu'il  avoit  avec  I'admiral  et  ceux  de  son  parti il  fit 

«ntrer  sa  maitresse  en  cette  partie,  dont  elle  m'a  souvent  dit  depuis,  qu'elle 
B'estoit  repentie,  mais  trop  tard.     Castelnau,  Mem.  xliv,  50." 


CIVIL   WAR    BREAKS   OUT BATTLE   OF   DREUX.  369 

ties  were  daily  perpetrated  by  men,  who  professed  to  serve  under  the  ban- 
ners of  religion,  and  for  the  honor  of  the  Almighty. 

"  Though  the  Calvinists  were  formidable  by  their  union  and  enthusiasm, 
they  did  not  form  more  than  one  hundredth  part  of  the  population  of  France. 
Still  the  prince  cherished  strong  hopes  of  success.  He  relied  on  the  resour- 
ces of  his  own  courage,  on  the  aid  of  the  German  and  Scottish  Protestants, 
and  on  the  promises  of  Throckmorton.  His  envoys,  the  Vidame  of  Chartres, 
and  De  la  Haye,  stole  over  to  England,  visited  Cecil  in  the  darkness  of  the 
night,  and  solicited  from  the  queen  a  reinforcement  of  ten  thousand  men, 
with  a  loan  of  three  hundred  thousand  crowns."* 

The  Huguenot  envoys  succeeded.  A  formal  treaty  was 
negotiated  with  Elizabeth,  in  which  she  bound  herself  to  send 
men  and  money  to  aid  her  brave  allies  in  their  struggle  for 
the  mastery  in  France ;  and  these  agreed  to  deliver  up  to  her 
the  two  French  harbors  of  Havre  and  Dieppe,  the  former  of 
which,  the  key  of  the  French  kingdom,  she  was  to  retain  as  a 
pledge  for  the  restoration  of  Calais.  This  treasonable  meas- 
ure aroused  general  indignation  throughout  France  against 
the  Huguenot  leaders,  and  especially  the  prince  of  Conde, 
who  had  been  the  principal  actor  in  the  infamous  negotiation. 
All  eyes  were  turned  to  the  duke  of  Guise,  and  he  was  called 
on  to  save  the  country  from  foreign  invasion  in  alliance  with 
domestic  treason.  "  The  duke  of  Guise  had  expelled  the  En- 
glish from  the  last  strong-hold  (Calais)  which  they  possessed 
in  France ;  his  opponent  (Conde)  had  recalled  them  into  the 
realm,  and  given  them  two  sea-ports  in  place  of  the  one  which 
they  had  lost."t 

The  result  was  a  general  burst  of  patriotic  enthusiasm. 
Nobles  and  people  flocked  with  eagerness  to  the  royal  stand- 
ard ;  Rouen,  the  chief  strong-hold  of  the  Huguenots,  was  be- 
seiged  and  taken  by  assault;  two  hundred  Englishmen  who 
had  hastened  to  its  relief  perished  in  the  breach ;  and  in  an 
important  battle  fought  at  Dreux,  the  Huguenot  forces  were 
routed,  and  Conde  himself  was  made  prisoner ;  though,  as  an 
offset,  the  Constable  Montmorency,  and  the  gallant  commander 

*  Lingard,  History  of  England,  vii,  308,  seqq.  J  Ibid.,  vii,  312. 


370  REFORMATION    IN   FRANCE THE    HUGUENOTS 

in  chief  of  the  Cathohc  army,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  insur 
gents.  The  supreme  command  now  devolved  on  the  duke  of 
Guise  on  the  one  side,  and  on  Coligny  on  the  other ;  the  two 
most  decided  and  intractable  leaders  and  representatives  of 
the  contending  parties.  Coligny  retired  to  Orleans  which 
was  strongly  fortified,  and  Guise  immediately  laid  seige  to 
that  city.  Meantime  Normandy  was  ravaged  by  the  German 
mercenaries,  whom  the  Huguenots  had  brought  into  France  to 
aid  them  in  fighting  against  their  own  government. 

"While  the  admiral  (Coligny)  gave  the  plunder  of  Normandy  to  his  Ger- 
man auxilliaries,  the  royalists  formed  the  siege  of  Orleans,  the  great  bulwark 
of  their  ojiponents.  Its  fall  was  confidently  anticipated,  when  Poltrot,  a 
deserter  from  the  Huguenot  army,  and  in  paj'^  of  the  admiral,  assassinated 
the  duke  of  Guise.*  The  death  of  that  nobleman  was  followed  by  a  sudden 
and  unexpected  revolution.  Conde  aspired  to  the  high  station  in  the  gov- 
wnment  to  which  he  was  entitled  as  first  prince  of  the  blood  ;  and  the 
Catholics  feared  that  the  English,  with  the  aid  of  Coligny,  might  make  im- 
portant conquests  in  Normandj^  The  leaders  on  both  sides,  anxious  for  an 
accommodation,  met,  were  reconciled,  and  subscribed  a  treaty  of  peace,  by 
which  the  French  religionists  promised  their  services  to  the  king,  as  true 
and  loyal  subjects,  and  obtained  in  return  an  amnesty  for  the  past,  and  the 
public  exercise  of  their  religion  for  the  future,  in  one  town  of  every  bailiwic 
in  the  kingdom,!  ^i^^h  the  exception  of  the  good  city  of  Paris.  This  pacifi- 
cation was  eagerly  accepted  by  the  gentlemen,  the  followers  of  Conde  :  it 
was  loudly  reprobated  by  d'Andelot,  the  ministers,  and  the  more  fimatic  of 
the  party."! 

The  tide  of  war  now  turned,  and  Elizabeth  of  England  had 
to  pay  dearly  for  her  un.worthy  duplicity.   The  English  under 

♦  "  The  two  apologies  of  Coligny  prove,  that  if  he  did  not  instigate  the 
assassin,  he  knew  of,  and  connived  at,  the  intended  assassination.  See 
Pettitot's  Collection,  xxxiii,  281." 

t  "  Forbes,  339,  350-359.— Castelnau,  233-240,  245." 

I  Lingard,  Hist.  England,  vii,  320-1.  Of  Coligny 's  complicity  in  the  base 
assassination  of  the  duke  of  Guise  Ranke  says  :  "  Coligny  guarded  himself 
from  giving  the  fanatic  any  encouragement ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  did 
not  prevent  him,  considering  it  sufficient  that  he  had  warned  the  duke  of  a 
similar  attempt  formerly."  He  adds  :  "  Even  in  the  churches  (Calvinistic) 
the  act  was  spoken  of  as  a  righteous  judgment  of  God." — P.  219. 


TREATY    OF   BAYOKNE,    A   FABRICATION.  371 

the  earl  of  Warwick  were  driven  ignominiously  fi'oni  Havre, 
and  Throckmorton,  her  officiating  minister  in  France  was 
thrown  into  prison  ;  and  even  after  his  subsequent  release,  he 
was  never  more  allowed  to  show  himself  at  the  French 
court. 

5.  The  Pacification  which  had  thus  secured  the  blessing  of 
peace  to  the  hostile  parties  in  France  was  not  of  long  dura- 
tion. The  Huguenots,  under  the  leadership  of  Conde,  broke 
it  by  a  base  and  unprovoked  attempt,  in  time  of  peace,  to 
seize  upon  the  French  king  and  court  at  Monceaux,  near 
Meaux.  Luckily,  tlie  treacherous  attempt  was  defeated  by 
the  timely  discovery  of  the  plot:  "the  king  escaped  with  difii- 
culty  to  Paris  in  the  midst  of  a  body  of  Swiss  inftmtry,  who, 
marching  in  a  square,  repulsed  every  charge  of  the  Huguenot 
cavalry.  The  English  ambassador  Norris  had  been  deeply 
implicated  in  the  arrangement  of  tliis  atrocious,  and  in  reality 
unprovoked  attempt :  but  though  the  queen  (Elizabeth),  as  a 
sovereign,  condemned  the  outrage,  Cecil  required  Norris  to 
'  comfort '  the  insurgents,  and  exhort  them  to  persevere."* 

This  occurred  in  September,  1567 ;  and  the  pretext  for  the 
outrage  was,  that,  as  Conde  affected  to  believe,  a  compact  had 
been  entered  into  more  than  two  years  previously,!  at  the 
Conference  of  Bayonne,  between  the  French  and  Spanish 
courts,  by  which  the  Protestants  of  France  were  to  be  de- 
prived of  their  religious  liberties.  That  it  was  a  mere  pre- 
text, encouraged  by  the  intrigues  of  the  prince  of  Orange  and 
of  the  English  ambassador,  and  deriving  force  from  the  recent 
arrival  in  the  Netherlands  of  the  duke  of  Alva,  appears  now 
to  be  generally  admitted.  The  Conference  of  Bayonne,  held 
in  June,  15G5,  turns  out  to  have  been  nothing  more  than  a 
family  meeting  between  Catherine,  the  queen  mother,  and 
her  daughter  Isabella,  the  consort  of  Philip  H.  of  Spain ; 
and  the  full  account  of  it,  with  all  the  papers,  furnished  by 

*  Lingard,  History  England,  vol  viii,  p.  61.  He  quotes  Cabala,  Davila, 
and  Castelnau.  f  In  June,  1565.     Ranke,  Ibd.,  p.  226. 


372  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE — THE    HUGUENOTS. 

the  researches  of  Von  Raiimer,  filling  more  than  a  hundred 
pages  of  printed  matter,  renders  it  certain  that  no  such  com- 
pact as  that  alleged  by  the  Huguenot  conspirators  was  ever  even 
in  contemplation.*  Even  Ranke,  though  he  pretends  that  some 
such  overtures  were  made  by  the  duke  of  Alva,  freely  admits 
that  both  Catherine  and  her  son  Charles  IX.  rejected  them 
with  a  decision  approaching  to  contempt,  and  that  "both  par- 
ties separated  from  each  other  with  coolness."f 

Thus,  by  the  fault  of  the  Huguenots  alone,  civil  war  broke 
out  for  the  second  time  in  the  heart  of  France.  The  insur- 
gents under  Conde  besieged  the  king  in  Paris  ;  but  they  were 
defeated  at  St.  Denis  by  the  Constable  Montmorency,  who 
however  lost  his  life  in  the  engagement.  In  the  spring  of 
1568,  another  pacification  was  concluded ;  and  the  Hugue- 
nots availed  themselves  of  it  to  fly  to  the  succor  of  the  prince 
of  Orange,  who  was  sorely  pressed  by  the  veteran  troops  of 
Alva  in  the  Netherlands.     Notwithstanding  this  timely  suc- 

*  For  the  documents,  see  Lingard,  History  of  England,  viii,  p.  60,  note. 

f  Kanke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  227. 

In  his  Constitutional  History  of  England  (p.  87,  note ;  Amer.  Edit.),  Hal- 
lam  says  :  *'  I  do  not  give  any  credit  whatever  to  this  league,  as  printed  in 
Strype,  (i,  502,),  which  seems  to  have  been  fabricated  hy  some  of  the  qiieen^a 
(Elizabeth's)  emissaries." — This  is  a  terrible  thrust  at  the  febrication  and 
forgery,  which  seem  to  have  been  systematically  pursued  by  Cecil  and  the 
other  servants  of  this  queen,  no  doubt  with  her  connivance  or  countenance  ! 
Hallam  goes  on  to  say,  that  there  had  been,  "  not  perhaps  a  treaty,  but  a 
verbal  agreement  between  France  and  Spain  at  Bayonne  some  time  before." 
But  for  this  statement  he  gives  no  evidence  whatever ;  and  the  testimony 
of  Ranke  proves  that  this  too  was  a  fabrication,  so  far  at  least  as  France  is 
made  a  party  to  it.  Sir  James  Mackintosh  is  more  credulous  than  Hallam 
and  Ranke,  but  Mackintosh  is  very  strongly  prejudiced. 

When,  a  little  later,  the  French  and  Spanish  ambassadors  openly  charged 
Elizabeth  with  aiding  the  insurgents  in  France  and  the  Netherlands,  "some- 
times she  had  recourse  to  evasions,  sometimes  she  justified  her  conduct  by 
fairly  alleging  the  supposed  league  for  the  extirpation  of  Protestantism.  But 
when  she  was  called  upon  for  proof  of  the  existence  of  such  league,  she 
could  produce  only  conjecture  and  report."  Lingard,  Ibid.,  viii,  64,  note.  H« 
quotes  numerous  dispatches  of  Fenelon,  the  French  ambassador. 


MASSACRE   OF   ST.    BARTHOLOMEW.  373 

cor,   Orange   was,   however,   defeated    and    his    army   di(i- 
persed. 

6.  Now  ensued  the  third  civil  and  religious  war  in  Franco. 
"The  princes  of  Orange  and  Conde  had  constantly  acted  in 
concert ;  and  the  former  had  no  sooner  retreated  from  Bel- 
gium, than  the  flames  of  war  burst  out  for  the  third  time  in 
the  heart  of  France."*  This  was  in  the  summer  of  1568. 
Two  decisive  battles  followed,  in  both  of  which  the  Hugue- 
nots were  defeated.  At  Jarnac  their  great  leader  Conde  fell ; 
and  at  Montcontour,  their  chief  hope  Coligny  was  totally  de- 
feated by  the  duke  of  Anjou  ;  while  another  leader,  D'Ande- 
lot,  brother  of  Coligny,  died  of  an  infectious  fever. 

Such  were  the  events  of  the  years  1568  and  1569.  In 
1570,  a  general  edict  of  pacification  was  published  ;  and  as 
all  parties  were  now  heartily  tired  of  these  perpetual  civil 
wars,  there  seemed  to  be  a  reasonable  hope  that  this  peace 
would  be  permanent. 

Though  the  preceding  details  are  somewhat  lengthy,  we 
have  deemed  them  necessary  for  the  proper  understanding  of 
the  great  tragedy  of  the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre  in  1572, 
to  which  we  now  come. 

7.  In  order  still  further  to  cement  the  bonds  of  peace,  a 
marriage  was  concluded,  after  this  third  pacification,  between 
the  king's  sister  and  the  king  of  Navarre,  who  was  by  far 
the  most  influential,  though  not  always  the  most  active  and  e£B- 
cient  of  the  Huguenot  leaders.  Coligny  and  the  rest  of  the 
Huguenot  chiefs  came  to  Paris  to  assist  at  the  auspicious  wed- 
ding, which  was  forever  to  banish  civil  commotion  from 
France.  There  is  not  a  doubt,  as  Ranke  himself  freely  ad- 
Jiits,  that  the  king  Charles  IX.  was  entirely  sincere,  both  in 
the  love  of  peace  which  animated  him  in  bringing  about  the 
marriage,  and  in  his  friendly  intentions  in  inviting  the  Hugue- 
not chieftains  to  be  present  at  the  ceremony.  There  is  as 
little  doubt,  that  the  deplorable  and  detestable  massacre  which 


*  Lingard  Ibid.,  viii,  p.  63. 
65 


374  REFORMATION    IN   FRANCE ^THE   HUGUENOTS. 

ensued  was  the  result  of  no  premeditated  design  on  his  part; 
that  it  occurred  solely  from  the  unforeseen  circumstances 
which  arose  in  Paris  after  the  chiefs  had  been  already  for 
many  days  in  the  city;  and  that  even  then,  it  was  mainly 
owing  to  the  unprincipled  machinations  of  the  queen  mother, 
who  was  as  unscrupulous  as  she  was  adroit  in  the  manage- 
ment of  affairs.  We  will  first  give  the  account  of  the  mas- 
sacre, as  furnished  by  Dr.  Lingard,  and  as  triumphantly 
defended  by  him  against  the  strictures  of  the  Edinburgh  Re- 
view; then  we  will  show  wherein  Ranke  differs  from  him  in 
the  statement  of  the  facts ;  and  finally  we  will  add  some  reflec- 
tions of  our  own.  Our  readers  may  be,  perhaps,  surprised 
to  find  the  English  and  German  historians  agreeing  in  all 
material  points. 

"The  young-  king  of  Xavarre  was  the  nominal,  the  Admiral  Coligny  the 
real  leader  of  the  Huguenots.  He  ruled  among  them  as  an  independent 
sovereign  ;  and,  what  chietly  alarmed  his  opi)onents,  seemed  to  obtain  grad- 
ually the  ascendei.cy  over  the  mind  of  Charles.  He  had  come  to  Paris  to 
assist  at  the  mairiage  of  the  king  of  Navarre,  and  Avas  wounded  in  two 
places  by  an  as.sassin,  as  he  passed  through  the  streets.  The  public  voice 
attributed  the  attempt  to  the  duke  of  Guise,  in  revenge  of  the  murder  of  his 
father  at  the  siege  of  Orleans ;  it  had  proceeded,  in  reality  (and  was  so  sus- 
pected by  Coligny  himself),  from  Catherine,  the  queen  mother.  The  wounds 
wei'e  not  dangerous  ;  but  the  Huguenot  chieftains  crowded  to  his  hotel ; 
their  threats  of  vengeance  terrified  the  queen  ;  and  in  a  secret  council  the 
king  was  persuaded  to  anticipate  the  bloody  and  traitorous  designs  attributed 
to  the  friends  of  the  admiral.  The  next  morning,  by  the  royal  order,  the 
hotel  was  forced  :  Coligny  and  his  principal  counselors  pcri.shed  ;  the  popu- 
lace joined  in  the  work  of  blood  ;  and  every  Huguenot,  or  suspected  Hugue- 
not, who  fell  in  their  wa)',was  murdered.  Several  days  elap.sed  before  order 
was  finally  restored  in  the  capital ;  in  the  i^rovinces  the  governors,  though 
instructed  to  prevent  similar  excesses,  had  not  always  the  power  or  the  will 
to  check  the  fury  of  the  people,  and  the  massacre  of  Paris  was  imitated  in 
several  towns,  principally  those  in  which  the  passions  of  the  inhabitants 
were  inflamed  by  the  recollection  of  the  barbarities  exercised  amongst  them 
by  the  Huguenots  during  the  late  wars. 

"This  bloody  tragedy  had  been  planned  and  executed  in  Paris  with  so 
much  expedition,  that  its  authors  had  not  determined  on  what  gi'ound  to 
justify  or  palliate  their  conduct.     In  the  letters  written  the  same  evening 


lingard's  account.  375 

to  the  governors  of  the  provinces,  and  to  the  ambassadors  of  foreign  courts, 
it  was  attributed  to  the  ancient  quarrel  i>,nd  insatiate  hatred  which  existed 
Oetween  I  he  princes  of  Lorraine  and  the  house  of  Coligny.*  But  as  the  duke 
of  Guise  refused  to  take  the  infamy  on  himself,  the  king  was  obliged  to  ac- 
knowledge in  parliament,  that  he  had  signed  the  order  for  the  death  of  the 
admiral,  and  sent  in  consequence  to  his  ambassadors  new  and  more  detailed 
instructions.  In  a  long  audience,  La  Motte  Fenelon  assured  Elizabeth  that 
Charles  had  conceived  no  idea  of  such  an  event  before  the  preceding  eve- 
ning ;  when  he  learned,  with  alarm  and  astonishment,  that  the  confidential 
advisers  of  the  admiral  had  formed  a'  plan  to  revenge  the  attempt  made  on 
his  life,  by  surprising  the  Louvre,  making  prisoners  of  the  king  and  the  royal 
family,  and  p  .tting  to  death  the  duke  of  Guise,  and  the  leaders  of  the  Cath- 
oUcs ;  that  the  plot  was  revealed  to  one  of  the  council,  whose  conscience  re- 
volted from  such  a  crime  ;  that  his  deposition  was  confirmed  in  the  mind  of 
the  king,  by  the  violent  and  undutiful  expressions  uttered  b}^  Coligny  in  the 
royal  presence  ;  that,  having  but  the  interval  of  a  few  hours  to  deliberate,  he 
had  hastil}"^  given  permission  to  the  duke  of  Guise  and  his  friends  to  execute 
justice  on  his  and  their  enemies ;  and  that  if,  from  the  excited  passions  of 
the  populace,  some  innocent  persons  had  perished  with  the  guilty,  it  had 
been  done  contrary  to  his  intentions,  and  had  given  him  the  most  heartfelt 
sorrow.  The  insinuating  eloquence  of  Fenelon  made  an  impression  on  the 
mind  of  Elizabeth  :  she  ordered  her  ambassador  to  thank  Charles  for  the 
communication  ;  trusted  that  he  would  be  able  to  satisfy  the  world  of  the 
uprightness  of  his  intentions ;  and  recommend-ed  to  his  protection  the  persons 
and  worship  of  the  French  Protestants.  To  the  last  point  Catherine 
shrewdly  replied,  that  her  son  could  not  follow  a  better  example  than  that 
of  his  good  sister  the  queen  of  England  ;  that,  like  her,  he  would  foice  no 
man's  conscience ;  but,  like  her,  he  w^ould  prohibit  in  his  dominions  the  ex- 
ercise of  every  other  worship  besides  that  which  he  practised  himself  "f 

The  "  violent  and  undutiful  expressions  uttered  by  Coligny 
in  the  royal  presence,"  to  which  the  French  ambassador  re- 
ferred, are  probably  those  which  Ranke  furnishes,  and  which 
are  highly  important  as  having  been  the  immediate  occasion 
of  the  attempt  on  the  part  of  Catherine  to  have  him  secretly 
assassinated.  Coligny  attended  regularly  the  king's  council; 
and,  in  fact,  much  to  the  chagrin  of  Catherine,  he  seemed  to 
have  obtained  almost  unlimited  influence  over  her  weak- 
minded  son.     In  concert  with  the  prince  of  Orange,  Coligny 

*  Digges,264,       f  Lingard,  Hist.  England,  viii,  96,  seqq.  Digges,  244-246. 


376  REFORMATION    IN   FRANCE THE   HUGJENOTS. 

earnestly  urged  the  council  to  declare  war  against  Spain, 
towards  which  the  French  court  was  then  hostile.  The  queen 
mother  and  the  duke  of  Anjou,  the  king's  brother,  warmly 
opposed  the  project  as  imprudent  and  impolitic,  and  they 
finally  defeated  it;  whereupon  Coligny  was  enraged,  and  ex- 
claimed: "Madame,  the  king  now  withdraws  from  a  war 
which  promises  him  advantages;  God  forbid,  that  another 
should  break  out,  from  which  he  may  not  be  able  to  with- 
draw ! "  His  words  were  taken  as  implying  a  threat  of  a 
new  civil  and  religious  war  in  France.* 

As  we  have  said,  ilanke  agrees  with  Lingard  in  all  sub- 
stantial points.  He  admits,  that  if  the  attempt  on  Coligny's 
life  had  been  successful,  the  whole  affair  would  probably  have 
ended  then  and  there : 

"  The  majority  of  those  who  were  near  the  event  have  asserted,  that  if 
the  admiral  had  been  killed  on  this  occasion,  the  queen  would  have  been 
satisfied  with  the  one  victim  ;  but  he  had  escaped,  and  was  now  for  the 
first  time  in  a  position  to  become  truly  formidable.  The  Huguenots  crowded 
around  him  with  redoubled  zeal,  and  demanded  justice  :  their  requisitions 
sounded  like  threats  proceeding  from  a  confident  knowledge  of  their  power. 
The  general  suspicion  soon  fixed  upon  the  most  important  and  real  origi- 
nator of  the  deed.  Certain  expressions  came  to  her  ears  one  evening  at  sup- 
per ;  they  were  probably  exaggerated,  but  at  any  rate  they  gave  her  grounds 
for  apprehension  on  her  own  account.  The  consideration  of  the  personal 
and  general  danger,  incurred  by  the  deed  already  perpetrated,  excited  her 
still  further  to  the  designs  of  blood  and  violence  which  had  lain  latent  in  her 
mind.  The  Huguenots  were  in  her  hands  ;  it  was  only  necessary  for  her  to 
will  it,  and  they  were  all  destroyed.  It  has  always  been  the  general  opin- 
ion, that  Catherine  de  Medicis  had  for  years  been  preparing  every  thing  for 
this  catastrophe  ;  that  all  her  apparent  favors  to  the  Huguenots,  all  her 
treaties  and  conclusions  of  peace,  were  simply  so  many  guileful  pretexts  in 
order  to  win  their  confidence,  that  she  might  then  deliver  them  over  to  de- 
struction.    Against  this  supposition,  however,  it  was  observed  long  ago,  that 

*  Ranke,  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  268.  Ranke  supposes  that  Coligny  referred  to  a 
new  war  about  to  break  out  in  Flanders,  "  which,  j'n  one  way  or  other,  might  have 
implicated  France;" — but  the  supposition  is  too  unfounded,  if  not  absurd  to 
m(  rit  serious  attention.  No  doubt  Catherine  was  right  in  her  interpretatioD 
of  the  fierce  admiral's  threatening  language. 


ranke's  account.  377 

a  stratagem  laid  so  long  beforehand  was  contrary  to  the  nature  of  French 
modes  of  proceeding,  and  is,  in  itself,  nearly  impossible.  We  have  ourselves 
seen,  as  we  have  proceeded,  many  circumstances  which  render  it  extremely 
improbable."* 

That  the  massacre  was  wholly  unpremeditated  seems  to 
be  now  fully  settled,  since  the  publication  by  Mackintosh  of 
the  secret  dispatches  of  Salviati,  the  Papal  nuncio  to  the 
French  court.f  While  substantially  admitting  all  this,  as  we 
have  seen,  Ranke  still  thinks  that  Catherine  had  previously 
contemplated  the  design  upon  the  admiral,  "  as  a  possibility ;" 
that  is,  that  she  had  an  old  score  of  injuries  to  settle  with  him, 
and,  in  inviting  him  to  the  nuptials,  vaguely  contemplated 
as  "possible"  the  contingency  of  her  having  an  opportunity 
to  wreak  her  vengeance  on  him.J  This  really  amounts  to 
nothing  in  the  way  of  premeditation,  and  the  alleging  of  a 
conjecture  so  very  vague  is  unworthy  a  grave  historian. 
Though  Catherine  certainly  had  received  many  grievous  in- 
juries from  Coligny  and  his  partisans,  the  German  historian 
does  not  prove,  or  even  venture  to  assert,  that  she  conceived 
any  definite  purpose  beforehand  to  be  avenged  on  him  on 
occasion  of  the  nuptials, — which  is  the  very  point  in  contro- 
versy. 

Another  discrepancy  consists  in  the  statement  by  Ranke, 
that  "  oral  orders  were  carried  from  town  to  town  with  the 
swiftness  of  the  wind,  authorizing  the  rage  of  fanaticism 
everywhere."    This  he  does  not  prove,  while  he  admits  imme- 

*  Ranke,  Civil  Wars  etc.,  p.  269,  270. 

f  See  note  E.  appended  to  Lingard's  eighth  volume,  where  the  testimony 
is  given  in  full.     It  is  regarded  as  conclusive. 

\  See  Ranke,  Civil  wars  etc.,  p.  273.  After  saying  that  Charles  was  un- 
doubtedly sincere,  he  adds  :  "  Catherine  was  different.  That  she  had  from 
the  beginning  a  design  against  the  admiral,  connected  with  the  invitation  to 
the  nuptials,  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable,  yet  the  design  was  contem- 
plated rather  as  a  possibility,  and  expressed  rather  as  a  justification." — This 
theory,  besides  being  wholly  unsustained  by  evidence,  is  s^^arcely  consistent 
with  his  previous  statement  of  the  flicts ;  all  of  which  may  be,  on  the  othei 
hand,  satisfactorily  explained  witliout  it,  and  even  better  explained. 
VOL.   II. — 32 


378  REFORMATION    IN   FRANCE THE   HUGUENOTS. 

diately  afterwards,  that  ""  from  time  to  time  the  flame  broke 
out  afresh,  even  after  orders  were  issued  to  restrain  it."*  Ac 
cording  to  what  we  believe  to  be  the  most  reliable  accounts, 
these  orders  restraining  the  massacre  were  issued  immedi- 
ately; and  the  partial  nuissacres  which  took  place  in  other 
towns  were  caused,  in  spite  of  them,  by  popular  excitement 
and  the  memory  of  old  wrongs  received  from  the  Ilugue- 
nots.f 

Ranke  estimates  the  number  of  the  victims  at  twenty 
thousand.  This  is  no  doubt  a  grievous  exaggeration.  There 
is  nothing  more  fallacious  than  the  attempt  to  estimate  in  such 
cases  in  round  numbers.  "  The  reformed  martyrologist  (Foxe) 
adopted  a  measure  for  ascertaining  the  real  number,  which 
may  enable  us  to  form  a  probable  conjecture.  He  procured 
from  the  ministers  in*  the  difi:erent  towns  where  the  massacres 
had  taken  place  lists  of  the  persons  who  had  suffered,  or  were 
supposed  to  have  suffered.  He  published  the  result  in  1582  ; 
and  the  reader  will  be  surprised  to  learn,  that  in  all  France 
he  could  discover  the  names  of  no  more  than  seven  hundred 

*  Rankc,  Civil  Wars  etc.,  p.  278. 

f  The  excellent  Miss  Strickland,  while  taking  the  erroneous  view  that  the 
massacre  was  prompted  by  religious  fanaticism,  admits  that  the  murderous 
spirit  of  intolerance  in  England,  especially  that  which  clamored  for  the 
blood  of  Mary  of  Scots,  was  equally  great  and  detestable.     She  writes  : 

"  Not  more  atrocious,  however,  was  the  ruthless  fimaticism,  which  prompted 
the  butcher-work  by  which  the  day  of  St.  Bartholomew  was  forever  ren- 
dered a  watchword  of  reproach  against  Catholics,  than  the  murderous  spirit 
of  cruelty  and  injustice  which  led  the  professors  of  the  reformed  faith  to 
clamor  for  the  blood  of  the  captive  Mary  Stuart  as  a  victim  to  the  manes  of 
the  slaughtered  Protestants.  Sandys,  bishop  of  London,  in  a  letter  to  Bur- 
leigh, inclosed  a  paper  of  measures,  which  he  deemed  expedient  for  the  good 
of  the  realm,  and  the  security  of  his  royal  mistress  at  that  crisis,  beginning 
with  this  startling  article,  '  Forthwith  to  cut  off  the  Scottish  queen's  head.' 
Burleigh  endeavored  to  prevail  on  Elizabeth  to  follow  this  sanguinary  coun- 
sel, telling  her  '  that  it  was  the  only  means  of  preventing  her  own  deposi- 
tion and  murder.'  It  is  easy  at  all  times  to  persuade  hatred  that  i  cvenge 
is  an  act  of  justice."— Queens  of  England,  vol.  vi,  p.  282. —  She  quotes 
Ellis'  Royal  Letters,  2d  series,  vol.  iii,  p.  25. 


THE   POPE   AND    CLERGY.  379 

and  eighty-six  persons.  Perhaps,  if  we  double  this  number, 
we  shall  not  be  far  from  the  real  amount."* 

It  is  quite  certain,  that  religion  had  little,  if  any  thing 
whatever,  to  do  with  the  raassacre.f  The  queen  mother  had 
favored  the  Huguenot  leaders,  perhaps  fully  as  much  as  she 
had  the  Catholic.  As  we  have  seen,  her  tortuous  state  policy 
inclined  her  to  throw  her  influence  alternately  in  the  scale 
of  Guise  and  of  Conde,  accordingly  as  each  of  these  lead- 
ers successively  gained  the  ascendency,  and  threatened  her 
own  paramount  control  of  the  king  and  the  government. 
At  this  particular  period,  the  policy  of  the  French  court  was 
moreover  specially  directed  against  Philip  of  Spain,  and  it 
strongly  favored  the  cause  of  the  prince  of  Orange  and  of 
the  Dutch  insurgents.  Since  the  days  of  ^^vancis  I.,  the  French 
government  had  repeatedly  formed  alliances  with  the  German 
Protestants  against  their  Catholic  emperor ;  and  if  its  policy 
was  guided  by  religion  at  all — which  it  seldom  was — it  would 
appear  from  its  acts  that  it  favored  the  Protestant  almost  as 
often  and  as  much  as  it  did  the  Catholic  party.  Hence  all 
the  clamor  about  the  massacre  having  originated  in  religious 
excitement  and  intolerance  is  not  only  without  any  solid 
foundation  in  the  facts  of  history,  but  against  all  verisimilitude. 

The  Catholic  bishops  and  clergy  did  whatever  was  in  their 
power  to  restrain  popular  violence  during  this  period  of  ter- 
rible popular  excitement ; J  and  it  is  not  even  pretended,  that 

*  Lingard,  Note  to  vol.  viii.  Such  a  partisan  as  Foxe  would  scarcely 
have  made  the  number  less  than  it  was. 

f  Thuanus  testifies,  that  on  the  day  of  the  massacre  the  king  issued  an 
edict,  in  which  he  declared  that  what  had  been  done  had  been  ordered  by 
himself,  not  through  hatred  of  religion,  but  to  provide  for  his  own  safety  : 
"non  religionis  odio,  sed  ut  nefari^e  Colinii  et  sociorum  conjurationi  obviam 
iret."     Quoted  by  Milner,  Letter  iv,  to  a  Prebendary. 

I  Thus,  according  to  Maimbourg,  quoted  by  Milner,  Henuyer,  a  Domi- 
nican, bishop  of  Lisieux,  nobly  sheltered  his  Protestant  "  flock,"  saying  :  "  It 
is  the  duty  of  the  good  shepherd  to  lay  down  his  life  for  his  sheep,  not  to 
let  them  be  slaughtered  before  his  fiice.  These  are  my  sheep,  though  they 
have  gone  astray  ;  and  I  am  resolved  to  run  all  hazards  in  protecting  them." 


380  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE — THE   HUGUENOTS. 

they  had  any  agency  whatever  in  bringing  about  the  massa- 
cre. If  the  Pope  ordered  a  Te  Deum  to  be  sung  at  Rome  on 
first  learning  the  intelligence,  it  was  only  because  he  had 
received  such  a  version  of  the  affair  as  led  him  to  believe, 
that  the  Huguenots  were  only  anticipated  in  their  bloody  de- 
signs by  the  vigilance  of  the  French  court,  which  by  its 
prompt  measures  of  severity  was  thus  saved  from  utter  de- 
struction. Such  a  version  of  the  tragedy  was,  in  fact,  imme- 
diately sent  out  to  all  the  foreign  courts  ;  and  the  antecedents 
of  Coligny  and  his  party  rendered  the  story  not  at  all  improb- 
able. It  was  only  at  a  later  period,  that  the  true  facts  of 
the  case  came  to  light.* 

Though  nothing  could  greatly  palliate,  much  less  justify 
this  atrocious  massacre,  yet  there  are  obvious  circumstances 
connected  with  it  which  should  not  be  lost  sight  of  by  those 
who  wish  to  form  a  correct  and  impartial  judgment.  There 
had  been  great  provocations  from  the  other  side.  Three  times 
had  the  Huguenots  risen  in  arms  against  their  sovereign  and 
his  government,  and  they  had  fought  his  armies  in  four 
pitched  battles ;  in  all  of  which  they  had  been  indeed  de- 
feated, but  not  without  great  effusion  of  blood  on  both  sides.f 
They  had  treacherously  delivered  up  to  the  inveterate  and 
hereditary  enemy  of  France  two  of  her  principal  sea-ports. 
which  were  the  keys  of  the  kingdom.  They  had  basely  as 
sassinated  the  noble  duke  of  Guise,  who  was  very  dear  ti- 
the French  people,  from  the  fact  of  his  having  nobly  driver* 
the  English  from  Calais,  their  last  foothold  in  France. 

Twice  had  they  attempted,  by  base  treachery,  to  seize  upon 

*  The  learned  Pagi,  in  his  Life  of  Gregory  XIII.,  the  then  reigning  Pon- 
tiff, informs  us  that,  on  the  representation  of  the  French  ambassador,  ho 
viewed  the  deed  as  a  necessary  act  of  self-defense  of  the  French  court  against 
the  machinations  of  Coligny,  and  therefore  ordered  the  thanksgiving,  not  for 
the  massacre,  but  for  the  preservation  of  the  royal  family  :  "  Actis  publico 
Deo  gratiis  de  periculo  a  Colinii  conjuratione  evitato." — Brev.  Grest.  Horn. 
Pont,  vi,  729 — apud  Milner,  loco  citato. 

■f  The  battles  of  Dreux,  St.  Denis,  Jarnac,  and  Moncontour. 


PROVOCATIOiNS    GIVEN   BY    HUGUENOTS.  381 

and  make  prisoners  of  the  French  king  and  court,  that  thus 
they  might  be  able  to  grasp  the  sovereign  power  of  the  state, 
and  wield  it  for  their  own  purposes.*  They  had,  when  tempo- 
rarily in  power,  disarmed  the  inhabitants  of  Paris,  and  in  a 
menacing  attitude  paraded  the  streets  fully  armed,  under 
their  leader  Conde;  and  this  too  in  time  of  profound  peace. 
They  had,  in  the  civil  wars,  butchered  priests,  desecrated 
churches,  invaded  monasteries,  and  slaughtered  unarmed 
Catholics  by  thousands,  in  the  various  towns  which  they  had 
taken  by  assault,  or  where  they  happened  for  the  time 
to  be  in  power.  Five  years  before — in  1567 — they  had,  on 
St.  Michael's  day,  committed  a  horrible  massacre  on  the 
Catholic  people  of  Nismes.f 

As  Davila  writes,  "  upon  the  death  of  Francis  II.,  when 
liberty  of  conscience  was  granted  them,  besides  burning  down 
churches  and  monasteries,  they  had  massacred  people  in  the 
very  streets  of  Paris."  "  Heylin  relates,  that  in  the  time  of 
a  profound  peace,  these  same  people  taking  offense  at  the  pro- 
cession of  Corpus  Christi  performed  in  the  city  of  Pamiers, 
fell  upon  the  whole  clergy  who  composed  it  and  murdered 
them ;  and  that  they  afterwards  committed  the  same  outrages 
at  Montauban,  Rodez,  Valence,"  and  other  places.^ 

*  Once  at  Amboise,  and  again  at  Monceaux  near  Meaux. 

f  This  terrible  massacre  was  called  the  Michelade,  from  the  fact  of  its 
having  occurred  at  Michaelmas.  Though  it  is  studiously  lost  sight  of  by 
Prosestant  writers,  it  may  be  viewed  as  a  fair  oflF-set  to  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew.  Though  this  was  the  greatest  outbreak  of  the  Huguenots 
against  the  Catholics  of  Nismes,  it  was  not  the  only  one  ;  for  another  mas- 
sacre of  a  similar  kind  occurred  in  this  city  two  years  later — 1569.  See 
Lingard's  Vindication,  in  answer  to  the  Edinburgh  Eeview  ;  vol.  viii  of  his 
History  of  England,  American  Edition. 

To  show  the  desperate  ferocity  of  the  Huguenots,  we  will  mention  an- 
other curious  instance.  In  the  third  civil  war  which  they  stirred  up  in 
France  in  1568,  Briquemaut,  the  principal  Huguenot  chief,  was  in  the  habit 
of  wearing  a  necklace  composed  of  the  ears  of  assassinated  priests ! !  See 
Alzog,  Hist.  Church,  etc.,  p.  583. 

I  Hist.  Presb.  1.  ii,  quoted  by  Milner,  sup.  cit.,  to  whom  we  are  also  in» 
debted  for  the  testimony  of  Davila. 


382  REFORMATION   IN    FRANCE — THE    HUGUENOTS. 

Tliey  bad  committed  all  these  and  many  other  cruel  atroci 
ties ;  and  though  these  bloody  crimes  do  not  certainly  excuse 
the  lawless  massacre  in  which  some  of  their  leaders  fell,  yet 
they  considerably  palliated  its  enormity,  so  far  at  least  as  to 
prove,  that  the  Huguenots  were  not  the  only  sufferers,  much 
less  the  innocent  victims  of  an  unprovoked  persecution,  as 
their  partial  friends  sometimes  chose  to  represent  them.* 

As  one  out  of  many  examples  of  the  ferocity  with  which 
the  Huguenots  raged  against  the  Catholics,  during  the  civil 
wars  preceding  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  we  will 
here  present  a  brief  sketch  of  the  barbarities  perpetrated  by 
one  of  their  most  active  military  chieftains,  the  famous — or 

*  The  injury  which  the  violence  of  the  Huguenots  in  France  did  to  learn- 
ing is  incalculable ;  and  it  is  the  more  to  be  regretted,  as  the  loss  is  irre 
trievable.  We  condense  the  following  facts  on  this  subject  from  Maitland's 
learned  work  on  the  Dark  Ages:  (p.  231,  seqq.,  London  Edition.) 

Martene,  in  his  "  Literary  Journey  "  in  quest  of  ancient  manuscripts,  had 
occasion  almost  everywhere  to  lament  the  wanton  destruction  of  the  most 
valuable  of  them  in  the  French  monasteries  by  the  illiterate  and  fanatical 
Huguenots,  who,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  overran  and  sacked  a  great  portion 
of  France  with  a  destructive  fury  unequaled  since  the  invasion  of  the  bar- 
barians in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries.  At  the  monastery  of  St.  Theodore, 
near  Vienne,  the  monks  willingly  communicated  to  the  literary  traveler 
"  what  the  fury  of  the  heretics  had  left  to  them  of  ancient  monuments ;  foi 
those  impious  men  in  1562  had  burned  all  the  charts." — L  Voyage  Liter- 
aire,  252,  apud  Maitland,  p.  231.  At  Tarbes,  the  same  sad  spectacle  was 
presented,  "  the  cathedral  church  and  all  the  titles  having  been  burnt  by  the 
Calvinists  who  throughout  the  whole  of  Beam  and  Bigorre  had  left  mourn- 
ful marks  of  their  fury." — Ibid.  In  the  still  more  ancient  abbey  of  St.  John 
at  Thouars  "  the  ravages  made  by  the  Calvinists  during  the  past  century 
have  dissipated  the  greater  part  of  the  (literary)  monuments." — Ibid.  The 
same  scene  of  desolation  met  the  view  of  the  antiquary  at  Grimberg,  Dilig- 
hem,  and  other  places.  Of  the  desolation  at  the  monastery  of  Ferte  near 
Meaux,  the  learned  Ruinart  speaks  as  follows  :  "  We  hoped  perhaps  to  find 
there  something  in  the  archives,  ....  but  we  were  answered  that  the  charts 
of  the  monastery  had  been  entirely  burned  b}'^  the  Calvinists." — Ibid.,  p.  232. 

Mabillon,  the  famous  Benedictine,  bears  similar  testimony  in  regard  to 
the  manuscripts  of  the  monastery  of  Fleury,  where  the  fury  of  heresy  had 
left  but  a  small  remnant  of  the  vast  collection  of  ancient  books.-  -Ibid. 


BARON  d'adrets.  383 

rather  infamous — Baron  D'Adrets.  He  joined  their  ranks  it 
the  first  civil  war  of  1562,  out  of  hatred  to  the  duke  of  Guise 
who  had  oflfended  him.  His  career  was  signalized  by  the 
celerity  and  success  of  his  movements,  but  still  more  by  the 
horrid  sufferings  which  he  inflicted  upon  the  Catholic  party. 
He  took  successively  Valence,  Vienne,  Grenoble,  and  Lyons ; 
and  he  everywhere  raged,  like  a  wild  beast,  against  con- 
quered foes.  He  burned,  sacked,  and  slaughtered,  with  a  fe- 
rocity which  excited  the  disgust  of  even  his  own  moi-e  humane 
officers.  His  very  appearance  was  so  ferocious,  as  to  strike 
terror  into  the  most  stout-hearted.  After  having  taken  the 
strong  fortresses  of  Mornas  and  Montbrison,  it  was  his  favorite 
amusement  after  dinner,  to  see  his  Catholic  prisoners  leap 
from  the  battlements  into  the  surrounding  moats,  where  their 
bodies  were  received  on  the  upraised  pikes  of  his  soldiers ! 
"He  was,  in  regard  to  the  Catholics,  what  Nero  had  been  in 
regard  to  the  early  Christians.  He  sought  out  and  invented 
the  most  novel  punishments,  which  he  took  pleasure  in  seeing 
inflicted  on  those  who  fell  into  his  hands.  This  monster, 
wishing  to  make  his  children  as  cruel  as  himself,  forced  them 
to  bathe  in  the  blood  of  the  Catholics,  whom  he  had  butchered ; 
and  these  barbarities  met  with  the  approbation  of  the  chief  of 
the  party !  The  Admiral  Coligny  said,  that  it  was  necessary 
to  employ  him,  as  a  furious  lion,  and  that  his  services  over- 
balanced his  insolence." "He  died  February  2,  1585, 

abhorred  by  the  Catholics,  and  despised  by  the  Huguenots 
themselves."* 

We  may  as  well  insert  here,  as  elsewhere,  what  Maitlaiid, 
whom  we  have  already  quoted,  further  says  and  proves  con- 
cerning the  destructive  spirit  of  the  French  Huguenots.  It 
will  be  seen  that  their  National  Synod  officially  indorsed  this 
Vandal-like  spirit  exhibited  in  the  wanton  destruction  of 
valuable  ancient  manuscripts. 

*  Feller,  Histor.  Diet.,  who  quotes  two  French  lives  of  D'Adrets;  one  by 
Allard,  Grenoble,  1(575,  the  other  by  C.  J.  Martin,  published  in  1803. 


384  REFORMATION    IN   FRANCE THE    HUGUENOTS. 

"  It  seems  worth  while  to  add  two  instances,  one  EngHsh  and  the  othei 
French,  of  the  destruction  of  MSS.  by  those  who  were  their  guardians,  and 
who  seem  to  have  been  influenced  by  religious  (if  one  ought  not  rather  to 
say  party)  feeling.  It  is  the  more  necessary,  because  it  is  hard  to  conceive 
of  such  things ;  and  the  circumstances  of  the  latter  case  in  particular  lead 
one  to  apprehend  that  the  matter  "was  not  the  act  of  a  stupid  fanatical  indi- 
vidual, but  a  practice  encouraged  by  those  who  had  it  in  their  power  to  do, 
and  certainly  did,  much  mischief;  and  that  not  only  openly,  but  by  private 
means,  less  easily  detected. 

"  Henry  Wharton,  in  the  preface  to  his  Anglia  Sacra,  after  stating  the 
impossibility  of  rivaling  works  of  a  similar  nature  which  had  been  published 
respecting  France  and  Italy,  owing  to  the  destruction  of  manuscripts  at  the 
suppression  of  monasteries  etc.,  says  :  that  he  had  met  with  a  case  in  which 
a  bishop,  avowedly  with  the  design  of  getting  rid  of  Popery,  had  burned  all 
the  registers  and  documents  belonging  to  his  see.*  He  does  not  name  him ; 
ind,  without  inquiring  who  he  was,  we  will  charitably  hope  that  he  acted 
in  stupid  sincerity,  and  was  the  only  English  prelate  that  ever  did  such  a 
thing,  or  anything  like  it. 

"  But  there  is  a  French  story,  more  surprising  and  pregnant,  and  form- 
ing a  valuable  commentary  on  many  sad  passages  in  Martene's  Literary 
Tour,  which  might  otherwise  be  thought  to  bear  marks  of  prejudice  against 
the  Protestant  party.  But  this  fact  coming  as  it  does  from  themselves,  is 
beyond  suspicion  ;  and  it  is  briefly  as  follows  :    At  the 

'Quatrieme  Synode  National  des  Eglises  Reformees  de  France,  tenu  a 
Lion  le  iii  Aout,  1563,  I'an  III.  du  regne  de  Charles  IX.  Roi  de  France, 
Monsieur  Pierre  Viret,  alors  ministre  de  I'Eglise  de  Lion,  elu  pour  modera- 
teur  et  pour  secretaire' — among  the  '  Faits  particuliers '  which  were  discussed 
and  decided.  No.  xlvii,  is  thus  stated  ; — '  Un  Abbe  parvenu  a  la  connois- 
sance  de  I'Evangile  aiant  abatu  les  Idoles,  hrule  ses  Titres,  pourveu  aux 
besoins  de  ses  moines,  sans  qu'il  ait  permis  depuis  six  ans  qu'il  se  soit  chante 
Messe  dans  son  Abbaye,  ne  fait  aucun  exercice  du  service  de  I'Eglise  Ro- 
maine,  mais  au  contraire  s'est  toujours  montre  fidele,  et  a  porte  les  armea 
pour  maintenir  VEvangile.  On  demande  s'il  doit  etre  recu  a  la  Cene? 
Reponse.    Oui,'  "f 

*  Comperi  enim  Episcopum  quendamante  centum  et  quod  excurrit  annos 
avitae  superstitionis  delendse  praetextu,  omnia  ecclesiae  suae  monume  ita  et 
Registra  igni  tradidisse," — Vol.  i,  p.  10. 

t  Aymon,  Synod.  National.  Tom.  i,  p.  45. — "  At  the  fourth  National 
Synod  of  the  Reformed  Churches  of  France,  held  at  Lyons,  the  lOth  of  Au- 
gust, 1563,  in  the  third  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  IX.,  king  of  France 
Monsieur  Peter  Viret,  then  minister  of  the  church  of  Lyons  having  been 
elected  moderator  and  secretary ;    among  the  '  particular  facts '  or  cases 


SUCCEEDING   EVENTS.  385 

"  We  cannot  here  indulge  any  such  charitable  h(.»pe  as  that  which  I  sug- 
gested in  the  preceding  case  ;  for  the  point  which  seizes  our  attention  is  not 
the  act  of  the  individual,  but  the  approbation  of  the  National  Synod.  The 
matter  is  quaintly  entered  in  the  index,  and  in  plainer  terms  than  those  in 
which  it  was  submitted  to  the  assembled  divines. 

"Abbe  requ  a  la  Gene  pour  avoir  bride  ses  Tetres,  abatu  les  Images  de 
I'Eglise  de  son  couvent,  et  joojic  les  armes  pour  maintenir  les  predicateurs 
Beformees,  p.  45."* 

8.  Our  summary  of  facts  connected  with  the  remaining  his- 
tory of  the  Huguenots  must  be  necessarily  very  brief.  After  the 
massacre,  these  religionists  took  shelter  in  the  town  of  Ro- 
chelle,  which  they  strongly  fortified  and  held  successfully 
against  the  besieging  royal  army  under  the  duke  of  Anjou. 
From  this  important  sea-port  they  kept  up  a  constant  communi- 
cation with  England.  The  duke  of  Anjou  having  been  after- 
wards chosen  king  of  Poland,  a  new  edict  of  Pacification  was 
published  in  1573,  which  held  out  the  promise  of  a  general 
peace :  but  the  prospect  was  soon  blighted  by  the  plots  and 
counterplots  of  the  contending  factions.  Charles  IX.,  whose 
health  had  been  long  declining,  died  of  consumption  on  the 
30th  of  May,  1574,  after  having  appointed  his  mother  regent 
of  the  kingdom. 

His  death  was  the  signal  for  renewed  civil  commotions. 
The  Huguenots  and  a  portion  of  the  Catholic  leaders  wished 
to  place  the  duke  of  Alencon  on  the  throne;  while  the  queen 
regent  was  firm  in  maintaining  the  right  of  the  elder  brother, 
now  king  of  Poland.  She  succeeded  in  her  purpose,  and  the 
new  king  took  the  name  of  Henry  HI.     Alencon  with  the 

which  were  discussed  and  decided,  No.  xlvii,  is  thus  stated  :  '  An  abbot 
having  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  gospel,  having  broken  down  the  idols, 
burnt  his  titles  (the  MSS.  registers  of  the  monastery),  and  provided  for  his 
monks  without  having  permitted  Mass  to  be  sung  in  his  abbey  for  six  years, 
performed  no  act  of  service  of  the  Roman  Church,  but  on  the  contrary  has 
always  shown  himself /rt/^/?/«/,  and  has  borne  arms  to  maintain  the  gospel.  It 
is  asked  whether  he  should  be  admitted  to  the  Supper  ? — Answer  :  Yes." 

*  "  Abbot  received  to  the  Supper,  for  having  burnt  his  registers,  broken  the 
images  in   the   church  of  his  convent,  and  bo7-ne  arms  to  sustain  the  re- 
formed preachers." 
VOL.  11.-33 


386  REFORMATION   IN    FRANCE THE   HUGUENOTS. 

king  of  Navarre  now  joined  the  malcontents,  and  tlie  flames 
of  civ  il  war  were  again  lighted  up  all  over  France. 

Meantime  two  great  confederacies  were  organized.  The 
Huguenots  bound  themselves  together  by  the  most  solemn 
engagements,  and  established  a  council  of  state  at  Millaud, 
which  was  vested  with  the  most  ample  power  "  to  appoint 
counselors,  to  determine  the  quota  of  men  and  money  to  be 
raised  in  each  district,  and  to  act  as  an  independent  authority 
in  the  heart  of  France."  Having  failed  to  secure  the  assist 
ance  of  England,  the  malcontents  shortly  afterwards  agreed 
to  another  l*acitication  in  which  their  principal  rights  were 
satisfactorily  secured ;  and  the  king  of  Navarre  and  Alencon 
returned  to  their  allegiance. 

Like  all  previous  ones,  this  Pacification  was  short-lived. 
The  establishment  of  a  sort  of  independent  government  in 
France  by  the  Ilnguenots,  through  their  confederacy  of  Mil- 
laud,  naturally  led  to  counter  combinations.  A  great  Cath- 
olic league  was  formed,  which  pervaded  almost  all  the 
provinces,  and  in  which  the  subscribers  pledged  themselves 
"  to  maintain  the  ascendency  of  the  ancient  faith,  and  to  pro- 
tect, at  the  hazard  of  their  lives  and  fortunes,  the  Catholic 
worship,  the  clergy,  and  the  churches,  against  the  hostile 
attempts  of  their  enemies."*  The  new  king  placed  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  Catholic  league.  Another  religious  war 
ensued,  followed  by  the  usual  short-lived  Pacification ;  and 
the  Protestants  "  ultimately  recovered  the  chief  of  the  conces- 
sions which  had  b^en  revoked."! 

9.  Things  went  on  in  this  troubled  state,  until  Henry  IH. 
was  assassinated  by  a  fanatic,  in  1589,  Then  the  civil  war 
recommenced;  and  it  ended  with  iirmly  settling  on  the  throne 
the  darling  of  the  Huguenots,  the  king  of  Navarre,  who  took 

*  Lingard,  Hist.  England,  viii,  p.  104-5.  The  instrument  is  found  in 
Daniel's  History  of  France,  xi,  62.  Its  pnncipal  clauses  prove  that  the  Cath- 
olic majority  sought  to  defend  their  altars  and  clergy  from  the  violence  of 
the  Huguenots,  who  were  so  ardently  in  lOve  v?ith  relii^ious  liberty  as  to  seek 
to  have  it  all  to  themselves,  and  to  allow  none  to  iheir  neiffhoors  i       +  Ibid 


HENRY    IV.    BECOMES    CATHOLIC.  387 

the  name  of  Henry  IV.,  and  who  has  been  honored  with  the 
name  of  the  Great.  Henry  on  his  accession  became  a  Cath- 
oHc;  and,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  he  was  urged  to  take 
this  step  by  his  own  leading  Huguenot  partisans,  who  repre- 
sented to  him,  that  he  might  have  more  influence  and  serve 
their  cause  better  as  a  Catholic  than  as  a  Protestant ! 

"  All  the  constituted  authorities  of  the  kingdom  were  Catholic,  the  excep- 
tions being  so  few  as  to  make  no  essential  difference.  And  was  not  the 
Catholic  Church,  after  all,  in  reference  to  doctrine,  order,  and  usage,  the 
same  ancient  Church  which  it  had  ever  been  ?  No  one  could  deny  the  cor- 
ruption of  morals  and  the  abuses  of  discipline  which  prevailed  among  the 
clergy  ;  these,  however,  it  was  not  for  the  Huguenots  to  reform,  but  for  him, 
the  king,  the  temporal  head  of  the  Church.  Perhaps  God  had  raised  him 
up  to  re-establish  the  general  unity  once  more  ;  but  before  he  could  inter- 
fere with  the  Church,  he  must  again  stand  forth  as  the  eldest  son  of  the 
Church."* 

10.  Once  firmly  seated  on  the  throne,  Henry  IV.  published 
in  favor  of  his  former  co-religionists  the  famous  Edict  of 
Nantes.  This  was  in  1598;  the  same  year  in  which  occurred 
the  death  of  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  who  had  so  earnestly  op- 
posed his  accession  to  the  French  throne.  The  Edict  not 
only  guarantied  to  the  Huguenots  the  fullest  religious  liberty, 
but  it  gave  them,  moreover,  extensive  civil  and  religious  pri- 
vileges, and  even  recognized  them  as  a  distinct  organization 
and  power  in  the  state.  The  subsequent  revocation  of  this 
Edict  —  nearly  a  hundred  years  later,  in  1G85,  by  another 
French  monarch,  Louis  XIV.,  who  has  also  been  dignified 
with  the  name  of  Great — has  given  rise  to  a  torrent  of  abuse 
and  invective  against  the  intolerance  of  the  Catholic  Church 
on  the  part  of  certain  partisan  writers,  who  imagine  that  the 
Church  is  responsible  for  whatever  Cath(>lic  sovereigns  may 
chance  to  do,  even  if  their  action  should  be  against  her  own 
spirit  and  her  own  interests.    Without  defending  the  justice,  or 

♦'Ranke,  Civil  Wars  etc.,  sup.  cit.,  p.  473.  It  was  precisely  this  "inter- 
ference with  the  Church  "  by  its  "  eldest  son  "  which  had  produced  all  the 
evils  and  abuses  in  France ;  as  we  have  already  shown  on  the  authority  of 
Ranke  himself! 


388  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE THE    HUGUENOTS 

even  the  policy  of  the  revocation,  we  will  here  state  a  few 
facts  bearing  on  it,  which,  together  with  those  already  referred 
to,  may.  tend  to  modify  in  a  considerable  degree  the  harsh 
judgment  formed  by  some  in  regard  to  this  subject. 

11.  Henry  lY.,  like  his  predecessor,  fell  by  the  dagger  of 
an  assassin,  in  1610  ;  and  he  was  succeeded  by  Louis  XIII., 
who  reigned  until  1643,  with  the  great  Cardinal  Richelieu  as 
his  prime  minister.  Immediately  after  the  death  of  their 
great  protector,  the  Huguenots  again  grew  restive  and  tur- 
bulent, and  not  long  afterwards  they  broke  out  into  open  war 
against  their  own  government.  From  1617  to  1629,  they 
stirred  up  no  less  than  three  additional  civil  wars  in  France ; 
which,  like  the  previous  ones,  were  generally  ended  with  a 
Pacification  guarantying  to  them  all  their  privileges.  At 
each  new  outbreak,  they,  of  course,  as  a  pretext  for  taking  up 
arms,  charged  that  the  Catholics  had  violated  their  legal 
rights  secured  to  them  by  the  Edict;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Catholic  party  maintained,  that,  in  almost  every 
instance,  they  had  been  the  first  to  break  the  conditions  under 
which  the  privileges  of  the  Edict  were  accorded. 

Caveirac,  who  has  made  diligent  and  ample  researches  on 
the  subject,  and  has  published  them  to  the  world,  proves  that 
no  less  than  two  hundred  decrees  were  issued  by  various  sue 
ceeding  French  governments,  with  a  view  to  curb  the  ever 
encroaching  spirit  of  the  Huguenots,  whose  demands  seemed 
to  grow  with  the  amount  of  concessions  made  them.*  They 
greatly  exaggerated  their  claims  to  importance  and  to  influ- 
ence in  the  government,  which  they  wished  to  control  for 
their  own  purposes,  though  they  were  so  very  small  a  minority 
of  the  French  population.  They  seem  to  have  aimed,  in  fact, 
at  little  less  than  becoming  an  imperium  in  imperio — a  dis- 
tinct and  independent  government  in  the  heart  of  the  French 
monarchy.  They  sought  to  secure  this  species  of  independ- 
ence, particularly  during  the  bloody  civil  war  which  termi- 

*  Quoted  by  Fredet — Modern  History  ;  note  0. 


EDICT    OF   NANTES AND   ITS    REVOCATION.  389 

nated  in  the  capture  of  their  great  strong-hold  Rochelle, 
which  was  accomplished  by  the  genius  of  Eichelieu.  They 
were  then,  as  previo"sly,  in  open  league  with  England,  and 
English  troops  with  an  English  navy  came  openly  to  their 
assistance.*  After  the  fall  of  Rochelle  in  1629,  their  power 
was  broken,  and  their  organization  greatly  weakened.  Still 
the  old  spirit  of  disaffection  and  turbulence  remained.  Their 
sympathies  continued  to  be  evidently  more  English  and  Ger- 
man than  French  ;  and  they  still  kept  up  their  intrigues  with 
foreign  Protestants,  with  a  view  to  subvert  the  constitution 
of  their  country,  and  thereby  to  regain  their  long  coveted 
ascendency.  Under  all  these  circumstances,  we  do  not  so 
much  wonder  at  tlie  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  as  at 
the  fact  of  its  having  continued  so  long  in  existence.  The 
chief  reason  for  the  delay  was,  probably,  the  distracted  and 
enfeebled  condition  of  the  kingdom  in  consequence  of  the 
numerous  civil  wars :  but  when  the  French  monarchy  be- 
came again  strong  under  the  long  and  able  administration  of 
Louis  XIV.,  the  hesitancy  ceased,  and  by  the  severe  measure 
of  revoking  the  Edict,  the  "grande  monarque"  thought  to 
unite  and  consolidate  his  government,  by  depriving  the  mal- 
contents of  the  power  to  provoke  new  civil  wars.f 

It  is,  we  beJieve,  quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  ma- 
terial prosperity  of  France  was  impaired  by  the  revocation  of 
the  Edict.  On  the  contrary,  France  had  never  been  so 
united,  so  powerful,  and  so  prosperous  at  any  previous  period 
of  her  history,  as  she  became  at  this  precise  time,  and  as  she 

*  This  fleet  ascended  the  Loire,  and  landed  troops  in  the  interior  of  France. 

f  By  the  edict  of  revocation,  such  Huguenot  ministers  as  refused  to  abjure 
within  two  months,  were  ordered  to  leave  France ;  bnt  the  great  body  of 
the  Protestants  were  allowed,  and  even  encouraged  to  remain  and  enjoy 
their  property  and  rights  under  the  protection  of  the  law,  "  without  being 
troubled  and  vexed  on  account  of  their  religion."  Orders  were,  moreover, 
promptly  issued  to  check  the  violence  with  which  the  Huguenots  were 
treated  in  some  places  ;.  and  in  a  special  letter  to  the  Intendants  of  the  pro- 
vinc<»s,  the  king  strongly  ui-ged  moderation  and  mildness.  See  Ibid. 
50 


390  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE THE    HUGUENOTS. 

continued  to  be  long  afterwards.  By  it  she  was  delivered  from 
the  blighting  curse  of  continual  civil  commotions  and  wars, 
which  had  distracted  her  government,  and  rendered  her 
beautiful  soil  desolate  for  more  than  a  hundred  years.  Tiie 
number  of  the  Huguenots  who  followed  their  ministers  into 
exile  has  been  greatly  exaggerated.  Hume  flippantly  sets  it 
down  as  exceeding  half  a  million ;  while  other  Protestant 
writers  reduce  it  to  two  hundred  thousand.  The  duke  of 
Burgundy,  the  favorite  disciple  of  Feiielon,  after  careful 
research,  estimates  it  at  sixty-eight  thousand  ; — a  less  number 
than  had  probably  fallen  in  a  single  one  of  the  nine  or  ten 
civil  wars  which  the  Huguenots  had  provoked.  The  Calvin- 
ists  of  greater  substance  and  influence,  in  general,  remained 
in  France.  The  duke  of  Burgundy  presents  the  following 
view  of  the  whole  subject: 

"  I  do  not  speak  of  the  calamities  produced  by  the  new  doctrines  in  Ger- 
many, England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  etc.  I  speak  of  France.  Xor  shall  I 
enumerate  one  by  one  the  evils  of  which  it  was  the  theatre,  and  which  are 
recorded  in  so  man}'-  authentic  documents  :  the  secret  assembhes ;  the 
leagues  formed  with  foreign  enemies  ;  the  attempts  against  the  government ; 
the  seditious  threats,  open  revolts,  conspiracies,  and  bloody  wars ;  the 
plundering  and  sacking  of  towns  ;  the  deliberate  massacres  and  atrocious 
sacrileges  : — suffice  it  to  say,  that  from  Francis  I.  to  Louis  XIV.,  during 
seven  successive  reigns,  all  these  ev'h  an  1  many  others,  wifh  more  or  less 
violence,  desolated  the  French  monarchy.  This  is  a  point  of  h'stor}^,  which, 
although  it  may  be  variously  related,  can  neither  be  denied  nor  called  in 
question  ;  and  it  is  from  this  capital  point  that  we  should  start  in  the  poli- 
tical examination  of  this  grand  affair."* 

12.  No  doubt,  many  atrocities  were  committed   on   both 

*  Memoires,  etc.,  quoted  ibid.  Some  have  asserted,  that  Louis  XIV.  had 
no  right  to  recall  the  Elict  issued  by  his  predecessor.  The  great  Protestant 
jurist  Grotius  took  a  different  view  of  this  question.  His  words  are  :  "Xo- 
rint  illi  qui  reformatorum  sibi  imponunt  vocabuluni,  non  esse  ilia  foedera, 
sed  regum  edicta,  ol)  publicim  facta  utilititein,  et  rein-i'iHia,  si  aliud  regi- 
bus  publica  utilitas  suaserit." — Rivet.  Apol.  Diiciissio,  p.  20.  Quoted  ibid. 
— "Let  those  who  take  to  themselves  the  ni:n3  of  reformed  know,  that 
these  are  not  rompads,  but  edicts  issued  for  i\\i  public  good,  and  revocable, 
if  the  public  utility  induce  kings  to  revoke  them." 


THE    WOOL-COMBER    LECLERC d'aUEIGNE.  391 

sides  by  the  contending  parties,  during  the  protracted  civil 
wars  of  France  stirred  up  and  kept  alive  by  religious  en- 
thusiasm or  fanaticism.  But  it  is  manifestly  unfair  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Huguenots  were  always  the  injured  and  per- 
secuted party,  because  they  were  in  the  minority.  This  is 
apparent  from  the  facts  already  stated.  For  one  St,  Barthol- 
omew massacre,  we  have  from  five  to  ten  on  the  other  side, 
which  if  not  so  public  or  atrocious,  nevertheless  betray  the 
same  blood-thirsty  and  intolerant  spirit.  It  is  stated,  for  in- 
stance, that  in  the  province  of  Dauphine  alone,  the  Hugue- 
nots burnt  nine  hundred  towns  and  villages  !* 

Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  that  throughout  the  contest  the 
Catholic  party  stood  on  the  defensive,  and  aimed  to  maintain 
the  ancient  and  long  established  order  of  things  ;  while  their 
opponents  sought  by  violence  to  introduce  new  institutions 
on  the  ruins  of  the  old,  both  in  Church   and  State.j-     They 

*  Those  who  wish  to  see  a  full  account  of  all  these  odious  transactions, 
with  the  documents  at  length,  are  referred  to  Caveirac,  Dissertation  sur  le  St. 
Barthelemi ;  Daniel,  Histoire  de  France  ad  an.  1572,  and  passim,  quoted  by 
Fredet,  ibid.,  note  P.;  and  to  Lingard's  note  to  vol.  viii  of  the  American 
edition  of  his  History.  Both  sides  of  the  discussion  on  the  St.  Bartholo- 
mew massacre  are  presented  with  reasonable  fairness  in  the  London  Penny 
Cyclopedia. 

f  Wherever  the  Huguenots  succeeded  in  gaining  a  foothold  in  France, 
they  immediately  set  about  the  work  of  pulling  down  or  desecrating  the 
Catholic  churches  and  monasteries,  or  at  least  in  greatly  disturbing  the 
Catholic  worship.  That  this  was  the  case  at  a  later  period,  is  generally 
understood,  and  will  scarcely  be  denied.  But  that  it  was  so  from  the  very 
beginning  of  the  French  Reformation,  may  not  be  so  generally  known.  We 
will  here  present  a  curious  instance  of  this  ardent  zeal  for  "removing  the 
monuments  of  idolatry,"  from  that  most  veracious  historian  of  the  Protest- 
ant Reformation — D'Aubigne.  The  incidents  referred  to  occurred  as  early 
as  1523  :  the  first  having  taken  place  at  Meaux,  of  which  city  Bri^onnet, 
a  refuted  friend  of  the  new  gospelers  was  bishop  ;  the  second  at  Metz.  The 
account  is  also  a  pretty  fair  specimen  of  the  bold  hypocrisy  and  contempt- 
ible cant  with  which  this  romantic  historian  is  wont  to  regale  his  readers  : 

"The  wool-comber  Leclerc  began  to  visit  from  house  to  house,  confirming 
the  disciples.  But  not  stopping  short  at  these  ordinary  cares,  he  would 
fain   have   seen   the   edifice  of  popery  overthrown,  and  France,  fr^m    the 


392  REFORMATION    IN    FRANCE — THE    HUGUENOTS. 

signally  failed   in  accomplishing  this  purpose ;  and  no  im 
partial  man,  who  calmly  reviews  the  whole  series  of  traus- 

midst  of  these  ruins,  turning  with  a  cry  of  joy  towards  the  gospel.  His 
unguarded  zeal  may  remind  us  of  that  of  Hottinger  at  Zurich,  and  of  Carl- 
stadt  at  Wittenberg.  He  wrote  a  proclamation  against  the  antichrist  of 
Rome,  announcing  that  the  Lord  was  about  to  destroy  him  by  the  breath  of 
his  mouth.  He  then  boldly  posted  his  placards  on  the  gates  of  the  cath- 
edral. Presently  all  was  in  confusion  around  that  ancient  edifice.  The 
faithful  were  amazed  ;  the  priests  exasperated.  What !  a  fellow  whose  em- 
ployment is  wool-combing  dares  measure  himself  with  the  Pope !  The 
Franciscans  were  outrageous,  and  demanded  that  this  once  at  least  a  terrible 
example  should  be  made.     Leclerc  was  thrown  into  prison." 

Leclerc  left  the  uncongenial  city  of  Meaux,  where  his  luminous  parts  were 
not  duly  appreciated,  even  by  the  bishop  Bri<jonnet ;  and  we  next  hear  of 
him  at  Metz,  where  his  zeal  broke  forth  into  the  following  extraordinary 
proceeding,  as  related  by  D'Aubigne  : 

"  Thus  Metz  was  about  to  become  a  focus  of  light,  when  the  imprudent 
zeal  of  Leclere  suddenly  arrested  this  slow  but  sure  progress,  and  aroused  a 
storm  that  threatened  utter  ruin  to  the  rising  church.  The  common  people 
of  Metz  continued  walking  in  their  old  superstitions,  and  Leclerc's  heart 
was  vexed  at  seeing  this  great  city  plunged  in  idolatry.  One  of  their 
great  festivals  was  approaching.  About  a  league  from  the  city  stood  a 
chapel  containing  images  of  the  Virgin  and  of  the  most  celebrated  saints  of 
the  country,  and  whither  all  the  inhabitants  of  Metz  were  in  the  habit  of 
making  a  pilgrimage  on  a  certain  day  in  the  year,  to  worship  the  images  and 
to  obtain  the  pardon  of  their  sins.  The  eve  of  the  festival  had  arrived  : 
Leclerc's  pious  and  courageous  soul  was  violently  agitated.  Has  not  God 
said  :  '  Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  to  their  gods ;  but  thou  shalt  utterly 
overthrow  them,  and  quite  break  down  their  images  ?'  Leclerc  thought 
that  this  command  was  addressed  to  him,  and  without  consulting  either 
Chatelaine,  Esch,  or  any  of  those  who  he  might  have  suspected  would  have 
dissuaded  him,  quitted  the  city  in  the  evening,  just  as  night  was  coming  on, 
and  approached  the  chapel.  There  he  pondered  while  sitting  silently  before 
the  statues.  He  still  had  it  in  his  power  to  withdraw  :  but  ....  to-mor- 
row, in  a  few  hours,  the  whole  city  that  should  worship  God  alone,  will  be 
kneeling  down  before  these  blocks  of  wood  and  stone.  A  struggle  ensued 
in  the  wool-comber's  bosom,  like  that  which  we  trace  in  so  many  (Christians 
of  the  primitive  ages  of  the  Church.  What  matters  it  to  him  that  what  he 
sees  are  the  images  of  saints,  and  not  of  heathen  gods  and  goddesses?" 

Leclerc  was  certainly  a  Christian  of  a  very  primitive  stamp  !  His  ignor- 
ance was  equaled  only  by  his  presumption  and  self-conceit ;  he  w(>uld  have 


CONCLUSION.  393 

actions,  can  either  be  surprised  at,  or  can  even  greatly  regret 
their  failure.  All  the  glories  of  France  were  closely  bound 
up  with  the  interests  of  the  Catholic  religion. 

In  conclusion,  we  venture  the  opinion,  that  the  French  re- 
volution of  the  last  century  was  the  final  result  of  the  un- 
eettledness  of  faith  caused  by  the  protracted  wars  of  religion, 
and  of  "  that  atheism"  which,  according  to  Ranke,*  "was 
springing  up  amid  the  confusion  of  religious  strife,"  as  early 
as  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Voltaire  succeeded 
Calvin  ;  both  were  Frenchmen,  and  both  were  animated  with 
the  same  undying  hatred  of  the  Catholic  Church !  Says 
Macaulay : 

"The  only  event  of  modern  times  which  can  be  properly  compared  with 
the  Eeformation,  is  the  French  revolution ;  or,  to  speak  more  accurately, 
that  great  revolution  of  political  feeling  which  took  place  in  almost  every 
part  of  the  civilized  world  during  the  eighteenth  century,  and  which  ob- 
tained in  France  its  most  terrible  and  signal  triumph.  Each  of  these  mem- 
orable events  may  be  described  as  a  rising  up  of  human  reason  against  a 
caste.  The  one  was  a  struggle  of  the  laity  against  the  clergy  for  intellect- 
ual liberty  (!)  ;  the  other  was  a  struggle  of  the  people  against  the  privileged 
orders  for  political  liberty."  f 

torn  down  the  images  which  God  ordered  to  be  placed  in  the  temple  of 
Solomon  !     Here  is  the  latest  outbreak  of  his  zeal : 

"Leclerc  arose,  approached  the  images,  took  them  down  and  broke  them 
in  pieces,  indignantly  scattering  their  fragments  before  the  altar.  He  doubted 
not  that  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  had  excited  him  to  this  action,  and  Theodore 
Beza  thought  the  same.  After  this,  Leclerc  returned  to  Metz,  which  he  en- 
tered at  daybreak,  unnoticed  save  by  a  few  persons  as  he  was  entering  the 
gates." — History  of  the  Reformation,  pp.  458,  463.  Am.  Edit,  1  vol.  8vo 
New  York,  1851.  *  Civil  Wars,  etc.,  p.  473. 

f  Review  of  Nares'  Memoirs  of  Lord  Burghley,  Miscell.,  p.  173. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PROTESTANT  REFORMATION. 


CHAPTER     IX. 

THE    REFOKMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

Reformation  in  Sweden  the  work  of  the  crown — Gustaf  Wasa  its  author — 
Conversion  and  civilization  of  Sweden — Its  bishoprics — And  early  sanc- 
tity— Upsala  the  metropolis — Union  of  Calmar  —  Sweden  reluctant  to 
submit — The  Stures  administrators — Contests  and  a  compromise — The 
families  of  Sture  and  Trolle — The  feud  between  them — Archbishop  Trolle 
deposed  by  the  diet — Bishop  of  Linkoping — The  Pope  excommunicates 
all  who  were  concerned — The  tyrant  Christian  II. — The  "  Blood  Bath"  of 
Stockholm — Bishop  of  Linkoping  escapes — Gustaf  Wasa,  the  deliverer  of 
Sweden — His  treachery  in  breaking  his  parole — His  remarkable  adven- 
tures in  Northern  Sweden — His  eloquent  address  from  a  tomb-stone — 
Popular  enthusiasm — The  army  of  independence — The  Catholic  bishops — 
Wasa  intriguing  with  them  and  with  the  nobles — Employs  force  when 
persuasion  fails — His  army  of  foreign  mercenaries — He  appoints  new 
bishops,  and  re-organises  the  diet — He  is  elected  king — Decides  to  rob 
the  Church — Turns  reformer — The  two  brothers  Olaus  and  Lawrence — 
Beginning  the  work  of  sacrilege — Wasa  deposes  and  appoints  bishops — 
The  Anabaptists — The  archbishop  of  Upsala — The  peasants  and  the  Chap- 
ter of  Upsala — Manoeuvring  of  Wasa  to  bend  or  oust  the  archbishop — 
He  deposes  him  and  expels  him  from  Sweden — The  exile  and  death  of 
the  archbishop — Two  bishops  mocked  and  put  to  death — The  foreign  troops 
ftirnish  the  key  to  Wasa's  position — Diet  of  Westeras — The  Catholic  ReU- 
gion  abolished — And  Wasa  declared  supreme  in  church  and  state — Diet 
of  Orebro  completes  the  work  of  destruction — Lament  of  the  people — 
Exile  and  death  of  Bishop  Brask — An  extraordinary  pastoral  visitation — 
Watching  and  preying — Wholesale  confiscation — New  archbishop  conse- 
crated— Rebellions — Sacrilege  and  taxation — Contiscation  of  church  IjcUs — 
The  Dalmen — How  disaffection  was  put  down — The  priests  beheaded — 
How  the  popular  grievances  were  redressed — Confirmatory  testimony  of 
Geijer — Wasa  and  Henry  VIII.  compared — Avarice  of  Wasa — His  hard 
swearing  -^IIow  he  was  rebuked  by  the  two  brothers — And  how  he  pun- 
(394) 


CONVERSION   OF   SWEDEN.  396 

ished  them — The  curse  of  sacrilege — Family  of  "W  asa — His   death — Im- 
.morahty  of  Sweden — Testimony  of  Bayard  Taylor — Conclusion. 

The  history  of  the  Reformation  in  Sweden  does  not  present 
any  great  exception  to  the  general  laws  which  governed  the 
movement  elsewhere;  with  this  difference,  however,  that  in 
Sweden  it  was,  as  in  England,  wholly  and  exclusively  the 
work  of  the  crown.  Gustaf  Wasa,*  the  liberator  of  Sweden 
from  the  Danish  yoke,  and  the  founder  of  the  Swedish  moni 
archy  in  modern  times,  was  the  main  spring,  and  the  \  ery 
life  and  soul  of  the  Swedish  Reformation,  which  moved  at 
his  bidding,  and  was  moulded  entirely  to  his  will.  He  began 
the  work  by  cunning  intrigue  and  under  false  pretenses,  and 
he  ended  it  with  general  spoliation  of  the  Church,  and  open 
violence  to  the  consciences  of  his  people.  After  having  shaken 
off  the  Danish  yoke,  he  became,  chiefly  through  the  means  of 
the  Reformation,  supreme  both  in  church  and  state ;  and 
though  the  semblance  of  the  ancient  Catholic  diets  of  the 
kingdom  was  still  kept  up,  yet  the  different  orders  of  the 
state  had  but  little  real  power,  and  every  thing  was  forced  to 
bend  to  his  own  iron  will.  In  Sweden,  as  much  probably  as 
anywhere  else,  the  Reformation  resulted  from  the  working 
of  the  three  great  concupiscences,  mentioned  by  the  inspired 
apostle  as  controlling  the  world.  All  this  we  expect  to  estab- 
lish by  unexceptionable  Protestant  authority.f 

*  We  preserve  the  old  Swedish  spelling  as  given  by  the  historian  of 
Sweden — Fryxell,  infra  cit.  The  name  is  more  usually  written  Gustavus 
Vasa. 

f  We  shall  rely  chiefly  on  the  authority  of  the  "  History  of  Sweden, 
translated  from  the  original  of  Anders  Fryxell,  by  Mary  Howitt ; "  in  two 
vols.,  12mo,  London,  1844  ;  for  a  copy  of  which  we  are  indebted  to  the  very 
Eev.  E.  T.  Collins  V.  G.  of  Cincinnati.  The  author  is  a  Swede  and  a  Lu- 
theran, with  strong  religious  prejudices  in  favor  of  the  Reformation  ;  yet 
withal  he  is  candid  enough  not  wholly  to  conceal  or  grossly  to  misstate  the 
principal  facts.  We  mention  this  circumstance,  that  our  readers  may  be 
the  better  able  to  appreciate  his  testimony,  and  to  draw  the  line  of  distinc- 
tion between  his  opinions  and  his  facts,  in  the  passages  which  we  shall  have 
occasion  to  quote. 


396  REFORMATION    IN    SV/EDEN. 

The  early  history  of  Sweden  is  involved  in  no  little  ob 
scurity.  The  Swedish  peninsula  was  a  part  of  that  ancient 
Scandinavia,  which  in  the  fifth  and  following  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era,  poured  its  teeming  hordes  of  barbarians 
over  the  more  inviting  provinces  of  Southern  Europe.  Like 
all  the  other  Germanic  and  Northern  tribes,  its  people  were 
indebted  for  Christianity  and  for  all  consequent  civilization 
to  the  Catholic  Church  and  to  the  Roman  Pontiffs.  St. 
Anskarius,  a  monk  of  Corbie  in  Westphalia,  may  be  said  to 
have  been  the  first  apostle  of  Sweden,  though  he  was  not 
able  to  extend  his  labors  far  into  the  interior  of  the  country. 
In  the  eleventh  century,  David,  Stephen,  and  Adelward, 
Anglo-Saxon  monks,  under  a  regular  commission  from  the 
Sovereign  Pontifl",  carried  the  light  of  the  gospel  into  Sweden. 
Of  these  Adelward  was  appointed  the  first  bishop  of  Skara. 
They  were  followed,  in  the  twelfth  century,  by  St.  Henry, 
the  martyr-bishop  of  Upsala,  who  was  also  the  apostle  of  the 
neighboring  Finlanders  ;  and  by  Nicholas  Breakspear — after- 
wards Pope  Adrian  IV. — who  converted  the  Norwegians. 
Eric,  the  sainted  Swedish  king,  contributed  much,  by  his 
holy  example  and  royal  influence,  towards  diffusing  through- 
out his  kingdom  and  firmly  establishing  Christianity,  for 
which  he  fell  a  willing  martyr,  while  assisting  at  the  holy 
sacrifice  of  the  Mass  in  the  Cathedral  of  Upsala. 

This  ancient  city  had  been  the  principal  seat  of  pagan 
superstition  in  Scandinavia.  The  idols  of  Odin,*  Thor,  and 
Frey  were  there  enshrined  and  worshiped  by  their  devotees, 
who  flocked  thither  from  all  the  neighboring  countries  of  the 
North.  These  were  removed  by  the  Christian  missionaries, 
and  the  cross  was  reared  in  triumph  on  the  site  of  the  statue 
of  Oiin.  Thenceforth  Upsala  became  the  centre  of  the  Chris- 
tian Religion  in  Sweden ;  and  under  Stephen,  its  sixth  pre- 
late, it  was  raised  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiti*  to  the  dignity  of 

*  Or  Wodin.  As  is  well  known,  the  names  of  our  days,  Wednesday, 
Thursday,  and  Friday,  are  derived  from  these  three  Scandinavian  deitieg, 
Wodin,  Thor,  and  Frey. 


UNION   OF   CALMAR.  397 

an  archiepiscopal  see,  having  under  it  six  suffragan  bishop- 
rics :  Linkoping,  Stregnes,  Westeras,  Skara,  Yexio,  and  Abo 
in  Finland.* 

At  a  period  when  society  was  struggling  into  form,  and 
when  might  and  right  were  often  convertible  terms,  these 
seven  sees  became  the  conservative  centres  of  the  new  order 
and  civilization ;  and  the  bishops  by  the  general  consent  and 
through  the  liberality  of  pious  princes  became  influential 
and  powerful  members  of  the  body  politic.  In  the  course  of 
time  they  were  made  princes,  and  they  had  their  strong 
castles  and  retainers,  viewed  as  necessary  elements  of  that 
feudal  system,  which  originating  in  the  fastnesses  of  the 
North,  lingered  there  longer  than  anywhere  else  in  Europe. 

The  northern  states  continued  in  a  state  of  perpetual  agi- 
tation and  civil  feuds  until  near  the  close  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  when  the  genius  of  Margaret,  called  the  Semiramis 
of  the  North,  united  the  three  kingdoms  of  Denmark,  Swe- 
den, and  Norway  into  one  under  her  own  powerful  sceptre. 
This  Union  was  accomplished  by  the  treaty  of  Calmar,  in 
1397.  It  was  not,  however,  destined  to  be  of  long  continu- 
ance. The  successors  of  Margaret  had  little  of  her  talents  or 
skill  in  government,  and  the  powerful  confederacy  was  soon 

*  Originally  there  were  as  many  as  nine  bishoprics  in  Sweden  alone, 
besides  that  of  Finland ;  exhibiting  the  vigor  of  the  early  Swedish  faith. 
In  the  course  of  time,  however,  three  of  them  were  suppressed  as  unneces- 
sary. The  early  Swedish  church  numbers  twentj^-three  canonized  saints ; 
one  of  whom  was  a  king, — St.  Eric, — and  ten  were  bishops.  Among  the 
holy  women  who  adorned  Sweden  with  their  virtues  were  St.  Mechtildes, 
who  flourished  in  the  thirteenth,  and  St.  Brigit  or  Birgit,  who  flourished  in 
the  fourteenth  century.  St.  Brigit  caused  her  pious  and  learned  secretary 
Mathias  to  translate  the  Scriptures  into  Swedish  in  the  year  1352.  This 
translation  is  still  extant,  a  monument  of  Catholic  zeal  for  the  difi"usion  of 
the  Scriptures  in  the  middle  ages,  and  a  signal  rebuke  to  heretical  calumny 
in  modern  times.  See  for  these  and  other  interesting  facts,  the  work  of  the 
learned  Dr.  Theiner  published  some  years  ago,  in  Rome,  entitled  :"0n  the 
Efibrts  made  by  the  Holy  See  in  the  last  three  centuries,  to  brii\g  back  tb-« 
people  of  the  North  to  the  Unity  of  the  Catholic  Church."  See  also  a  Re 
vifw  of  this  work  in  the  Universite  Catholique,  vol.  x. 


398  REFORMATION    IN   SWEDEN. 

frittered  away  by  disunion  and  intestine  ivars.  Norway. 
because  weaker,  continued  longer  in  the  Union,  as  a  depend- 
ency of  Denmark,  than  did  Sweden,  which  had  always  re- 
garded the  Union  with  a  suspicious  eye.  From  its  very  date, 
there  had  been  two  antagonistic  parties  in  Sweden ;  the  one 
favoring  the  connection,  the  other  opposing  it,  and  standing 
up  for  Swedish  independence.  From  and  during  the  last 
quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Sweden  was  virtually  inde- 
pendent of  Denmark,  having  her  own  governors,  under  the 
modest  name  of  administrators.  Of  these,  the  most  distin- 
guished belonged  to  the  ancient  and  illustrious  Swedish 
family  of  Sture ;  of  whom  three,  Sten  Sture  the  Elder, 
Swante  Sture,  and  Sten  Sture  the  Younger,  successively  held 
the  reins  of  government,  almost  down  to  the  end  of  the  first 
quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when  our  history  of  the 
Reformation  opens. 

Unfortunately  for  the  cause  of  Catholicity  in  Sweden,  the 
Catholic  bishops  at  this  period  belonged  to  the  party  which 
favored  the  Union  of  Calmar.  Whether  it  was  from  1;he 
general  conservative  spirit  of  the  Catholic  Church,  based  on 
a  respect  for  the  obligation  voluntarily  assumed  by  Sweden 
in  the  solemn  treaty  stipulations  there  made,  or  from  the  fact 
that  many  of  the  bishops  were  of  Danish  families,  and  had 
been  invested  with  their  episcopal  dignity  by  the  Danish 
crown,  or  from  both  causes  combined,  the  Swedish  prelates 
were  generally  favorable  to  Denmark ;  and  their  influence  in 
the  diets,  combined  with  that  of  many  among  the  leading 
nobles  imbued  with  similar  feelings,  possessed  great  weight 
in  controlling  the  course  of  events.  This  was  particularly 
unfortunate,  at  a  time  when  Sweden  was  on  the  eve  of  east- 
ing ofi"  the  yoke  of  the  Danish  tyrant  Christian  II.,  and  as- 
serting her  own  independence. 

The  struggle  was  precipitated  by  the  death  of  the  admin- 
istrator Swante  Sture,  which  occurred  suddenly  in  1512. 
His  followers  concealed  his  death,  and  wrote  to  the  governors 
of  the  different  castles  in  his  name,  instructing  them  to  hold 


ARCHBISHOP   TROLLE    DLPOSED.  399 

Jieir  fortresses  in  the  name  of  his  son,*  Sten  Sture  the 
Younger.  The  bishops  and  the  older  nobles  opposed  the 
appointment  attempted  to  be  thus  irregularly  and  clandes- 
tinely made.  The  feeling  more  or  less  general  was,  that  the 
Stures  had  held  the  administratorship  long  enough,  and  that 
they  should  now  allow  it  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  the 
Trolles,  or  of  some  other  noble  family.  After  much  agitation, 
and  many  animated  discussions  in  successive  diets,  the  aflair 
was  finally  compromised  by  the  election  of  the  younger  Sture, 
on  condition  that  Gustaf  Trolle,  the  son  of  Erick  Trolle  his 
competitor,  should  be  chosen  archbishop  of  Upsala.  Trolle 
was  then  in  Rome,  and  the  Pontiff  ratified  the  compromise, 
accepting  at  the  same  time  the  willingly  proffered  resignation 
of  Jacob  Ulfson  the  aged  archbishop,  who  retired  to  the  quiet 
of  private  life.  The  new  archbishop  arrived  in  Sweden  in 
1515,  and  he  was  solemnly  installed  in  his  cathedral  by  the 
retiring  incumbent. 

As  we  have  already  intimated,  the  families  of  the  Stolles 
and  the  Stures  were  rivals,  and  were  at  the  head  of  the  two 
political  factions  which  had  long  agitated  Sweden,  The  feud 
was  not  calmed,  but  it  rather  became  embittered  by  the  com- 
promise. Both  parties  probably  went  too  far,  as  is  generally 
the  case  in  such  contests ;  but,  if  we  may  believe  our  Luther- 
an historian  of  Sweden,  Trolle  was  haughty  and  unyielding, 
while  Sture,  the  administrator,  sought  to  remove  the  agitation 
by  conciliation.  But  the  facts,  even  as  stated  by  himself, 
clearly  prove,  that  if  the  latter  began  by  the  way  of  concilia- 
tion, he  ended  by  that  of  open  violence.  He  declared  war 
against  the  refractory  archbishop,  and  had  him  apprehended 
and  arraigned  as  a  traitor  before  a  diet  at  Stockholm,  where 
he  was  deposed  and  degraded  from  his  ofiice.  The  arch- 
bishop protested  against  the  competency  of  the  court,  com- 
posed of  nobles  and  bishops,  which  sat  to  try  him ;  and  he 

*  The  usually  accurate  writer  of  the  article  in  the  Dublin  Review,  for 
September  1845,  reviewing  Fryxell's  History  of  Sweden,  calls  him  the 
nephew  of  Swante.     He  was  his  son,  as  Fryxell  states,  ii,  5. 


400  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

appealed  to  the  judgment  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.  But 
his  appeal  was  not  heeded.  "He  was  obliged  with  a  solemn 
oath  to  resign  his  archbishopric,  and  was  confined  in  Wester- 
as  Cloister,  whence  he  was  further  obliged  to  write  to.  the 
chapter  of  Ucsala  to  cor  firm  his  abdication,  and  beg  them  to 
choose  a  new  archbishop :  at  last  he  received  permission  to 
go  home  to  his  father's  estate  Ekholm,  and  remain  there."* 
His  castle  of  Stake  was  demolished,  and  he  subsequently 
escaped  with  difficulty  to  Denmark. 

That  the  entire  proceeding,  even  with  the  mitigating  cir- 
cumstances alleged  in  its  defense,  was  one  of  violence  and 
against  all  law  and  precedent,  is  suflSciently  apparent.  The 
bishops,  the  only  competent  judges  of  the  case  besides  the 
Pope,  did  not  sign  the  decree  of  the  states  of  their  own  free 
will,  but  rather  under  compulsion.  This  was  the  case  at  least 
with  the  most  distinguished  among  them  all,  Hans  Brask, 
bishop  of  Linkoping,  who,  "  when  he  was  to  place  the  great 
wax  seal  by  his  name,  unremarked,  slipped  a  little  paper  un- 
der it,  on  which  he  had  written  these  words:  'This  I  do  by 
compulsion.'  "f  That  political  considerations  were  at  the 
bottom  of  the  whole  movement,  is  even  more  certain.  The 
Pontiff  afterwards  excommunicated  all  who  had  taken  part 
in  the  violent  deposition  of  the  archbishop ;  but  that  he 
sought,  at  the  same  time,  to  promote  peace  in  the  kingdom, 
and  to  prevent  the  bishops  from  interfering  in  the  political 
administration,  is  apparent  from  his  previous  answer  to 
Sture,  who  had  complained  of  the  refractory  conduct  of  the 
archbishop.  "  The  Pope  replied,  by  warning  Trolle  and  the 
whole  Swedish  clergy,  '  not  to  set  themselves  up  contrary  to 
temporal  government,  but  with  humility  attend  to  their  own 
duties.'  However,  Gustaf  Trolle  heeded  neither  Pope  nor 
administrator."! — If  tliis  be  true,  the  archbishop  was  certainly 
80  far  in  the  wrong ;  but  clearly  neither  the  Pope  nor  the 
Church  was  fairly  responsible  for  what  ensued. 

*  FryxelL  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  15.  f  Ibid.  f  Ibid.,  p.  il. 


"the  blood  bath."  401 

The  plot  now  thickened.  Availing  himself  of  the  dissen- 
sions in  Sweden,  the  Danish  king  Christian,  or  Christiern  II. 
came  over  on  the  ice  with  a  powerful  army,  in  the  winter  of 
1520-1,  and  by  overwhelming  force  bore  down  all  opposition. 
Sten  Sture,  the  administrator,  perished  in  the  conflict ;  and 
after  eight  months'  siege,  Stockholm  opened  its  gates  to  the 
conqueror,  who  was  now  prepared  eflfectually  to  enforce  the 
Union  of  Calmar.  But  Christian  was  a  bloody  tyrant,  and 
instead  of  endeavoring  to  heal  dissension  by  conciliation,  he 
established  a  reign  of  terror  such  as  Sweden  had  never  before 
witnessed.  In  November,  1521,  he  was  solemnly  crowned, 
and  his  Swedish  reign  was  inaugurated  by  a  bloody  tragedy, 
in  which  the  principal  nobles  and  several  of  the  bishops, 
who  had  been  invited  to  the  coronation  banquet,  were 
treacherously  butchered.  This  butchery  is  called  by  the 
Swedish  historians  "the  Blood  Bath."  Hans  Brask,  the 
bishop  of  Linkoping,  saved  his  life,  only  by  exhibiting  the 
paper  concealed  under  his  seal  to  the  paper  deposing  the 
archbishop  of  Upsala. 

This  treacherous  and  inhuman  massacre,  while  it  rendered 
the  Swedish  church  desolate,  carried  sorrow  into  the  families 
of  the  principal  Swedish  nobles,  many  of  which  had  to  la- 
ment the  bloody  death  of  their  heads.  As  the  people  re- 
turned to  their  homes  from  the  sanguinary  banquet  and 
carried  the  sad  tidings  to  their  distant  homes,  a  general  gloom 
with  a  universal  panic  overspread  the  land.  The  Danish 
ascendency  was  thus  secured  amidst  ominous  silence  and  wide- 
spread desolation ;  but  the  quiet  preceded  a  storm,  which 
was  soon  to  sweep  away  the  Danish  power  from  Sweden  for- 
ever. A  deliverer  was  at  hand,  and  he  was  Gustaf  Wasa, 
belonging  to  one  of  the  oldest  families  of  Sweden. 

Our  present  scope  does  not  require  or  allow  us  to  enter  into 
the  interesting  details  of  the  Swedish  war  of  independence  ; 
which,  so  far  as  it  was  a  war  of  freedom  against  tyranny,  has 
our  most  hearty  sympathy.  Our  business  with  Gustaf  Wasa 
is  not  so  much  with  his  political  relations  to  his  country  as 

VOL,    II, 34: 


402  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

its  deliverer  from  the  Danish  yoke,  as  with  his  subsequent 
assumption  of  the  right  to  change  its  religion,  to  sever  it  from 
its  time-hallowed  communion  with  the  holy  Catholic  Church, 
and  to  make  himself  its  supreme  head  in  spirituals  as  well  as 
in  temporals.  Had  he  not  overstepped  the  limits  of  his  own 
proper  sphere  of  action,  and  laid  sacrilegious  hands  on  the 
sanctuary  of  God,  his  character  might  perhaps  pass  the  ordeal 
of  historical  scrutiny,  not  indeed  as  unstained  with  crime, 
but  at  least  as  not  much  worse  than  that  of  his  contempora- 
ries. But  when  he  set  himself  up  as  a  religious  reformer, 
and  availed  himself  of  the  power  which  his  position  gave  him 
to  despoil  and  enslave  the  Church,  and  to  make  it  the  mere 
creature  of  his  own  royal  will,  we  have  a  right  to  inquire 
into  his  antecedents,  into  the  motives  which  prompted  his 
action,  and  into  the  manner  in  which  he  accomplished  his 
work. 

Taken  off — by  treachery  as  we  are  told  by  Fryxell — to 
Denmark  among  other  hostages  in  1518,  he  was  imprisoned 
by  Christian  IL,  who  however  shortly  afterwards  released 
him  at  the  instance  of  his  relative,  Sir  Erick  Baner,  who 
stood  surety  to  the  king  for  his  safe  keeping,  in  the  sum  of 
six-thousand  rix-thalers.*  By  his  kind  friend  and  surety, 
Gustaf  was  taken  over  to  Kallo, 

"  Where  he  was  well  received,  and  enjoyed  much  freedom.  '  I  wiU  not 
cause  you  to  be  strictly  guarded,'  said  Sir  Erick,  '  neither  will  I  put  you 
in  confinement.  You  shall  eat  at  my  table,  and  go  where  you  please  ; 
only  faithfully  promise  me  not  to  make  your  escape,  nor  journey  anywhere 
unknown  to  me.'  To  this  Gustaf  bound  himself  both  by  writing  and  word 
of  mouth,  and  thus  gained  liberty  to  go  where  he  pleased  within  six  miles 
of  Kallo.  In  the  beginning  he  was  always  accompanied  by  a  guardian  ;  but 
gradually  gaining  more  and  more  of  his  relation's  confidence,  he  was  at  last 
left  entirely  to  himself."* 

IIow  did  Wasa  repay  this  confidence  ?  We  grieve  to  state, 
that  he  began  his  public  career  by  an  act  of  treachery  to  his 


*  About  $3,000,  equal  to  about  $36,000  of  our  present  money, 
f  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  vol.  ii,  p.  62. 


WAS  A HIS    ADVENTURES   AND    ELOQUENCE.  403 

friend  and  relative,  wholly  inexcusable  under  any  (nrcum- 
stances.  He  broke  his  solemnly  plighted  parole,  and  in  the 
summer  of  1519,  he  secretly  fled  through  Holstein  to  the  free 
city  of  Lubeck.  His  surety  followed  him,  and  earnestly 
pleaded  with  him  to  return,  and  not  leave  him  to  bear  the 
brunt  of  the  king's  resentment,  besides  being  moreover  com- 
pelled to  pay  the  heavy  penalty  to  which  he  was  bound  as 
his  surety.  Gustaf  would  listen  to  neither  entreaties  nor 
threats,  and  he  put  off  his  confiding  relative  with  the  vague 
promise  of  repaying  the  money  when  able,  on  his  return  to 
Sweden. 

In  Lubeck,  Gustaf  Wasa  "first  became  acquainted  with 
the  new  doctrines  which  Luther  at  that  time  began  preaching 
in  Germany,  all  of  which  proved  gi  eatly  to  tlie  advantage  of 
his  country  when  he  became  sovereign,"* — As  we  shall  soon 
see,  the  "new  doctrines"  proved  much  more  advantageous  to 
himself  than  "to  his  country." 

After  remaining  for  eight  months  at  Lubeck,  "Wasa  returned 
secretly  to  Sweden  in  15:^0,  at  the  very  time  that  Christian's 
army  was  marching  to  its  conquest.  Narrowly  escaping  with 
his  life  from  the  South  of  Sweden,  he  fled  to  the  fastnesses 
of  the  North,  where  he  passed  through  a  series  of  adventures, 
and  made  a  number  of  thrilling  hair-breadth  escapes,  which 
strongly  remind  us  of  the  adventures  of  Charles  Stuart  in 
the  Scottish  highlands, so  graphically  painted  by  Chambers.f 
Distrust  and  treachery  seem  to  have  met  him  at  almost  every 
step.  The  Danish  officials  everywhere  dogged  his  footsteps  ; 
and  flying  from  place  to  place,  and  knowing  not  whom  to 
trust  amid  the  general  panic,  he  was  often  tempted  to  give 
up  the  cause  of  independence  as  hopeless. 

At  length  he  found  himself  on  Christmas  day  at  Mora,  a 
populous  village  on  the  northern  borders  of  lake  Siljau,  and 
he  accompanied  the  people  to  the  solemn  High  Mass.    At  the 

*  Fryxell,  ibid.,  p.  63. 

f  In  his  "Rebellion  in  Scotland  "—one  of  the  most  thrillingly  intero»* 
ing  books  it.  the  English  language. 


104  REFORMATION    IN   SWEDEN. 

close  of  the  service,  lie  mounted  upon  a  tomb-stone  in  the 
adjoining  cemetery,  and  delivered  an  impassioned  patriotic 
harangue  to  the  assembled  multitude.  Young,  athletic,  and 
eloquent,  his  words  made  a  deep  impression  on  the  popular 
mind.  Aroused  to  enthusiasm,  the  people  ran  to  the  steeple 
and  rang  the  church  bells,  the  usual  tocsin  for  great  emerg- 
encies of  alarm  and  danger.  The  numbers  of  the  brave  and 
'  patriotic  peasantry  rapidly  increased  ;  and  there,  on  a  Christ- 
mas day,  after  a  soul-stirring  appeal  from  a  Catholic  tomb- 
stone, with  the  ringing  of  the  venerable  Catholic  church 
bells,  Swedish  patriotism  was  re-awakened,  and  the  nucleus 
was  formed  of  that  rude  but  energetic  and  conquering  army, 
which  rolled  on  in  its  swelling  numbers  and  growing  enthusi- 
asm from  North  to  South,  until  it  bore  down  all  opposition, 
crushed  the  armies  of  the  Dane,  and  delivered  Sweden  for- 
ever from  a  foreign  yoke ! 

As  yet,  none  of  the  bishops  had  declared  for  Wasa.  One 
reason  for  this  was,  that  most  of  them  had  been  butch- 
ered with  the  nobles  at  the  terrible  Blood  Bath  of  Stock- 
holm ;  and  another  was,  that  the  deposed  archbishop  Trolle 
had  already  returned,  and  together  with  another  noble  had 
been  intrusted  by  the  Danish  crown  with  the  administration 
of  the  kingdom.  Gustaf  Wasa  determined  to  gain  over  to 
his  cause  the  most  learned  and  influential  member  of  the 
episcopal  body,  Hans  Brask  of  Linkoping,  of  whom  we  have 
already  spoken.  He  succeeded  in  this  purpose ;  and  at  the 
diet  of  Wadstena,  after  coquetting  with  the  assembled  repre- 
sentatives and  pleading  that  he  was  unworthy  of  so  high  an 
office,  he  was  iinii\]j  prevailed  on  to  accept  the  post  of  chief 
executive,  under  the  modest  title  of  administrator.  He  was 
as  adroit  a  politician  in  the  cabinet,  as  he  was  an  able  general 
in  the  iield  Aiming  steadily  at  the  supreme  power,  he 
moved  on  towards  his  object  steadily  but  cautiously,  always 
alleging  his  own  unworthiness,  and  frequently  threatening, 
when  thwarted,  to  abandon  the  government  altogetlier  and 
leave  the  ungrateful  Swedes  to  their  fate. 


WASA    ELECTED    KING   AND    TURNS    REFOEMEK.  405 

Yet  when  such  coquettish  cajolery  failed  of  its  t'jB'ect,  he 
had  no  scruple  whatever  to  resort  to  force,  and  to  carry  out 
his  measures  by  open  violence.  He  had  brought  into  the 
country  a  strong  body  of  foreign  mercenaries,  chiefly  German 
Lutherans;  and  he  di  I  not  hesitate  to  avail  himself  of  this 
powerful  engine  of  oppression,  whenever  persuasion  failed 
with  the  refractory  nobles  and  people,  who  had  inherited  a 
strong  prejudice  in  favor  of  liberty  from  their  Catholic  ances- 
tors. All  this  we  shall  soon  see,  especially  \vhen  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  show  how  the  Reformation  was  introduced 
into  Sweden.  Meantime  the  seige  of  Stockholm,  which  was 
still  held  by  the  Danish  garrison,  went  slowly  on.  Gustaf 
might  probably  have  taken  the  city  at  once  ;  but  it  did  not 
suit  his  purpose  to  be  in  a  hurry.  He  wished  to  accustom 
the  people  to  his  sway,  and  to  prove  to  them  how  necessary 
he  was  to  their  safety.  He  desired  also  to  have  time  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  more  effectually  carrying  out  his  subsequent 
designs.  To  be  able  to  succeed  in  this  ulterior  purpose,  it 
was  necessary  to  reorganize  the  elements  of  the  old  Swedish 
diets,  which  without  a  thorough  remodeling  would  probably 
have  presented  a  sturdy  resistance  to  his  darling  scheme  of 
becoming  an  absolute  king.  Circumstances  favored  him. 
The  members  of  the  diets  had  been  greatly  diminished  :  the 
Blood  Bath  of  Stockholm  had  already  done  its  work  with  the 
bishops  and  nobles.    As  our  Lutheran  historian  himself  tells  us : 

"  Scarcely  was  there  a  bishop  or  a  senator  in  the  country  till  very  lately, 
that  is,  till  the  autumn  of  1522,  when  new  bishops  had  been  appointed  bv 
Gustaf,  viz.  ]\Iaster  Knut  in  Upsala  to  replace  Gustaf  Trolle ;  Magnus 
Sommar  in  Strangnas,  after  Beldenack ;  Harold  Stromfelt  in  Skara,  in  the 
room  of  Didrik  Slaghok  ;  and  Peter  Sunnanwader  in  Westeras  to  replace 
Otto  Swinhufwud  lately  dead  ;  who  all  Vjecame  famous  in  the  history  of 
Gustaf's  reign.  The  senate  was  also  furnished  with  new  members  in  the 
diet  held  at  Strangnas."* 

In  this  diet  of  Strangnas,  thus  fully  reorganized  and  tilled 
with  his  own  particular  friends,  Gustaf  Wasa  was  chosen  king 

*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  vol.  ii,  p.  111. 
57 


406  REFORMATION   IN   SWEDEN. 

of  Sweden  in  June,  1523.  His  newly  created  bisli ops  were 
among  the  loudest  in  demanding  his  election,  which  vas 
warmly  seconded  by  the  people  whose  idol  he  had  now  be- 
come. Gustaf  as  usual,  played  off  the  arts  of  a  consummate 
diplomat.  — "  He  was  already  weary  of  the  labors  he  had 
undergone,  and  they  could  choose  from  the  old  knights  who 
were  present." — None  of  these  daring  to  think  of  accepting 
the  dignity,  for  fear  of  his  head,  Gustaf  was  at  length  pre- 
vailed upon  reluctantly  to  accept  the  royal  crown,  after  the 
argent  entreaty  of  the  Papal  legate,  John  Magnus,  whom  he 
afterwards  had  appointed  archbishop  of  Upsala.* 

Having  now  secured  his  object,  there  was  no  longer  any 
valid  reason  for  delaying  the  taking  of  Stockholm;  the  gates 
of  which  were  accordingly  freely  opened  to  him  on  the  21st 
of  June  of  the  same  year,  a  few  days  after  his  election.  He 
made  his  entry  in  great  state,  and  immediately  repaired  to 
the  "High  Church,"  where  he  prostrated  himself  in  thanks- 
giving before  altars  which  he  was  so  soon,  and  which  he  even 
then  probably  intended,  to  subvert!  But  the  wary  monarch 
had  not  yet  sufficiently  moulded  the  popular  mind,  and  es- 
pecially the  character  of  the  episcopal  body,  to  his  mind  ; 
and  he  accordingly  delayed  his  coronation,  until  entire  sub- 
serviency could  be  obtained,  and  he  would  be  required  to 
take  no  inconvenient  oaths.f 

Being  now  firmly  seated  on  the  throne,  Wasa,  who  had 
long  cast  a  covetous  eye  on  the  possessions  of  the  Church, 
soon  began  seriously  to  devise  ways  and  means  for  accom 
plishing  his  settled  purpose,  which  was  to  enrich  himself  by 
seizing  on  the  rich  property  that  had  been  accumulated  by 
the  generous  piety  of  ages  towards  the  sup])ort  of  the  clergy 
and  the  poor,  and  the  splendor  of  divine  worship.  He  could 
not  hope  tosucceed  in  carrying  out  this  sacrilegious  design, 
without  first  shaking  the  deeply  seated  reverence  of  his  people 
for  the  ancient  Religion  and  iov  the  persons  of  their  chief 


*  See   the  whole  scene,   which  is  an  exceedingly  rich   one,  in   Fryxell, 
History  of  Sweden  vol.  ii,  p.  Ill,  seqq.  ]  Ibid 


THE   TWO    BROTHERS.  407 

pastors ;  and  he  accordingly  determined  first  gradually  to 
undermine  the  foundations  of  the  stately  fabric  which  it  waa 
his  darling  object  entirely  to  subvert.  If  he  could  once  ni- 
fect  the  popular  mind  with  the  new  opinions,  and  degrade 
the  episcopal  character  in  the  eyes  of  the  people,  he  need 
entertain  no  reasonable  doubt  of  ultimate  success.  He 
determined  to  labor  for  this  double  object,  as  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  the  thorough  work  of  spoliation  which  he  had 
in  view. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  he  had  been  himself  infected  at 
Lubeck  with  the  taint  of  the  new  gospel ;  but  as  yet,  while 
all  Sweden  was  Catholic,  he  had  not  dared  avow  his  partial- 
ity for  Lutheranism,  and  he  still  passed  himself  off  as  a  zeal- 
ous Catholic.  To  begin  the  work  of  undermining,  he  now 
cordially  received  at  court  and  loaded  with  honors  the  two 
brothers  Olaus  and  Lawrence,  sons  of  Peter,  a  rich  smith  in 
Orebro ;  who  having  begun  their  education  in  the  Carmelite 
convent  of  their  native  town,  had  been  sent  by  their  wealthy 
parents  to  Germany  to  complete  their  education.  They  had 
become  the  zealous  disciples  of  Luther  in  Wittenberg,  and 
they  now  returned  to  Sweden  brim  full  of  the  new  gospel. 
They  arrived  in  1521,  just  in  time  to  attend  the  funeral  of 
their  father ;  but  they  had  become  suddenly  much  wiser  than 
their  mother,  and  they  openly  thwarted  her  purpose  of  hav- 
ing their  deceased  parent  buried,  according  to  his  dying  re- 
quest, by  the  Carmelites,  or  of  allowing  these  pious  monks, 
with  whom  they  had  received  their  own  early  education,  to 
celebrate  Masses  for  the  repose  of  his  soul,  as  he  had  also 
provided  in  his  will.  The  tears  of  the  weeping  mother  were 
unheeded,  and  the  Carmelites  were  rudely  driven  off  from 
the  funeral  cortege.  These  wise  sons  tauntingly  asked  their 
sorrow-stricken  mother :  "  If  she  understood  the  Mass  in 
Latin,  or  what  she  thought  of  it.  She  answered  :  '  I  do  not 
understand  it ;  but  while  I  listen  to  it,  I  pray  God  that  he 
will  accept  their  prayers  which  I  doubt  not  He  will.'"*     A 

*  Fryxell.  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  118. 


408  REFORMATION    IN   SWEDEN. 

simple,  but  eloquent  answer,  -wliicli  would  have  moved  any 
one  but  two  such  rude  and  heartless  boys,  wLo  were  evi- 
dently totally  unworthy  of  such  a  mother. 

The  brothers  were  very  unlike  one  another.  Both  dis- 
ciples of  Luther,  one  resembled  his  master  in  volubility  and 
coarseness,  while  the  other  was  more  like  the  gentler  Melanc- 
thon : 

"Olaus  the  elder  was  bold,  lively  to  an  excess,  perhaps  bordering  on  vio- 
lence ;  active,  determined,  learned,  capable  of  defending  his  principles  by  his 
pen,  still  moie  so  by  his  speech.  Lawrence  the  younger  was  milder,  though 
not  less  zealous,  a  less  eloquent  speaker  but  a  greater  author,  and  more 
learned  than  his  brother ;  neither  was  to  be  moved  from  what  he  considered 
right.  They  were  promoted  by  Luther  in  1518  to  the  grade  of  magister 
(master),  Olaus  being  twenty-one,  and  Lawrence  nineteen  years  old.  The 
elder  had  accompanied  Luther  on  a  tour  of  inspection  through  the  churches 
and  schools  of  north  Germany,  by  which  he  profited  much.  Such  were  the 
men  with  whose  assistance  Gustaf  Wasa  introduced  the  Lutheran  reform 
into  Sweden."* 

The  insincerity  of  Wasa,  and  the  cunning  and  unprincipled 
manner  in  which  he  conducted  the  work  of  gradually  under- 
mining the  faith  of  Sweden,  are  unfolded  in  the  following 
passage  of  the  candid  Lutheran  historian  : 

"  The  dauntless  Olaus  Petri  had  presented  himself  at  the  diet  held  at 
Strangnas  in  1523,  and  sought  to  expose  the  errors  of  popery  before  the 
states.  It  caused  much  excitement,  and  reached  the  king's  ears,  who  called 
for  Olaus  and  his  patron,  the  venerable  and  learned  Laurentius  Andrese. 
They  must  now  explain  their  sentiments  before  him,  and  it  was  impossible 
for  him  not  to  approve  what  agreed  so  well  with  his  own  convictions  and 
advaritage ;  but  he  did  not  express  himself  openly  yet  for  some  time, 
fearing  by  gaining  the  name  of  a  heretic  to  draw  on  himself  the  detestation 
of  priests  and  people  ;  he  therefore  appeared  to  take  no  part  in  these  relig- 
ious quarrels,  but  j)rotected  the  new  doctrines  secretly,  and,  for  their  furtliei 
dissemination,  placed  Lawrence  as  doctor  of  theology  at  Upsala,  Olaus  as 
preacher  in  the  High  Church  of  Stockholm,  and  Laurentius  Andreas  he 
nominated  his  own  private  secretary.  Thus  these  three,  each  in  his  own 
province,  were  enabled  to  labor  in  the  cause  of  truth  (error  ?)"f 

Each  of  these  men  discharged  the  office  assigned  him  with 


*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  117-8.  f  Ibid.,  119. 


WASA    DEPOSES    BISHOPS.  409 

a  zeal  worthy  a  better  cause.  In  the  High  Church  of  Stock- 
holm a  pulpit  was  built  for  Olaus  "  shaped  like  a  basket,  from 
which  he  with  bold  words  and  youthful  zeal,  set  forth  the 
errors  and  deceits  (!)  of  popery ;"  while  his  milder  and  more 
learned  brother  duly  indoctrinated  with  the  new  herepy  the 
numerous  candidates  for  the  sacred  ministry  who  frequented 
the  ancient  university  of  Upsala.  No  wonder  the  Catholic 
bishops,  and  others  who  had  the  interests  of  the  ancient  faith 
at  heart,  took  the  alarm.  Bishop  Brask  earnestly  besought 
the  king  not  to  countenance  the  new  teachers,  lest  he  should 
lose  the  good  name  of  a  Christian  prince ;  but  the  king  in  his 
answer  assumed  the  lofty  tone  of  an  impartial  protector  of  all 
his  subjects  alike,  without  regard  to  their  religious  opinions. 
How  little  he  was  sincere  in  this,  the  sequel  clearly  proved  ; 
but  even  at  the  time  he  deceived  no  one.     Says  Fryxell : 

"  In  spite  of  this  assumed  impartiality,  Brask  was  not  slow  to  perceive  the 
king's  leaning  towards  the  Lutherans  ;  but  he  neither  could,  nor  dared  un- 
dertake any  thing  farther."* 

Having  thus  set  his  instruments  to  work,  Wasa  next  took 
one  step  forward  in  his  great  scheme  of  robbing  the  Church. 
At  the  diet  of  Stragnas,  in  1523,  he  called  upon  the  estates 
to  pay  his  large  body  of  foreign  mercenaries,  who  were  now 
lying  idle,  and  were  clamoring  for  the  remainder  of  their 
wages.  Wasa  proposed  that  the  clergy  should  make  up  the 
deficit  out  of  their  revenues,  but  the  clergy  naturally  objected 
to  a  tax  which  was  unusual,  and  which,  they  foresaw,  was 
but  the  beginning  of  a  system  of  wholesale  spoliation.  Here- 
upon the  king  wrote  a  letter  to  Brask,  "full  of  severity  and 
threats ;"  and  the  prudent  prelate  at  length  yielded,  probably 
to  avert  greater  evils.f 

His  next  step  in  advance  was,  to  depose  an  obnoxious 
bishop,  and  to  have  a  new  archbishop  appointed  for  Upsala. 
He  did  both  with  a  high  hand.  Among  the  new  bishops 
whom  he  had  caused  to  be  named,  one  M^as  accused  of  sowing 
dissaflection  ;  this  was  Peter  Sunnanwader  of  Westeras.    The 


*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  i    121.  f  Ibid..  122. 

VOL.  II. — 35 


410  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

king,  accompanied  by  some  senators  immed  ately  ludu  to 
Westeras,  summoned  before  him  the  trembling  chapter  of  the 
cathedral,  ordered  them  to  depose  Peter  at  once,  and  to  nom- 
inate in  his  stead  Petrus  Magni.  The  canons  hesitated,  but 
the  king  peremptorily  commanded  them  to  decide,  and  they 
tremblingly  obeyed.  He  then  rode  straight  back  to  Stock- 
holm, and  ordered  before  him  the  canons  of  Upsala,  whom 
he  directed  to  nominate  a  new  archbishop  in  place  of  Knut 
whom  he  had  already  deposed.  "He  was  obeyed,  and  the 
choice  fell  on  John  Magnus,  the  papal  legate,  whom  the  king 
had  proposed  to  them."* 

The  Church  in  Sweden  had  found  a  master,  who  lorded 
it  over  her  bishops  with  a  military  despotism,  before  entirely 
unheard  of  in  the  spiritual  domain.  All  were  stricken  with 
consternation  at  these  high-handed  measures ;  but  the  end 
was  not  yet. 

In  1524,  Wasa  left  Sweden,  to  hold  a  conference  with  the 
Danish  King  Frederick  at  Malmo,  on  subjects  connected  with 
the  mutual  relations  of  the  two  kingdoms.  During  his  ab- 
sence important  events  occurred.  Urged  on  by  the  zealous 
Bishop  Brask,  the  new  archbishop  of  Upsala  summoned  be- 
fore his  chapter  the  two  brothers  Olaus  and  Lawrence,  and  as 
they  proved  obstinate  in  their  adherence  to  the  new  gospel, 
he  excommunicated  them.  Brask  cordially  co-operated  with 
the  metropolitan,  and  not  only  denounced  the  new  doctrines 
in  his  diocese,  but  established  a  press  whence  he  caused  to  be 
issued  a  number  of  publications  against  the  errors  of  Luther, 
which  he  disseminated  through  the  country.f 

Meantime,  the  violent  appeals  of  Olaus  were  producing 
their  legitimate  fruits  at  Stockholm.  The  cry  of  gospel-lib- 
erty raised  by  him  was  taken  up  by  some  Anabaptists  who 
had  lately  arrived  from  Germany ;  and  a  popular  commotion 
ensued,  which  threatened  to  destroy  all  social  order  and  to  in- 
troduce universal  anarchv :  in  a  word  to  make  of  Stockholm 


*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  122-3.  \  Ibid.,  p.  138. 


THE   ANABAPTISTS.  411 

what  the  Auabaptists  were  then  making  of  Ley  den  and  other 
cities. 

"  They  pretended  to  be  impelled  by  the  Spirit ;  they  shouted  xnd  screamed, 
and  finally  succeeded  in  exciting  the  lower  orders  to  uproar.  A  disgraceful 
tumult  followed  :  shoe-makers,  tanners,  and  others,  often  the  most  ignorant 
and  vicious  of  their  class,  also  imagined,  or  wanted  to  make  others  imagine, 
that  they  too  were  impelbd  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  These  new  apostles  pre- 
sented themselves  in  the  churches ;  but  no  one  could  recognize  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity  in  the  anger  and  violence  with  which  they  preached.  The 
people,  stirred  by  their  discourses,  wildly  stormed  both  churches  and  con- 
vents, tore  down  their  images  and  ornaments,  and  dragged  them  about  in 
the  mud  of  the  streets.  Olaus  and  his  colleagues  hastened  out  and  sought 
to  quiet  the  uproar  ;  but  the  excited  and  raging  multitude  heeded  not  their 
words.  The  more  sensible  part  of  the  community  looked  on  these  excesses 
with  horror ;  and  began  to  fear  for  the  liberty  of  conscience  in  matters  of 

religion  which  had  lately  been  introduced   in  the  countiy But  the 

peasants  who  happened  to  be  in  town  were  most  wrathful ;  they  hurried 
with  horror  out  of  Stockholm  as  a  Gomorrah  of  iniquity,  describing  to  the 
other  peasants  with  bitterness  and  detestation  what  the}^  had  witnessed,  and 
in  their  ignorance  laying  the  whole  blame  on  the  doctrines  of  Luther.  Up- 
land seemed  on  the  point  of  insurrection ;  the  peasants  threatened  that  they 
would  march  to  Sto.kholm,  and  clear  the  town  and  country  of  Lutherans 
and  heretics."t 

The  peasants  were  not  far  wrong  in  laying  the  blame  on 
the  doctrines  of  Luther;  there  was,  on  the  contrary,  an  irre- 
sistible logic  in  the  "ignorance"  with  which  they  reasoned. 
For  if  every  man  had  a  clear  right  to  judge  for  himself  in 
religious  matters,  why  had  not  the  shoe-makers  and  tanners 
as  valid  a  right  as  any  others  ?  In  what  was  their  right  to 
preach  inferior  to  that  of  Olaus  and  the  other  self-constituted 
apostles  of  the  new  gospel? 

On  his  return,  the  king  was  filled  with  consternation  at  the 
popular  tumults,  which  threatened  the  stability  of  his  newly 
established  throne.  He  arrested  and  threw  into  prison  the 
Anabaptist  leaders,  whom  he  afterwards  sent  out  of  the 
country,  with  the  significant  threat,  "  that  it  should  cost  them 
their  lives  if  they  ventured  ever  again  to  set  foot  on  Swedish 

*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  139. 


412  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

ground."  Olaus  and  bis  Lutheran  colleagues  were  also  se- 
verely rebuked  by  him  for  their  too  great  indulgence  towards 
men,  who  after  all  did  but  follow  out  the  principle  of  private 
judgment  which  those  new  apostles  had  so  boastingly  pro- 
mulgated. To  still  the  popular  tempest,  Wasa  came  down 
from  his  throne  and  associated  with  the  people,  having  a  gra- 
cious smile  and  a  bow  for  the  lowest:  he  stopped  them  in 
the  streets,  asked  concerning  their  complaints,  played  the  part 
of  Absalom  when  the  latter  was  meditating  treachery  against 
the  throne  of  his  father.* — Wasa  certainly  knew  well  how  to 
act  his  part,  both  in  comedy  and  in  tragedy ;  but  especially 
in  the  latter. 

The  end  was  now  fast  approaching.  At  Christmas,  1524, 
Wasa  visited  Upsala  to  sound  the  dispositions  of  the  new 
archbishop,  whom  he  had  lately  caused  to  be  appointed  in  so 
summary  a  manner.  He  soon  found,  however,  to  his  sorrow 
that  John  Magnus,  though  a  timid  and  courtly  man,  was  not 
likely  to  become  his  ready  and  compliant  instrument.  He 
would  do  every  thing  to  oblige  the  king,  except  to  sacrifice 
his  conscience,  by  abandonmg  the  faith  "once  delivered  to  the 
8aints."t  Upon  discovering  this  unpleasant  truth,  the  king 
put  in  requisition  all  his  arts  to  seduce  the  archbishop,  or  to 

*  The  Lutheran  historian  calls  this  acting  of  Wasa,  making  his  Ericks- 
gata.     Fryxell,  Ibid.,  ii,  p.  140. 

f  Of  the  archbi.shop's  character  Fryxell  says : 

"The  lately  elected  archbishop  John  Magnus  was  a  learned  man  of  a 
mild  and  gentle  disposition.  He  loved  his  country  much,  and  its  deliverer 
not  less,  for  whose  high  qualities  he  entertained  the  greatest  veneration, 
though  mixed  with  fear  and  some  ill  will  when  he  discovered  that  the  king 
was  laboring  to  overthrow  the  old  Religion.  Brask  incessantly  incited  him, 
as  the  chief  prelate  of  Sweden,  to  set  a  bound  to  the  royal  encroachments, 
but  the  archbishop  could  never  bring  himself  openl}'  to  venture  on  so  haz- 
irdous  an  attempt,  and  was  obliged  for  his  cowardice  to  endure  many  a 
«hari  reproof  from  the  bolder  bishop.  It  was  not  that  John  Magnus  ap- 
proved of  the  king's  proceedings  ;  he  was  devoted  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
Religion  in  heart  and  soul,  and  tried  to  counteract  them  as  much  as  his  ti- 
midity permitted." — Ibid.,  p  144. 


THE    ARCHBISHOP    OF   UPSALA.  413 

degrade  him  m  popular  estimation ;  or,  if  all  else  failed,  to 
drive  him  from  his  see.  His  first  manoeuvre  was  to  have  a 
public  disputation  on  religion  held  in  his  presence  at  Upsala ; 
his  constant  companion  and  theologian,  the  violent  Olaua 
taking  the  Luthern  side,  and  Peter  Galle,  a  learned  theologian, 
the  Catholic.  The  discussion  being  held  under  the  eye  of  the 
terrible  king  was  scarcely  free,  and  it  terminated,  as  such 
wordy  contests  generally  do,  in  nothing.  The  disputants 
"grew  louder  and  more  violent;  and  the  king  then  ordered 
them  to  finish,  and  caused  the  chief  points  which  had  been 
discussed  to  be  committed  to  paper,"  We  may  easily  imagine 
how  full,  fair,  and  impartial  was  the  report  of  the  discussion, 
made  and  circulated  under  such  auspices ;  but  it  had  precisely 
the  effect  it  was  meant  to  produce, — to  weaken  the  hold 
which  the  ancient  faith  had  on  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the 
people.* 

Determined,  if  possible,  to  bend  the  archbishop  to  his  will, 
Wasa  went  again  to  Upsala  in  May,  1526.f  He  was  accom- 
panied by  a  retinue  of  two  hundred  splendidly  accoutred 
horsemen.  Halting  upon  one  of  the  mounds  of  old  Upsala, 
he  addressed  the  assembled  multitudes  in  an  harangue  teem- 
ing with  coarse  invectives  against  the  clergy,  and  especially 
the  monks.  He  evidently  coveted  their  wealth,  and  the 
simple-minded  people  discovered  it  at  a  glance. 

"But  the  peasants  began  to  shout  otft  and  to  cry  'that  they  might  be  per- 
mitted to  keep  their  monks,  since  they  were  willing  to  support  them  :  they 
had  heard  that  they  were  to  be  robbed  of  the  Latin  Mass  and  their  old 
faith  ;  that  the  secretary  '  Master  Lajs '  was  certainly  the  cause  of  all  this  ; 
they  therefore  wanted  to  get  him  out  of  the  town  and  punish  him.'  Gustaf 
smiled,  and  asked  them  if  they  knew 'Master  Lars?'  They  answered: 
'no,  not  we ;  but  if  we  had  him  here  with  us  on  the  common,  we  should 
presently  make  better  acquaintance.'  "I 

*  See  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  141. 

f  He  had  previously  summoned  the  archbishop  before  him  at  Stockholm, 
and  administered  to  him  a  sharp  and  unmerited  i*ebuke  on  his  supposed  love 
of  pomp  !  The  timid  prelate  was  like  a  lamb  before  the  wolf !  See  an  ac- 
count of  the  curious  interview.  Ibid.,  p.  145.  |  Ibid.,  p.  146. 


414  REFORMATION    IN   SWEDEN. 

This  secretary  of  Wasa  was  Lars  Andersson,*  wh:i  com 
bined  the  unprincipled  cunning  of  the  English  Cranmer  witb 
the  crouching  servility  of  the  English  vicar  general  Crom 
well.  No  wonder  the  people  cordially  disliked  him,  and 
sought  to  make  his  nearer  acquaintance  on  the  common ! 

The  royal  reformer  next  presented  himself  in  new  Upsala. 
where  "  to  make  sport  of  the  archbishop,"  he  publicly  placed 
a  garland  on  his  head  constituting  him  May-King !  He  next 
passed  a  rude  insult  on  the  venerable  prelate  at  a  jmblic 
banquet : 

"At  the  end  of  the  repast,  the  archbishop  with  a  full  cup  in  his  hand 
turned  towards  the  king,  and  said  :  '  Our  gi-ace  drinks  to  your  grace.'  Gus- 
taf  answered  :  '  Thy  grace  and  our  grace  cannot  find  room  under  the  same 
roof ; ' — to  which  the  archbishop  had  nothing  to  answer,  but  the  company 
burst  into  a  loud  laugh."f 

Tlie  king  next  visited  the  archepiscopal  chapter,  and  came 
at  once  and  bluntly  to  the  point,  to  which  all  this  cunning 
manoeuvring  was  evidently  tending.  lie  asked  the  canons 
to  tell  him  the  origin  of  their  privileges : 

"  Peter  Galle  stood  up,  and  answered  (more  cautiously  than  wisely)  in  the 
name  of  his  companions :  '  That  the  holy  Church  had  received  her  privile- 
ges from  Christian  emperors,  kings,  and  princes :  goods  and  lands  had,  on 
the  other  hand,  been  presented  to  churches  and  convents  hy  pious  souls, 
which  gifts  had  afterwards  been  confirmed  by  kings  and  princes,  so  that 
they  should  remain  inalienable  and  ever  the  same.'  'But,'  observed  the 
king,  'have  not  kings  and  princes  the  right  to  recall  such  privileges,  foi 
which  they  find  no  ground  in  Scripture,  but  which  have  been  extorted  by 
denunciations  of  purgatory  and  more  of  the  sort,  which  can  never  be  proved 
by  holy  writ?'  Peter  Galle  not  replying,  the  king  turned  to  the  archbishop 
begging  him  to  answer,  but  neither  did  he  speak."| 

They  no  doubt  thought  it  a  bootless  task  to  contend  with 
the  royal  ruffian,  whose  purpose  was  already  fixed,  as  they 
but  too  plainly  perceived. 

The  sequel  is  so  well  told  by  the  Lutheran  historian,  that 
we  can  not  do  better  than  transcribe  his  words : 

♦  Called  by  Fryxell  Laurentius  Andreae — his  name  in  the  Ijatinizwl 
form.  t  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  147  |  Ibid. 


THE    archbishop's    EXILE    AND   DEATH.  415 

"  King  Gustaf  perceived  but  too  well,  that  so  far  from  having  a  friend  in 
the  archbishop,  he  was,  on  the  contrary,  counteracted  by  him,  as  much  as  so 
weak  and  timid  a  man  could  venture  to  do.  He  called  for  him,  therefore, 
and  declared  to  him  that  he  would  never  recognize  him  as  archbishop;  he 
might  therefore  look  after  some  other  employment,  and  leave  the  country, 
for  he  was  never  more  to  return  to  Upsula.  John,  not  daring  to  resist  such 
a  positive  order,  sailed  away  as  soon  as  he  had  collected  his  most  precious 

effects He  remained  long  in  Poland,  in  the  hope  of  being  recalled  and 

reinstated  in  his  office,  but  never  took  part  in  the  many  conspiracies  which 
were  set  on  foot  against  Gustaf  by  fugitive  Swedes ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
sought  in  many  instances  to  further  his  and  Sweden's  weal  to  the  best  of  his 
ability ;  but  all  the  time  urged  che  king,  according  to  his  own  heart's  convic- 
tion, to  re-embrace  the  Roman  Catholic  faith.  When  he  found  his  efforts 
vain,  he  set  out  for  Rome,  seeking  help,  but  finding  none.  He  died  at  last 
in  poverty  in  a  hospital  of  that  city  in  1544."* 

Thus  died  the  last  Catholic  archbishop  of  Upsula ;  a  holy 
man  worthy  of  better  times  and  of  a  happier  lot.  We  are 
reminded  of  the  lamb  pleading  in  vain  for  mercy  before  the 
hungry  wolf,  whenever  we  consider  his  meek  relations  with 
the  tyrannical  Wasa.f 

But  the  degradation  of  the  episcopal  body  was  not  yet  com- 
plete. The  two  recently  deposed  prelates,  Knut  and  Sunnan- 
wader,  were  now  brought  up  for  trial  before  the  temporal 
lords,  the  king  himself  appearing  as  their  principal  accuser, 
and  charging  them  with  having  been  engaged  in  stirring  up 
the  recent  revolt  in  Dalgarna.  Whether  they  were  guilty  or 
not,  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining,  nor,  with  such  an  ac- 
cuser and  under  such  circumstances,  did  their  guilt  or  inno- 

*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  149. 

f  I'he  wi'iter  on  the  Swedish  Reformation  in  the  Dublin  Review  scarcely 
does  justice  to  the  rude  despotism  of  Wasa,  in  saying  that,  to  get  rid  of  him, 
he  sent  the  archbishop  "  as  it  were  on  a  special  embassy  to  the  Polish  court," 
with  the  promise  "that  his  dispatches  should  be  forwarded  to  him  at  Dant- 
iic."  Wasa  seems  to  have  adopted  no  such  expedient  of  politeness,  but 
rudely  expelled  him  from  the  kingdom.  Fryxell  indeed  tells  us  that  the 
archbishop  alleged  something  of  the  kind  after  his  departure, — which,  con- 
sidering hi  ^  sincere  and  truthful  character,  is  scarcely  credible ;  unless, 
indeed,  the  amiable  prelate  wished  by  thif-  expedient  to  excuse  the  king. 


416  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

cence  matter  mucli  with  the  judges.  They  were,  of  coursei, 
found  guilty  of  treason,  and  condemned  to  death. 

"  The  two  seditionaries  (?)  were  forced  to  make  a  degrading  entry  into 
Stockholm,  riding  backwards  on  poor  half-starved  horses,  dressed  in  ragged 
palls,  Master  Knut  wearing  a  bark  mitre  on  his  head,  Peter  Sunnanwader  a 
crown  of  straw,  and  a  wooden  sword  by  his  side.  Crowds  of  people  in  dis- 
guise followed  them,  mocking  and  teasing  the  unfortunates.  The  procession 
passed  through  some  of  the  principal  streets  of  the  town,  and  stopped  at 
last  on  the  great  square,  where  they  were  led  to  the  whipping-post,  and 
made  to  drink  with  the  executioner,  hooted  at  and  derided  by  the  mob  all 
the  while.  Shortly  after  this  ungenerous  tieatment,  they  were  both  con- 
ducted to  the  place  of  execution,  beheaded  and  impaled  :  Peter  Sunnanwader 
in  Upsala,  18th  Feb.,  1527,  and  Master  Knut  three  days  later  in  Stockholm. 
The  fame  of  these  proceedings  spread,  like  wild-fire,  through  the  kingdom. 
Gustaf  had  ordered  the  ignominious  procession  through  Stockholm,  to  de- 
crease the  reverence  of  the  people  for  their  bishops  ;  but  it  was  interpreted 
as  an  ungenerous  victor's  mockery  over  the  vanquished  ;  and  the  execution 
itself  excited  yet  greater  displeasure.  Such  an  attempt  against  such  men 
was  extraordinary,  nay  unheard  of.  The  priests  represented  the  criminals 
as  the  fallen  defenders  of  the  clerical  freedom  ;  the  friends  of  the  Stures  as 
innocent  victims  of  their  devotion  to  that  family  ;  and  the  Roman  Catholics 
as  martyrs  to  the  true  faith,  sacrificed  by  the  hand  of  a  heretic  and  godless 
king ;  in  which  sentiments  the  clergy  sought  to  maintain  the  people  to  the 
utmost  of  their  power.  It  was  related  that  strange  signs  wei-e  seen  in  the 
sky  at  Sunnanwader's  execution  ;  and  a  failure  of  the  crops,  which  happened 

the  same  yeai",  was  accounted  as  a  punishment  of  heaven It  was  no 

wonder  if  the  discontent  became  general,  and  the  misguided  (!)  people  ex- 
pressed both  displeasure  and  hatred  against  the  sovereign  they  had  once  so 
much  loved."* 

All  this  was  a  part  of  the  settled  programme  in  the  cun- 
ningly devised  drama  of  the  Swedish  Keformation.  As  to 
the  discontent  and  murmurs  of  the  people,  Wasa  heeded 
them  not,  so  long  as  he  had  his  well  trained  and  powerful 
body  of  foreign  troops  at  his  back.  With  such  aid  he  had 
no  doubt  of  being  able  fully  to  sustain  himself,  and  to  crush 
out  all  opposition,  if  necessary  in  the  blood  of  his  own  peo- 
ple. These  foreign  mercenaries  were,  in  fact,  the  real  key  of 
his  position.  He  played  them  off  on  all  occasions,  whether  to  ca- 

*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  154-5. 


THE   DIET    OF   WESTERAS.  417 

jole  his  people,  and  especially  the  clergy,  out  of  their  money,  oi 
to  threaten  them  into  servile  compliance  with  his  will.  Thus, 
"At  the  meeting  held  at  Wadstena  in  1521,  it  was  determined  that  the 
foreign  cavalry  should  be  quartered  in  the  cloisters  ;  at  the  meeting  of  Stock- 
holm (12th  Jan.,  1525),  that  the  tithes  of  that  year  should  be  employed  to 
pay  oif  the  foreign  soldiery.  The  priests  opposed  it,  but  the  king  clearly 
proved  that  these  expenses  were  necessary,  and  the  nobility,  citizens,  and 
peasants,  glad  at  not  having  to  pay  themselves,  were  well  satisfied  that  the 
priests  should  do  it.  This  bait  Oustaf  often  employed,  to  get  the  whole  of 
the  people  on  his  side  against  the  prelates  of  Rome."* 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  Wasa  was  an  adroit,  as  he  cer- 
tainly was  a  most  unprincipled  tactician.  He  had  so  man- 
aged every  thing,  that  the  plot  was  now  ripe  for  execution, 
and  the  day  was  at  hand  for  the  total  subversion  of  the  Cath- 
olic Religion  in  the  kingdom.  Among  all  the  prelates,  there 
remained  only  the  venerable  Brask  of  Linkoping  from  whom 
he  dreaded  any  serious  opposition  to  his  favorite  design  ;  and 
him  he  had  no  doubt  of  being  able  to  control.  Accordingly, 
in  the  midsummer  of  1527,  a  diet  was  convened  at  Westeras. 
The  haughty  and  tyrannical  course  adopted  by  the  king  had 
already  inspired  such  alarm  among  the  bishops  and  clergy, 
that  "  even  proud  Bishop  Brask  wrote  to  Ture  Jonsson  Roos 
'  that  he  would  rather  be  dead  than  fall  under  his  grace's 
(king  Gustaf's)  displeasure.' "f     No  wonder,  then,  that 

"  The  Roman  Catholics  anticipated  little  gain  fi"om  this  diet.  It  was  with 
the  utmost  repugnance  that  Bishop  Brask  saw  that  their  faith  was  to  be 
discussed  before  the  people ;  .  .  .  .  and  that  this  was  to  be  done  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  king  was  a  circumstance  still  more  alarming  to  him;  for  though 
a  bold  and  wise  man,  Brask  had,  like  the  rest,  experienced  how  Gustaf  by 
his  look,  his  voice,  his  words  and  gestures,  had  such  an  influence  over  the 
minds  of  the  people  that  none  dared  or  were  able  to  speak  in  his  presence, 
much  less  to  resist  his  will."t 

Under  such  circumstances,  the  proposed  discussion  of  Re- 
ligion before  the  diet  was  little  better  than  a  solemn  farce  and 
a  hollow  mockery ;  for  with  the  overweening  influence  and 
overbearing  manner  of  a  king  now  openly  favoring  the  Luther- 

*  FryxeU,  Ibid.,  p.  142.  f  Ibid.,  p.  123.  J  Ibid.,  p.  156 


418  .      REFORMATION   IN    SV/EDEN. 

ans,  little  fairness  and  still  less  freedom  could  be  expected  ii> 
the  debate.  Still  more  to  humble  the  bishops,  Wasa  more 
over  passed  an  open  insult  on  the  whole  episcopal  body,  by 
assigning  them,  contrary  to  immemorial  usage,  the  second 
place  at  the  grand  banquet  given  to  the  members  before  the 
opening  of  the  diet. 

"  The  prelates,  who  had  hitherto  sat  above  the  senators,  saw  themselves 
with  rage  thus  removed  lower ;  however,  none  ventured  to  expose  himself 
to  the  king's  anger ;  they  were  silent  and  obliged  to  make  the  best  of  the 
places  assigned  them."* 

"  The  following  day  they  assembled  in  the  cathedral  at  the  summons  of 
Brask,  and  the  doors  being  shut,  that  no  stranger  might  glide  in  amongst 
them  to  betray  their  counsel,  the  question  was  proposed  how  they  were  to 
conduct  themselves  now,  when  by  so  many  previous  events,  and  lastly  by 
the  disgrace  which  had  been  put  upon  them  at  the  royal  banquet,  it  was 
clear  to  perceive  that  the  king  had  serious  intentions  on  their  propert}', 
power,  and  privileges.  To  this  the  bishops  of  Strangnas  and  Westeras  (re- 
cent nominees  of  Wasa)  answered,  that  'they  were  well  satisfied,  poor  or 
rich,  how  the  king  would  have  them,  for  had  they  little  to  receive,  they  had 
likewise  little  to  bestow.'  This  complying  speech  highly  incensed  Bishop 
Brask.  '  Ye  are  madmen,'  he  exclaimed,  '  if  ye  permit  such  a  thing !  If 
King  Gustaf  will  take  from  us,  let  him  do  it  by  force,  not  with  our  own  free 
will  and  consent ;  in  that  manner  we  retam  our  right  to  complain  before  our 
Holy  Father  in  Rome.  Let  each  one  take  good  heed  how  he  abandoned  the 
Pope.  Many  kings  and  princes  have  taken  the  same  in  hand,  as  this  one  is 
now  doing ;  but  they  have  all  been  scorched  by  the  thunder-bolts  of  papal 
excommunication ;  and  the  persecuted  clergy  have  got  what  was  theirs 
quietly  back  again.  But  should  we  fall  from  Rome,  which  is  our  sheet- 
anchor  and  defense,  we  fall  into  fire  and  thorns  on  every  side.  The  Holy 
Father  will  excommunicate  us,  and  the  king  here  at  home  will  count  us 
little  better  than  slaves ;  so  that  we  may  not  venture  to  speak  a  word  for 
the  freedom  and  rights  of  the  Church."t 

The  timid  were  reassured  by  this  zealous  appeal,  and  they 
all  entered  into  a  solemn  written  agreement  and  pledge  to 
resist  the  new  doctrines  to  the  end ;  "  but  such  was  tJieir 
dread  of  the  king,  that  they  buried  the  parchment  under  a 
stone  in  the  floor  of  the  church ;  and  it  was  not  till  fifteen 


*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  156-7.  f  Ibid.,  p.  157-«. 


MANJIUVRING    AND    VIOLENCE.  419 

years  afterwards  that  it  was  sought  for,  and  and  again  saw 
the  light."* 

At  length  the  deed  was  done,  and  the  act  was  passed 
which  despoiled  the  churches  of  their  property,  severed  Swe- 
den from  Catholicity,  and  made  the  king  supreme  head  of 
the  Swedish  church  in  spirituals  as  well  as  in  temporals. 
The  most  important  articles  of  this  celebrated  act  of  "Westeras 
were  as  follows : 

"1.  That  the  superfluous  riches  and  revenues  of  the  bishops,  the 
churches,  and  convents  should  be  apphed  to  the  use  of  the  kingdom  and  the 
crown.  2.  AVhat  property  before  the  time  of  Charles  VIII.  (about  the  year 
1445)  had  been  bestowed  upon  churches  and  convents  should  return  to  the 
crown.  3.  What  since  the  time  of  Charles  VIII.  had  been  given  to  churches 
and  convents,  sold,  or  pledged,  should  be  resumed  or  redeemed  by  those 
who  could  prove  themselves  to  be  the  nearest  heirs  of  the  same.  4.  The 
pure  word  of  God(!)  should  be  preached  in  all  churches  of  the  kingdom  ; 
and  in  a  separate  determination,  called  Westeras  Onlinantla,  it  was  fixed 
that  bishops,  deans,  etc.,  should  be  nominated  by  the  king  without  the  ad- 
vice of  the  Pope  ;  that  the  king  should  depose  unqualified  clergymen  ;  that 
priests  in  worldly  affairs  should  appear  before  temporal  tribunals  ;  that 
mulcts  (fines)  should  fall  to  the  king  and  not  to  the  bishops ;  that  the  inher- 
itance of  priests  should  fall  to  their  nearest  relatives,  instead  of  to  the  bish- 
ops ;  that  the  Bible  should  be  read  in  schools,  etc."f 

We  cannot,  and  need  not  give  a  more  detailed  account  than 
the  above  of  the  tortuous  manoeuvring  by  which  Wasa  thus 
brought  all  the  orders  of  the  kingdom  to  his  feet,  and  had 
himself  made  virtually  an  absolute  despot,  with  a  standing 
army  of  foreign  mercenaries  to  enforce  obedience  to  his  will. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  diet  of  Westeras  was  not  a  free  as- 
sembly ;  that  the  king  came  to  it  with  his  hungry  Lutheran 
soldiery  at  his  back  to  overawe  the  deliberations ;  that  when 
on  the  very  first  day,  both  the  bishops  led  by  Brask,  and  the 

*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  157-8. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  166-7.  The  writer  in  the  Dublin  Review  makes  an  important 
mistake  in  omitting  the  second  clause  given  above,  or  rather  combining  it 
with  the  third,  in  such  a  way  as  to  limit  the  confiscation  of  church  property 
to  that  which  had  been  acquired  since  the  reign  of  Charles  VIII. 


420  REFORMATION    IN   SWEDEN. 

nobles  led  by  the  venerable  Ture  Jonsson  Roos  the  oldest  of 
their  number,  sternly  opposed  the  wholesale  spoliation  of  the 
Church  and  the  sweeping  innovations  in  religion,  "Wasa  ab- 
ruptly left  the  hall,  and  declared  that  he  would  no  longer  be 
king  over  so  ungrateful  a  people,  worked  himself  apparently 
into  a  towering  rage,  and  called  on  the  estates  to  refund  him 
all  the  money  he  had  advanced  for  the  defense  of  the  coun- 
try ;  that  for  three  days  he  surlily  kept  his  own  apartments, 
resisted  entreaty  after  entreaty  from  the  diet  that  he  would 
still  vouchsafe  to  retain  the  crown :  and  that  finally,  only  on 
the  fourth  day,  when  both  bishops  and  nobles  had  become 
sufficiently  humbled,  and  when  the  peasants,  no  doubt  at  the 
king's  instigation,  were  openly  clamoring  for  their  blood  in 
case  they  held  out  any  longer,  he  consented  to  appear  again 
before  the  diet,  and,  surrounded  by  his  guards,  promised  to 
continue  to  act  as  their  king,  but  only  on  condition  of  their 
passing  all  the  acts  he  required,  to  make  him  supreme  in 
church  and  state. 

The  humbled  estates,  amidst  the  violent  clamor  of  the  peas- 
ants, now  voted  every  thing  at  once,  with  outstretched  hands 
and  with  seeming  alacrity.  Some  of  the  newly  created  bish- 
ops, his  own  creatures,  had  already  abandoned  the  cause  of 
their  brethren,  to  whom  they  had  so  solemnly  plighted  their 
faith  at  the  memorable  meeting  in  the  cathedral ;  the  vener- 
able Brask  hung  his  head  in  sorrow  and  humilation,  and  si- 
lently submitted  to  an  outrage  upon  all  rights  human  and 
divine,  which  he  had  striven  in  vain  to  prevent.  The  bish- 
ops were  compelled  by  force  to  give  up  their  castles,  along 
with  their  property ;  and  when  Wasa  had  thus  obtained  all 
he  wanted,  he  abruptly  dismissed  the  diet.     Says  Fryxell : 

"  The  diet  of  Westeras  did  not  last  very  long  ;  scarce  eight  days  passed 
ere  it  was  closed ;  but  never  at  any  diet  has  more  been  executed ;  never 
have  any  resolutions  brought  about  a  more  complete  change.  The  whole 
tremendous  power  of  popery  (!)  in  all  its  members  was  crushed.  Deprived 
of  their  riches,  their  privileges,  their  great  consideration,  they  (the  clergy) 
were  open  to  the  continued  and  often  unjust  exactions  of  the  crown  and  the 
nobility,  to  the  attacks  of  the  Lutheran  priests,  and  left  without  power  to 


THE   CATHOLIC    RELIGION    ABJLISHED.  421 

protect  themselves  from  the  encroachments  of  enemies  on  every  side.  The 
crown  of  Sweden,  which  before  had  been  utterly  impoverished  and  unable 
to  pay  half  its  expenses,  became  rich  at  once ;  the  king  formerly,  in  most 
respects,  compelled  to  act  according  to  the  will  of  the  bishops  and  clergy 
{and  the  people)  now  acquired  a  much  wider  (more  despotic)  rule  ;  the 
peasants  felt  a  great  alleviation  in  their  taxes ;  but  the  nobility  gained  the 
most :  for  countless  estates  were  redeemed  or  resumed  (robbed)  from  churches 
and  convents.  Gustaf,  himself  descended  from  the  chiefest  and  wealthiest 
families,  did  not  in  this  respect  curtail  aught  from  his  own  pi-ivileges(!),  but 
received  large  property  which  has  since  been  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Qustavian  entail.  It  often  happened  afterwards,  that  the  nobles  appropri- 
ated by  force  fields  and  possessions  of  the  church,  etc."* 

Gustaf,  indeed,  rebuked  their  rapacity ;  but  they  were  only 
acting  in  accordance  with  his  spirit,  if  not  copying  his  ex- 
ample. 

This  passage  accounts  satisfactorily  for  the  whole  afiair, 
singularly  enough  called  the  Reformation  in  Sweden  I  Its 
chief  effect,  as  well  as  its  great  aim,  was  to  enrich  the  king 
and  the  nobles  at  the  expense  of  the  Church,  which  it  sacri- 
legiously despoiled  and  ruthlessly  enslaved.  The  work  of 
destruction  begun  at  Westeras  was  completed  in  the  suc- 
ceeding diet  of  Orebro,  held  in  the  beginning  of  1529,  the 
same  year  that  the  Lutherans  issued  their  famous  protest  at 
the  diet  of  Spires  in  Germany.  At  the  diet  of  Orebro  the 
venerable  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  was  abolished,  and  the  new- 
fangled service  composed  by  Glaus  was  substituted  in  its 
place.  General  discontent  followed  this  vital  innovation  in 
worship.  The  older  Catholic  priests,  who  had  not  yet'  been 
tainted, 

"  Lamented  that  the  good  old  times  were  passed,  and  wished  that  they 
were  lying  deep  enough  under  the  soil,  that  they  might  not  be  forced  tc 
witness  the  evil  and  mischief  which  were  spreading  over  the  world.  A  great 
body  of  the  common  people  joined  with  these,  particularly  women  and  old 
people,  crying  and  lamenting  over  these  novelties,  and  the  boldness  of  their 
impious  sovereign."! 

These  poor  people  lamented  in  vain ;  their  "  impious  sov 


*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  168-9.  f  Ibid.,  179. 

'58 


422  REFORMATION    IN   SWEDEN. 

ereign"  had  a  heart  as  hard  as  the  coin  he  loved  so  well. 
They  were  soon  left  "  like  sLccp  without  a  shepherd ;"  such 
of  their  faithful  pastors  as  could  not  be  compelled  to  conform 
to  the  new  order  of  things  were  deprived  of  their  places, 
were  driven  into  exile,  or  were  made  to  eke  out  their  living 
in  their  old  age  as  best  they  might,  or  else  to  starve ;  while 
the  people  themselves  were  forced  into  conformity  at  the 
points  of  those  formidable  foreign  bayonets  which  the  royal 
reformer  knew  so  well  how  to  employ,  in  order  the  more  ef- 
fectually to  establish  the  precious  right  of  private  judgment 
in  matters  of  religion !  The  venerable  Bishop  Brask  was 
forced  to  leave  Sweden,  and  to  bury  his  sorrows  in  a  foreign 
land,  where  his  gray  hairs  went  down  in  affliction  to  the 
tomb. 

"In  Dantzic  he  met  the  deposed  archbishop  John  INIagnus,  and  both 
labored  there  a  while  on  the  conversion  of  Gustaf.  from  the  Lutheran  faith. 
When  John  Magnus  removed  to  Italy,  Brask  remained  some  time  in  the 
Olivet  cloister  near  Dantzic  ;  and  his  last  years  were  passed  further  in  the 
interior  of  Poland  in  a  monastery  called  Landan.  Like  John,  he  never  bore 
any  part  in  any  of  the  conspiracies  which  were  carried  on  against  Gustaf; 
but  he  wrote  frequently  to  his  friends  in  Sweden,  exhorting  them  faithfully 
and  earnestly  to  remain  true  to  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  the  doctrines  of 
the  old  Catholic  Church.  Faithful  himself  to  these  doctrines,  for  which  he 
had  sacrificed  all,  he  ended  his  days  in  the  above  mentioned  monastery, 
A.  D,  1538."t 

Having  now  become  supreme  head  of  the  Swedish  church, 
Wasa  entered  at  once  on  the  vigorous  discharge  of  his  new 
pastoral  functions.  His  first  duty  was  to  make  a  regular 
visitation  of  the  dioceses,  which  his  terror-stricken  diet  and 
his  own  good  sword,  together  with  that  of  his  faithful  foreign 
troops,  had  committed  to  his  spiritual  jurisdictiDn.  Such  a 
visitation  the  Christian  world  probably  never  witnessed  be- 
fore; it  was  very  much  like  that  which  was  made  by  Mo- 
hammed with  the  Koran  in  one  hand  and  the  scimitar  in  the 
other !     Surrounded  and  supported  by  a  strong  body  of  cav 


*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  171. 


AN   EXTRAORDINARY    VISITATION.  423 

airy,  to  give  the  greater  effect  to  his  pastoral  advice,  he 
traversed  the  country,  carrying  with  him  Glaus  and  other 
Lutheran  preachers ;  whose  words  must  have  been  very 
eloquent  and  impressive  indeed,  under  the  imposing  circum- 
stances of  this  most  extraordinary  visitation.  While  these 
preached  and pruj/ed,  Wasa  watched  with  his  cavalry,  ready 
at  a  moment's  notice  to  swoop  down  upon  the  refractory,  and 
to  give  them  a  practical  evidence  of  that  blessed  religious 
liberty,  which  he  had  just  inaugurated. 

But  he  watched  more  particularly  over  his  own  pecuniary 
interests.  Whithersoever  he  came,  his  first  care  always  was 
to  ask  for  the  charters  and  deeds  of  the  churches,  convents, 
and  monasteries.  These  he  scrutinized  narrowly,  and  woe  to 
the  clerical  proprietor  or  religious  corporation,  if  his  eager 
glance  detected  a  single  flaw  in  the  instrument !  Many  of 
the  charters  of  such  institutions  had  perished  in  the  course 
of  time,  or  by  the  violence  of  civil  commotions  and  foreign 
wars.  Of  course,  all  such  property  was  confiscated  to  the 
crown  without  mercy,  and  no  prescription,  even  from  time 
immemorial,  was  of  any  avail  against  the  royal  rapacity. 
What  with  titles  pronounced  defective,  and  with  those  which 
had  perished,  the  amount  of  confiscation  was  immense. 

"  So  sweeping  was  the  eflfect  of  the  royal  scrutiny,  and  so  wholesale  the 
confiscation,  that  in  this  one  journey  the  Protestant  historian  assures  us 
that  no  fewer  than  sixteen  thousand  manor  farms  were  alienated  to  the 
crown.  The  lion's  share  he  kept  himself;  the  remainder  he  divided  among 
his  followers  ;  soldiers,  courtiers,  favorites, — every  one  who  had  proved  him- 
self the  servile  and  obsequious  minion  of  the  royal  will  came  in  for  his 
portion  of  the  sacrilegious  plunder.  The  clergy  who  consented  to  embrace 
the  new  religion,  were  allowed  to  retain  their  property  for  a  time.  Those 
who  spurned  the  proffered  bribe,  and  preferred  poverty  and  exile  to  riches 
and  aposta.sy,  had  to  leave  their  native  country,  and  many  years  afterwards 
were  to  be  seen  begging  their  bread  from  door  to  door  through  the  continent 
of  Europe."* 

Hitherto  the  king  had  delayed  his  coronation,  chiefly 
because,  intending  to  sweep  away  the  Catholic  Church  fron: 

♦  Paper  in  the  Dublin  Review,  supra  cit. 


424  REFORMATION    IN   SWEDEN. 

Sweden  and  to  confiscate  its  property,  he  did  not  wis.  to  bo 
hampered  with  the  customary  oath  to  protect  its  rigLts  and 
privileges.*  Now  all  obstacles  having  been  removed ;  the 
good  Archbishop  Magnus,  and  the  zealous  Bishop  Brask  hav- 
ing been  expelled  the  kingdom,  and  the  other  prelates  having 
been  duly  drilled  into  silent  acquiescence,  if  not  submission  ; 
he  determined  to  delay  no  longer  an  event  so  important. 

Accordingly,  as  a  preliminary  step,  he  now  appointed  Lau- 
rence Petri,  brother  of  Olaus,  archbishop  of  Upsala;  and 
through  the  management  and  false  promises  of  his  wily 
chancellor,  Lars  Andersson,  he  finally  succeeded  in  inducing 
first  the  bishop  of  Westeras,  and  then  the  bishops  of  Abo, 
Scara,  and  Stregnes,  all  his  own  creatures,  to  perform  the 
ceremony  of  consecration. f  The  consecration  having  been 
duly  performed  by  bishops  having  undoubtedly  the  episcopal 
character  themselves,  though  uncanonical  and  unlawful,  was 
certainly  valid,  and  thus  the  present  Swedish  Lutheran 
bishops,  unless  the  right  -of  consecration  has  since  been 
materially  altered,  are  invested  with  the  episcopal  character ; 
though  being  severed  from  the  communion  of  the  Church, 
they  have  not  canonical  jurisdiction  or  any  lawful  authority 
whatever.  Every  thing  having  been  thus  prepared,  the  king 
was  solemnly  crowned  a  week  afterwards,  on  the  12th  of 
January,  1528,J 

The  new  archbishop,  of  course,  took  to  himself  a  wife,  as 
his  brother  Olaus  had  done  before;  and  as  all  the  clergy 
were  expected  to  do   afterwards,  if  they  would   give    in- 


*  See  Fryxell,.  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  175. 

f  The  consecrating  prelates  were  simple  enough  to  believe  the  solemn 
promise  made  them  in  writing  by  Andersson  and  the  archbishop  elect,  that 
they  would,  immediately  after  the  ceremony  ask  and  obtain  from  Rome  a 
confirmation  of  what  had  been  done  ;  which,  o'  course,  they  neither  did, 
nor  intended  to  do.  See  Messanius,  Scandic  Chunology,  quoted  by  Dublin 
Review,  Ibid. 

I  Ibid.  The  Reformation  in  Sweden  was  thus,  far  more  adroitly  managed 
than  that  in  Ensland 


SACRILEGE    AND    REBELLION.  425 

doubted  evidence  of  their  sincere  attachment  to  the  new 
gospel !  The  giving  of  wives  to  the  clergy,  and  the  putting 
of  money  into  the  purses  of  the  kings  and  nobles,  were  every 
where  among  the  first  and  most  precious  fruits  of  the  Refor- 
mation. Without  these  two  necessary  adjuncts,  it  would 
have  been  incomplete,  and  comparatively  worthless. 

The  good  people  of  Upsala,  who  had  been  so  long  accus- 
tomed to  witness  the  virtues  of  John  Magnus  and  of  other 
holy  Catholic  archbishops,  were  greatly  startled  and  scan- 
dalized at  seeing  their  new  archbishop  leading  his  wife  into 
their  venerable  cathedral.  The  same  feeling  of  indignation 
had  been  even  more  openly  displayed  at  Stockholm  a  few 
years  previously,  when  Olaus  was  publicly  married  in  the 
High  Church,  in  which  he  was  officiating.  Says  the  Lutheran 
Fryxell : 

'•A  general  murmur  was  heard;  the  ignorant  (!)  populace  threatened  to 
kill  the  foreign  heretics  and  depose  the  apostate  king."* 

As  innovation  after  innovation. came  successively  to  light, 
the  popular  indignation  grew  stronger  and  stronger,  until  at 
last  it  broke  out  into  open  and  repeated  civil  commotions  and 
insurrections.  Three  times  in  succession  did  the  hardy  people 
of  Dalarna,  called  the  Dalmen,  who  had  been  among  the 
first  to  raise  the  banner  of  Swedish  independence,  break 
out  into  open  revolt,  in  which  they  were  joined  by  other 
provinces;  while  the  people  of  almost  the  whole  country 
sympathized  with  their  cause,  as  they  shared  in  their  griev- 
ances. Almost  the  entire  subsequent  reign  of  Wasa  was  dis- 
turbed by  these  repeated  rebellions  of  his  subjects,  outraged 
and  aggrieved  in  their  dearest  feelings  and  most  sacred 
rights,  civil  and  religious. 

At  first,  he  had  cajoled  them  into  acquiescence,  by  prom  ■ 
ising  them  exemption  from  taxation,  after  he  could  obtain 
the  rich  property  of  the  Church,  which,  he  alleged,  would 
be  amply  sufticient  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  government. 

*  Fryxell,  Ibid.,  p.  143. 
VOL.  II. — 36 


426  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

But  he  had  no  sooner  attained  his  object,  and  become  en 
■  riched  by  sacrilegious  robbery,  than  the  people  were  made  to 
Bee  and  feel  how  deceptive  were  his  promises.  The  richei 
Wa&a  became,  the  heavier  grew  the  burdens  which  he  im- 
posed on  his  people.  Thus  it  is,  that  sacrilege  hardens  the 
heart,  curses  the  one  whp  has  dared  grasp  its  spoils,  and  ex- 
tends its  fatal  blight  over  all  who  come  under  its  withering 
influence!  The  whole  history  of  the  Reformation,  in  every 
country  in  Europe,  affords  a  striking  evidence  of  this  appall- 
ing truth. 

At  length,  the  last  blow  was  struck  in  this  system  of  grow- 
ing extortion  and  high-handed  tyranny.  The  king  was  in- 
debted to  the  people  of  Lubeck,  and  though  he  had  money 
enough  in  store  to  pay  the  debt  without  feeling  it,  he  deci- 
ded to  confiscate  the  church  plate  and  even  the  church  bells 
f(tr  this  purpose!  In  1530  it  was  determined  that  the  "su- 
perfluous bells  "  of  the  town  churches  should  be  given  up 
for  the  payment  of  this  debt ;  and  the  amount  thus  realized, 
not  having  been  found  suflicient,  it  was  resolved  in  1531, 
"  that  the  same  tax  should  likewise  be  claimed  of  the  country 
parishes."*  The  people  might,  perhaps,  have  borne  with 
even  heavier  burdens ;  this  touched  them  in  their  most  ten- 
der feelings  and  in  the  most  hallowed  reminiscences  of  the 
past,  and  it  was  therefore  viewed  as  wholly  unbearable. 
That  the  church  bells,  which  had  rung  out  merrily  at  wed- 
dings, and  sadly  at  funerals,  which  had  called  them  to  the 
joyful  festivals  of  religion,  and  which  had  sent  forth  their 
solemn  peals  as  a  tocsin,  to  arouse  their  patriotism  and  call 
them  to  arms  to  repel  the  invader  and  struggle  for  their 
threatened  rights; — that  those  sacred  bells,  which  cheered 
them  in  the  present,  and  called  up  the  most  sacred  recollec- 
tions of  the  past,  should  be  thus  summarily  and  sacrilegiously 
confiscated,  was  more  than  they  could  patiently  endure.     The 

*  Fryxoll,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  196.  Where  there  were  more  be) la 
than  one,  the  second  in  size  was  to  be  given  up;  where  there  was  but  one,  it 
must  be  redeemed  at  half  its  value.     Ibid. 


EOW   TO    REDRESS    GRIEVANCES.  427 

oe.ls  once  more  sounded  forth — for  the  hist  time  alas! — the 
thrilling  tocsin,  and  the  Dalmen,  with  other  brave  peasants, 
rushed  to  arms.  But  vain  was  their  struggle.  Wasa  had 
not  money  enough  to  pay  the  Lubeckers,  but  he  had  quite 
enough  to  pay,  and  even  richly  to  reward  his  foreign  sol- 
diery, whom  he  systematically  employed  to  crush  out  the 
liberties  of  his  people.  Treacherous  promises,  followed  by 
open  violence ;  these  were  the  means  he  adopted  to  redress 
the  grievances  of  his  subjects ! 

We  can  not  go  into  details  on  this  fruitful  topic,  and  must 
refer  our  readers  to  the  interesting  pages  of  the  Lutheran 
historian.*  Still  we  may  briefly  allude  to  the  summary  way 
in  which  Wasa  put  down  these  wide-spread  popular  commo- 
tions. On  one  occasion  he  collected  fourteen  thousand  sol- 
diers, and  rode  at  their  head  into  the  valleys  of  Dalarna.  The 
people  were  summoned,  and  ordered  to  state  their  grievances. 
They  did  so.  They  assembled,  "guilty  and  innocent,"  in 
vast  multitudes  in  the  plain ;  when  they  were  at  once  sur- 
rounded by  the  soldiers,  and  loaded  cannon  were  pointed  at 
their  serried  masses,  "  the  king  himself  in  glistening  armor, 
surrounded  by  the  counselors  and  body  guard,  taking  his 
place  in  front  of  the  assembly." 

The  "assembly"  was,  of  course,  a  free  one;  'the  poor  Dal- 
men might  calmly  state  their  grievances,  and  confidently  look 
for  redress !  The  trembling  people  were  addressed  by  one 
of  the  lords,  who  reproached  them  with  their  ingratitude,  and 
told  them  that  they  had  been  guilty  of  having  "  a  disobedient 
heart  towards  the  king,"  and  of  having  used  "  contemptuous 
and  slanderous  expressions"  against  him;  and  that  "unless 
they  now  immediately  humbled  themselves  and  promised 
amendment,  they  merited  nothing  but  that  his  grace  should 
not  permit  one  of  them  to  quit  the  place  with  life,"  On  the 
demand  of  the  king,  they  gave  up  those  who  were  pointed 
out  as  ringleaders  in  the  disaflection,  "  mostly  Catholic 
priests ;"  and  after  these  had  been  summarily  condemned  to 

*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  li,  176,  181,  196,  210,  seqq. 


428  RliFORMATION    IN   SWKDEN. 

death  on  the  spot,  and  "  the  executioner  had  advanced  and 
struck  ofl"  their  heads,"  the  terror-stricken  peasants  "  fell  on 
their  knees,  imploring  the  king's  mercy  for  God's  sake  ;"  where- 
upon the  wrath  of  Wasa  was  appeased.  He  pardoned  them, 
on  their  solemnly  renewing  their  oath  of  allegiance,  and  he 
continued  his  journey  through  Helsingland  and  Gestrickland, 
where  "  he  restored  peace  and  quietness  "  by  similar  means  !* 
In  another  of  his  triumphant  progresses  through  the  king- 
dom, Wasa  summoned  the  peasants  of  Upland  to  meet  him 
at  Upsala. 

"The  king,  in  glittering  armor,  sat  on  horseback  on  one  of  the  mounds, 
surrounded  by  the  chief  lords  of  the  kingdom,  and  accompanied  by  a  great 
body  of  men  at  arms.  The  peasantry  stood  before  him,  and  according  to 
his  custom  he  harangued  them  himself  They  showed  themselves  perverse 
and  unmanageable.  He  at  last  asked  them,  'why  so  many  among  them 
were  perverse  and  contumacious  ?'  No  answer  was  heard,  but  a  muttering 
and  grumbling  amongst  the  whole  assembly,  accompanied  here  and  there  by 
a  threat  or  angry  word.  Then  the  king's  blood  began  to  boil ;  he  drew  out 
his  sword,  brandished  it  before  their  eyes,  bounded  forward  on  his  horse, 
and  said  :  '  I  will  no  longer  endure  your  evil  tongues  ;  I  would  rather  have 
your  blows.  Therefore  take  courage  and  begin  ;  I  with  my  companj"  will 
try  which  can  master  the  field  !' — The  terrified  peasants  then  fell  on  their 
knees,  and  promised  never  again  to  resist  his  will."f 

Finally,  after  the  Dalmen  had  at  length  submitted,  and 
obtained  pardon  from  the  king,  the  latter  treacherously  fell 
upon  them  with  his  foreign  army,  again  brought  them  trem- 
blingly to  their  knees  by  the  brutal  threat,  that  "  he  would 
hold  such  a  muster  with  them  that  from  this  day  forth  neither 
dog  nor  cock  should  be  heard  throughout  the  land,"  made 
them  deliver  up  "  the  culprits,"  and  did  not  let  them  rise  till 
they  had  said  "yes"  to  all  his  demands. J 

It  was  by  such  gentle  and  persuasive  means  as  these,  that 
the  Reformation  was  introduced  into  and  firmly  established 

*  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  176,  seqq. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  199-200.  This  challenge  of  Gustaf  to  an  unarmed  multitude 
was,  under  the  circumstances,  very  brave  and  chivalrous  I 

t  Ibid.,  p.  211-2. 


TESTIMONY    OF   GEIJER.  429 

iu  Sweden !  In  the  light  of  such  undoubted  facts  as  the 
above,  attested  even  by  the  partial  Lutheran  historian  of 
Sweden,  every  one  may  be  able  to  decide  at  once  whether  it 
was  the  work  of  God,  or  the  work  oi  human  passion  rioting 
in  sacrilegious  spoliation  and  in  popular  oppression.  No  im- 
partial man  can  hesitate  a  moment  as  to  the  opinion  which 
he  must  necessarily  form  in  accordance  with  the  facts. 

In  further  confirmation  of  the  facts  thus  far  alleged,  we 
will  here  present  extracts  from  the  pages  of  another  recent 
accredited  Protestant  historian  of  Sweden — Geijer — whose 
testimony  will  scarcely  be  impeached.* 

Speaking  of  the  character  of  Wasa,  especially  in  his  rela- 
tions with  the  venerable  Bishop  Brask,  the  royal  historio- 
grapher of  Sweden  writes  as  follows : 

"  Those  who  wish  to  study  his  character  in  this  phase  from  its  earhest 
disclosure,  may  be  referred  to  the  correspondence  with  Bishop  Brask,  as  one 
of  the  main  sources  for  the  history  of  the  first  years  of  his  reign.  This 
prelate  was  beyond  comparison  the  most  influential,  as  well  as  the  most 
sagacious  and  best  informed  man  of  his  day  in  Sweden  ;  in  his  way  the 
upright  friend  of  his  country,  for  whose  economic  prosperity  he  formed  pro- 
jects which  Gustavus  himself  and  subsequently  others  of  Sweden's  distin- 
guished men  again  revived ;  a  friend  too  of  Swedish  liberty,  as  he  himself 
understood  it,  and  as  he  explains  it  in  letters  to  his  friend  Thure  Jonson, 
'that  the  freedom  of  the  realm  depended  on  the  Church  and  the  baronage ;' 
for  which  reason  he  opposed,  and  afterwards  censured,  the  government  of 
the  Stures.  He  treated  the  young  king  from  the  beginning  with  a  fatherly 
superiority,  styling  him  administrator  and  '  dear  Gustavus,'  and  accepting  in 
return  the  title  of  '  gracious  lord '  Shortly  after  the  royal  election,  he  ob- 
tained a  confirmation  of  all  the  privileges  of  his  bishopric  and  church.  But 
he  was  soon  destined  himself  to  feel  the  force  of  the  king's  saying  to  the 
last  Catholic  archbishop,  Joannes  Magnus, — '  Thy  grace  and  our  grace  have 
.tot  room  beneath  one  roof'     With   the   aggressions  of  Gustavus  on  the 

*  This  work  is  entitled  :  "  The  History  of  the  Swedes,  by  Eric  Gustavus 
Geijer,  Historiographer  Eoyal  of  Sweden,  etc.  Translated  from  the  Swedish, 
with  an  Introduction  and  Notes,  by  J.  H.  Turner,  Esq.,  A.  M.  The  first 
portion,  (comprising  the  first  three  volumes  of  the  original)  fi-om  the  earliest 
period  to  the  accession  of  Charles  X.  London,  Whittaker  &  Co.,  Ave  Maria 
Lane." 


430  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

clei^'',  began  the  prelate's  opposition  ;  and  with  every  impediment  thiown 
in  his  way,  the  king  went  one  step  further,  as  if  he  were  bent  on  reducing 
his  most  powerful  adversary  to  extremities,  so  that  the  'atter  at  length 
determined,  after  the  example  of  Joannes  Magnus,  to  quit  the  kingdom. 
But  he  was  first  to  see  the  hierarchy  of  Sweden  completely  overthrown. 
Presages  of  its  downfall  were  already  fast  accumulating."* 

How  the  royal  reformer  quoted  Scripture,  is  thus  told  by 
the  Swedish  historiographer : 

"  Olave  (Olaus)  Peterson,  although  a  priest,  entered  into  wedlock  at  Stock- 
holm in  1525.  'He  will  defend  this  by  God's  law,'  writes  the  king  tc 
Bishop  Brask.  Accordingly,  he  vindicated  his  conduct  in  a  published  tract ; 
nor  did  his  example  want  imitators  in  the  order  to  which  he  belonged.  In 
the  capital  the  Latin  Mass  was  abolished  b)^  a  resolution  of  the  magistrates. 
At  the  fair  of  St.  Eric's  day,  1526,  Gustavus  himself,  sitting  on  horseback 
on  one  of  the  barrows  of  Upsala,  discoursed  to  the  people  who  stood  around, 
on  the  uselessness  of  the  Latin  service  and  the  monastic  life.  Then  repair- 
ing to  the  chapter,  he  demanded  of  them,  '  by  what  right  the  Church  held 
temporal  power,  and  whether  any  ground  for  its  privileges  was  to  be  found 
in  Holy  Scripture  ;' — the  New  Testament,  translated  by  Laurence  Ander- 
son, having  been  printed  this  year  at  the  king's  instance.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  confirmed  the  privileges  of  knighthood  and  nobility  at  the  baronial 
diet  held  at  Wadstena."f 

How  W^asa  confiscated  the  monastic  and  church  property 
is  unfolded  in  the  following  passages  : 

"  He  now  sought  to  acquire  an  ally  against  the  Church,  and  showed  the 
nobility  what  they  might  gain  by  the  reduction  of  the  conventual  estates, 
preferring  himself,  before  the  council,  a  claim  to  the  monastery  of  Gripsholm, 
as  heir  of  its  founder,  Steno  Stur^  the  elder.  His  allegation  was,  that  the 
consent  which  his  father  gave  to  its  foundation  had  been  extorted.  Shortly 
afterwards,  grounding  himself  on  the  voluntary  cession  of  the  monks,  he 
sequestered  the  convent  without  waiting  for  the  declaration  of  the  council. 
An  explanatory  letter  was  issued  to  all  the  provinces,  intended,  in  his  own 
words,  to  obviate  evil  reports,  for  which  end  the  transaction  is  represented 
almost  as  an  instance  of  royal  generosity.  At  the  same  time  he  wrote  to 
Bishop  Brask,  who  had  undertaken  to  make  an  inventory  of  the  appurten- 
ances c'"  Nydala  abbey,  '  that  he,  the  king,  would  himself  take  order  regard- 
ing tu^  monasteries;'  which  was  indeed  performed  in  such  a  flxshion  that 
one  after  the  other  was  brought  under  his  own  management.  The  secular 
fiefs  of  the  bishops  were  confiscated,  and  the  fines  at  law  due  to  them  were 

*  Geijer,  History  of  the  Swedes,  p.  114,  115.  f  Ibid. 


TESTIMONY    OF   GEUER.  431 

collected  by  the  king's  bailiffs,  all  complaints  on  this  head  being  set  at 
nought.  No  further  regard  was  paid  to  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  ;  on  the 
contrary  the  king  adjudicated  even  in  ecclesiastical  causes,  gave  to  monks 
and  nuns  who  wished  to  quit  their  convents  letters  of  protection,  and  de- 
clared excommunications  invalid.  He  appointed  and  deposed  priests  by  his 
own  authority,  and  assumed  the  episcopal  right  of  taking  the  effects  of  those 
who  died  intestate,  doing  this  even  in  some  cases  where  the  parties  had  left 
a  will,  and  sharing  their  revenues  with  them  at  his  good  pleasure.* 

"All  was  yet  in  mould,  nothing  had  reached  its  appointed  goal,  and  least 
accurately  defined  were  the  new  relations  of  the  Church  towards  the  State. 
Hence  the  Recess  of  Westeras,  on  which  these  were  grounded,  underwent 
in  practice  continual  alterations.  By  its  provisions,  the  revenues  of  bishop- 
rics, canonries,  cathedrals,  and  convents,  were  so  far  committed  to  the  king's 
discretion,  that  he  was  free,  after  reserving  to  the  holders  and  masters  such 
a  proportion  as  was  required  for  their  due  maintenance,  to  apply  the  residue 
for  the  behoof  of  the  crown.  Nevertheless,  the  confiscation  of  the  estates 
appertaining  to  these  foundations  was  not  the  immediate  result.  The  king 
was  content  with  the  payment  of  a  fixed  rent  in  money,  adjusted  by  com- 
pact with  the  bishops,  chapters,  and  monastic  priors,  whether  clerical  or 
laical.  Gradually  this  arrangement  was  changed,  and  it  completely  ceased 
after  the  hereditary  settlement.  The  king  sequestered  the  episcopal  estates, 
and  the  incomes  of  the  bishops  were  paid  instead  out  of  the  two-thirds  of 
the  tithes,  which  by  the  Westeras  Recess  were  vested  in  the  crown.  The 
like  befell  with  the  estates  of  the  canons  as  well  as  with  their  dwelling 
houses  in  the  towns,  which  escheated  to  the  crown,  as  the  incumbents  of 
canonries  died  off  or  were  removed  to  benefices  in  the  country.  In  the  same 
manner  the  remaining  conventual  estates  were  appropriated,  as  the  monastic 
life  was  by  degrees  dropped,  so  that  at  last  only  some  few  aged  nuns  were 
to  be  found  in  the  convents  of  Wadstena,  Skenninge,  Nadendal,  and  Skog, 
who  were  supported  by  the  king.  By  different  ordinances  in  1545  and  the 
two  following  years,  all  other  ecclesiastical  estates,  not  comprehended  under 
the  denominations  already  mentioned,  were  transferred  to  the  state,  the  in- 
ferior clergy  being  indemnified  out  of  the  proceeds  of  the  crown-tithes."f 

Tliat  Wasa  panted  to  be  an  absolute  monarch  by  divine 
right,  sufficiently  appears  from  the  following : 

"Gustavus  commonly  showed  that  he  entertained  the  most  exa'-ted 
notions  of  the  powers  of  his  royal  office,  and  though  he  ascribed  its  origin 
to  God  and  the  people,  to  judge  from  his  favorite  saying  and  his  last  words, 
yet  the  divine  right  appears  to  have  had  the  preference  at  one  pefiod  of  hia 

*  Ibid.  +  Ibid,  p.  128. 


432  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

life.  '  In  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity,'  he  said,  when  the  council  in  the 
year  1540  swore  obedience  unto  him,  upon  his  bare  sword,  as  an  hereditary 
sovereign,  '  and  out  of  the  Divine  strength  and  power  of  Almighty  God,  which 
is  bestowed  upon  us  and  all  the  royal  and  princely  lords,  heirs  of  our  body, 
fi-om  generation  to  generation,  to  rule  and  dispose  over  you  and  all  our  sub- 
jects upon  earth,  we  hold  this  sword  of  righteousness  over  you  to  witness ; 
herewith  swear.'  Immediately  thereafter  he  styled  himself  king  hereditary, 
without  waiting  for  the  formal  act  of  settlement  subsequently  passed  at 
Westeras."* 

Finally,  his  groveling  and  hard-hearted  avarice  is  thus 
portrayed  by  Geijer: 

"  With  aU  his  kinsmen  the  king  had  controversies  as  to  the  inheritance 
of  property.  He  regarded  himself,  moreover,  as  heir-general  to  all  the  plate 
and  movable  goods  of  the  churches,  convents,  and  ecclesiastical  foundations, 
rot  forgetting  even  copper  kettles  and  tin  cups,  took  the  place  of  bishops  as 
co-heir  to  all  clerical  estates,  and  was  not  content  with  the  smallest  share. 
When  vacancies  occurred,  he  applied  to  his  own  use  in  many  cases  the 
revenues  of  the  greater  benefices,  paying  the  inferior  clergy  himself.  In 
addition  to  these  matters  of  gain,  he  engaged  personally  in  the  pursuits  of 
agriculture,  mining,  and  trade  in  all  the  productions  of  the  country,  more 
largely  than  any  of  his  subjects,  and  by  these  means  amassed  great  wealth. 
To  his  bailiffs  he  was  a  terror,  and  thus,  like  himself,  in  questions  of  prop 
eriy,  they  were  by  no  means  scrupulous.  At  Salberg,  where,  as  usual  in 
the  greater  mines,  there  was  an  as3^lum  for  all  except  atrocious  criminals,  a 
weekly  payment  of  two  pence  (ore)  to  the  king  was  exacted  even  from 
loose  females,  who  herded  there  for  their  roguery  and  dissolute  living."f 

Gustaf  Wasa  preceded  Henry  YIIL  by  a  few  years,  in 
carrying  out  the  work  of  the  lieformation ;  and  though  he 
was  not  probably  so  bad  a  man  as  his  English  brother,  yet 
there  are  many  points  of  resemblance  in  the  character  of  the 
two  royal  reformers,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  work  accom- 
plished by  both.  Both  began  their  reigns  well,  as  the  idols 
of  the  people,  and  both  ended  them  badly,  as  objects  of 
popular  detestation.  Under  both  reigns,  there  was  popular 
liberty  at  the  beginning,  and  popular  slavery  at  the  end. 
Both  made  themselves  supreme  heads  of  the  Church  i  i  t  c  r 
respective  kingdoms  by  fraud  and  violence ;  and  both,  by 

•  &eijer,  History  of  the  Swedes,  p.  130.  f  Ibid.,  p.  132-3. 


WASA    AND    HENRY    VIII.  433 

and  through  this  sacrilegious  usurpation  of  spiritual  sov- 
ereignty, succeeded  in  crushing  the  liberties  of  the  people, 
and  in  establishing  an  unmitigated  royal  despotism.  Both 
fattened,  with  their  courtiers,  on  the  spoils  of  the  Church, 
which  were  at  the  same  time  the  patrimony  of  the  poor ;  and 
both  were  cursed  in  themselves,  in  their  children,  and  in  their 
kingdoms  by  the  sacrilegious  spoliation.  Both  set  up  lay 
vicar  generals,  to  lord  it  over  the  bishops  and  clergy,  and  to 
be  the  organs  and  depositories  of  the  royal  supremacy.  Both 
were  married  several  times — Henry  six  and  Wasa  three 
times — ;  and  while  Henry  divorced  four  and  legally  butch- 
ered two  of  his  consorts,  Wasa  was  accused  of  having  brought 
about  the  death  of  his  first  wife  by  a  blow  on  the  head  in- 
flicted with  a  hammer.*  Both  imposed  additional  burdens 
on  their  people,  after  having  grown  rich  themselves  on  the 
confiscated  property  of  the  Church ;  and  both  put  down  in- 
surrections, caused  by  their  own  tyrannical  innovations  and 
oppressions,  by  the  strong  arm  of  military  force.  If  Wasa 
employed  foreign  soldiery,  Henry's  immediate  successor  did 
the  same,  and  for  the  same  purpose. 

But,  in  one  respect,  there  was  a  marked  difierence  in  the 
character  of  the  two.  While  Henry  was  free-hearted  and 
generous,  and  squandered  with  a  lavish  hand  his  ill-gotten 
spoils  among  his  mistresses  and  courtiers,  Wasa  was  hard, 
avaricious,  and  griping  to  the  last ;  constantly  accumulating 
and  seldom  spending  his  treasures. 

"  His  children  were  kept  strictly.  Hams  and  butter  were  sent  from  the 
country  for  the  supper  of  the  princes  at  Upsala ;  the  queen  herself  sewed 
their  shirts,  and  it  was  considered  a  great  present,  if  ever  one  of  the  prin- 
cesses got  a  blank  rixthaler.     Gustaf's  love  of  money  seduced  him  to  several 

*  The  Lutheran  historian  informs  us,  that  "such  was  the  rumor  which 
was  spread,  and  finally  reached  Gustaf's  ears ;  but  it  is  nowhere  related 
that  he  ever  took  the  least  pains  to  refute  so  base  a  calumny." — Vol.  ii,  225. 
Any  one  acquainted  with  the  impetuous  and  sturdy  character  of  Wasa  will 
be  inclined  to  regard  his  silence  under  the  circumstances  as  ominous  of 
conscious  guilt. 

VOL.  II. — 37 


434  REFORMATION    IN   SWEDEN. 

injustices,  which,  however,  in  those  days  were  not  so  striking  as  now.  He 
sometimes  permitted  parishes  to  remain  without  rectors,  having  them  ad- 
ministered by  vicars,  and  appropriated  their  returns  to  himself.  He  forbade 
the  export  of  cattle  to  his  subjects  in  general,  buying  them  himself  at  a  low 
price  from  the  peasants,  and  selling  them  abroad  at  a  great  profit.  Thia 
last  circumstance  was  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  Dacke  Feud.*  Several 
-things  of  this  kind  which  are  less  creditable  to  him  are  related ;  but  the 
people  overlooked  them  for  the  sake  of  his  many  virtues.f  They  also  knew 
that  this  money  was  not  uselessly  squandered.  Herr  Eskill's  hall,  and  the 
other  vaulted  chambers  of  the  treasury,  were  full  of  good  silver  bullion  at 
the  king's  death."J 

Like  Henry  VIII.,  and  unlike  any  genuine  apostle  of  the 
true  religion,  Wasa  was  violent  in  his  temper,  and  addicted 
to  much  hard  swearing  whenever  his  anger  was  aroused.  So 
scandalous,  in  fact,  had  this  practice  at  length  become,  that 
even  Glaus,  the  court  preacher,  declaimed  against  it  from  his 
"basket-like  pulpit"  in  the  High  Church  of  Stockholm.  Here- 
upon Wasa  was  naturally  indignant,  and  he  not  only  rebuked 
the  preacher,  but,  in  his  newly  acc^uired  character  of  head  of 
the  Swedish  church,  he  wrote  to  his  brother,  the  archbishop 
of  Upsala,  ordering  him,  "  that  from  this  day,  no  step  is  to  be 
taken  in  the  Reformation,  and  nothing  printed  unknown  to 
us;"  and  adding  significantly:  "and  you,  archbishop,  take 
you  especial  heed  to  yourself,  if  you  wish  to  avoid  dlsa- 
greeahles  !  "§ 

The  courtly  archbishop  was  accordingly  very  careful.  Still 
he  met  with  "disagreeables"  at  the  hands  of  his  imperious 
master.  A  year  later,  he  was  called  upon  to  pass  sentence  of 
death  on  his  own  brother  Olaus,  and  even  to  sign  his  death 
warrant.  Along  with  Olaus,  the  wily  and  unscrupulous 
chancellor  and  lay  vicar  general  Lars  Andersson  was  also 

*  A  protracted  civil  war,  in  which  the  king  triumphed  as  usual  over  the 
just  rights  of  his  people. 

f-  How  they  were  forced  "to  overlook  them,"  we  have  already  seen.  It 
was  certainly  not  out  of  regard  for  his  "many  virtues"  but  through  fear  of 
his  overbearing  and  all  crushing  despotism. 

)  Fryxell,  History  of  Sweden,  ii,  p.  246-7.  }  Ibid.,  p.  230-1. 


THE    CURSE   OF   SACRILEGE.  435 

condemned  to  death.  The  latter  escaped  the  p(nialty  by  sac- 
riiicing  all  his  property  for  the  benefit  of  the  king,  and  living 
ever  afterwards  in  retirement ;  Olaus  did  not  come  oflF  so  easily, 
as  the  king's  anger  was  greatly  excited  against  him.  Says 
the  Lutheran  historian  : 

"At  last,  when  the  burghers  of  Stockholm  united  in  imploring  the  pardon 
of  their  minister,  and  presented  five  hundred  Hungarian  guldens  as  a  ransom 
for  him,  Gustaf  permitted  himself  to  be  moved.  Olaus  received  mercy,  and 
after  the  lapse  of  three  years  was  even  restored  to  his  office."* 

Thus,  as  happened  even  more  strikingly  in  England,  the 
chief  instruments  of  the  king  in  despoiling  the  Church  and 
introducing  the  Reformation,  met  with  accumulated  misfor- 
tunes and  a  sadly  clouded  fate,  as  a  just  requital  for  their 
manifold  treachery  and  sacrilege  in  the  past.  But  the  curse 
of  sacrilege  fell  even  more  heavily  on  the  royal  reformer  him- 
self. His  eldest  son  Erick,  the  heir  apparent  to  the  throne, 
was  little  better  than  a  madman.  Again,  his  daughter  Cecilia, 
by  her  open  and  shameless  profligacy,  even  during  his  life- 
time, brought  bitterness  to  his  declining  years ;  while,  to  fill 
up  the  cup  of  his  domestic  alflictions,  another  son,  Magnus, 
became  a  confirmed  idiot.  "  The  temper  of  Gustaf  became 
each  day  more  harsh  and  violent ;  and  on  his  death-bed,  even 
his  own  children  could  scarce  remain  an  hour  in  his  com- 
pany."! 

But  the  worst  and  most  abiding  curse  of  sacrilege  fell  on 
unfortunate  Sweden  herself,  which  through  its  blighting  influ- 
ence was  permanently  severed  from  the  Church  and  tainted 
with  heresy.  In  the  subsequent  history  of  this  ill-fated  king- 
dom, a  fitful  splendor  has  occasionally  gleamed  up,  like  a 
meteor,  from  the  incursions  of  its  fierce  and  half  mad  sover- 

*  Fryxell,  Ibid.,  p.  230-1.  The  honest  burghers  knew  well  that  Wasa's 
heart  lay  where  his  treasure  was !  Olaus  and  Andersson  were  accusen, 
iustly  or  unjustly,  of  having  been  privy  to  an  attempt  to  assassinate 
\he  Jcing. 

f  Dublii  Review,  sup.  cit. 


436  REFORMATION    IN    SWEDEN. 

eigDs  into  the  territories  of  their  neighbors  ;*  but  with  these 
transient  exceptions,  it  has  since  continued  in  a  very  depressed 
and  sadly  fallen  condition,  even  in  a  temporal  point  of  view. 
And  at  present,  Sweden  is,  perhaps,  the  least  enlightened, 
the  least  tolerant,  and  certainly,  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  the 
most  thoroughly  degraded  and  debased  Christian  country  of 
Europe.  It  is  the  only  European  country,  in  which  intolerance 
is  now  carried  to  the  length  of  punishing  with  exile  and  con- 
fiscation of  property  all  who  dare  abandon  the  Lutheran  for 
the  Catholic  religion. 

Tlie  Scottish  Protestant  historian  Laing  has  long  since 
settled  the  question  of  its  surpassing  immorality.  From  the 
more  recent  statements  of  our  own  distinguished  traveler, 
Bayard  Taylor,  we  infer  that  its  moral  condition  has  not  ma- 
terially improved  since  Laing  wrote  his  account,  some  sixteen 
years  ago.     Speaking  of  the  capital,  Stockholm,  Taylor  says : 

"It  has  been  called  the  most  licentious  city  in  Europe,  and,  I  have  no 
doubt,  with  the  most  perfect  justice.  Vienna  may  surpass  it  (we  doubt 
this)  in  the  amount  of  conjugal  infidelity,  but  certainly  not  in  general  incon- 
tinence. Very  nearly  half  the  registered  births  are  illegitimate,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  illegitimate  children  born  in  wedlock.  Of  the  servant  girls,  shop- 
girls, and  seamstresses  in  the  city,  it  is  very  safe  to  say  that  not  ten  out  of  a 
hundred  are  chaste  ;  while,  as  rakish  young  Swedes  have  informed  me, 
many  girls  of  respectable  parentage,  belonging  to  the  middle  class,  are  not 
much  better.  The  men,  of  course,  are  much  worse  than  the  women,  and 
even  in  Paris  one  sees  fewer  physical  signs  of  excessive  debauchery.  Here, 
the  number  of  broken  down  young  men,  and  of  blear-eyed,  hoary-headed 
sinners,  is  astonishing.  I  have  never  been  in  any  place  where  licentiousness 
was  more  open  and  avowed ;  and  yet,  where  the  slang  of  sham  morality  is 
more  prevalent.  There  are  no  houses  of  prostitution  in  Stockholm,  and  the 
city  would  be  scandalized  at  the  idea  of  allowing  such  a  thing.  A  few 
years  ago  two  were  established,  and  the  fact  was  no  sooner  known,  than  a 
virtuous  mob  arose  and  violently  pulled  them  down  !  "f 


*  Like  Gustavus  Adolphus  and  Charles  XII. 

f  Northern  Travel ;  Summer  and  Winter  Pictures  of  Sweden,  Denmark, 
and  Lapland,  by  Bayard  Taylor.  New  York,  1858.  On  the  appearance  or 
his  strictures,  the   Swedish  papers  commented  on  them  as  exaggerated 


CONCLUSION.  437 

Verily,  the  tree  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  has  borne 
its  legitimate,  but  most  bitter  fruits  in  Sweden  !* 

The  author,  in  a  note  (Ibid.),  defends  them  as  strictly  within  the  bounds  of 
truth,  and,  if  at  all  inaccurate,  rather  below  than  above  the  mark  !  We 
dare  not  republish  certain  open  and  glaring  exhibitions  of  shameless  licen- 
tiousness, which  the  distinguished  American  traveler  witnessed  in  Stock- 
holm. 

*  Under  John,  the  second  son  and  successor  of  Wasa,  whose  reign  began 
in  1577,  efforts  were  made  to  bring  back  Sweden  to  the  communion  of  the 
holy  Catholic  Church.  Catherine,  the  king's  wife,  a  Catholic  and  daughter 
of  Sigismund  king  of  Poland,  zealously  labored  to  bring  about  the  reconcil- 
iation. At  her  instance.  Pope  Gregory  XIII.  sent  the  celebrated  Cardinal 
Hosius  into  Sweden,  with  several  learned  and  zealous  Jesuit  Fathers. 
Every  advance  was  made  which  charity  and  zeal  could  devise ;  but  the  mis- 
sion utterly  failed.  The  Lutherans  took  the  alarm,  and  raged  fiercely 
against  the  Catholic  envoys  ;  the  king  became  alarmed  and  he  vacillated. 
The  result  was  that  they  had  to  leave  the  kingdom.  Subsequently,  a  F^we- 
dish  queen  became  a  Catholic  ;  but,  probably  in  consequence,  abdicated  ♦he 
^rown,  and  went  to  E^me,  where  she  finally  died.  See  Theiner's  y  ^K, 
tbove  quoted. 
59 


UISTORY  OF  THE  PROTESTAiNT  REFORMATION. 


CHAPTER     X. 

REFORMATION    IN    DENMARK,    NORWAY,    AND 
ICELAND. 

Reformation  in  these  countries  similar  to  that  in  Sweden — That  of  Den- 
mark advised  by  Gustaf  Wasa — Christian  II. — His  attempt  to  introduce 
Lutheranism — His  injustice  to  the  Church — Humane  provisions  in  his 
code  of  laws — The  peasants  liberated — The  nobles  enraged — He  is  de- 
posed— Frederic  I.  begins  the  Reformation  by  crushing  popular  liberty — 
And  by  violating  his  solemn  oath — Protestant  testimony — His  measures 
for  this  purpose — Contest  after  his  death — Christian  III.  succeeds  him — 
And  completes  the  work  of  the  Reformation  in  Denmark — A  Catholic 
confessor  and  martyr — The  new  church  organization — Terrible  penal 
laws  against  Catholics — Recapitulation — Norway — Determined  opposition 
to  the  new  gospel — How  it  was  quelled  by  force — Penal  laws — Firmness 
of  the  monks — Norwegian  independence  destroj^ed — The  Reformation 
and  despotism  triumph  together — Religious  liberty,  as  understood  in 
Norway — The  bishop  of  the  North  Pole — Interesting  anecdote  by  Bayard 
Taylor — Iceland — Its  discovery  and  conversion  to  Christianity — Its 
golden  age — The  great  pestilence — Its  annexation  to  Denmark — The 
Reformation  introduced  by  violence — The  last  Catholic  bishop  put  to 
death — Its  two  old  Catholic  sees  abolished — Its  decline  since  that  period 
— The  North  and  the  South — Conclusion. 

The  history  of  the  Reformation  in  these  northern  countries 
need  not  detain  us  long.  In  all  of  them,  the  religious  revo- 
lution was  closely  modeled  after  that  which  occurred  ahout 
the  same  time  in  Sweden.  Here,  as  there,  it  was  the  work 
of  violence  and  of  spoliation  of  the  Church ;  and  here,  even 
more  than  there,  it  was  consummated  by  the  government  on 
the  ruin  of  all  the  time-honored  liberties  and  the  dearest 
rights  of  the  people. 
(438) 


CHRISTIAN    II.  439 


I.    DENMARK. 

1.  The  near  resemblance  in  the  cliaracte  -istics  presented 
respectively  by  the  Swedish  and  Danish  Keformatiuns  might 
be  inferred  a  priori  from  the  fact,  that  the  latter  was 
prompted  by  the  advice,  and  was  carried  out  in  conformity 
with  the  suggestions  of  the  Swedish  reformer — Gustaf  Wasa."" 
We  must  content  ourselves  with  a  very  brief  summary  of  the 
principal  facts.f 

The  first  sovereign  who  appears  to  have  conceived  the  pro- 
ject of  introducing  the  Reformation  into  Denmark  was 
the  same  tyrant  Christian,  or  Christiern  II.,  who  had  pre- 
tended, so  much  zeal  for  the  Catholic  religion  in  the  com- 
mencement of  his  contest  with  Sweden.  This  prince  appears 
to  have  been  guided  by  no  principle  of  conscience,  and  his 
policy  was  regulated  entirely  by  his  own  selfish  interests. 
Thus,  when  it  was  question  of  subduing  Sweden,  he  hastily 
patched  up  a  peace  with  the  papal  leijate,  whose  influence  he 
deemed  important,  if  not  necessary  for  securing  the  object  he 
then  had  in  view.  But  after  the  horrible  massacre  at  Stock- 
holm, in  which  bishops  and  nobles  fell  victims  to  his  treach- 
erous cruelty,  he  deemed  his  power  suflBciently  secure ;  and 
he  then  sought  to  overthrow  the  Catholic  Church  in  Denmark, 
in  order  thereby  to  increase  his  power  by  seizing  on  the 
wealth  of  the  Church.  The  principles  of  Luther  seemed 
favorable  to  his  cherished  design  of  reigning  supreme  and 
unrestrained  both  in  Church  and  State.  Accordingly,  he 
placed  a  disciple  of  the  reformer — one  Martin — over  the 
church  of  Copenhagen,  in  order  to  prepare  the  minds  of  the 
people  for  the  contemplated  change  in  religion.     The  nobles, 

*  Fryxell  vouches  for  this  fact — History  of  Sweden,  ii,  224. 

f  In  doing  this,  we  shall  have  occasion  to  quote  from  a  well  written  and 
somewhat  detailed,  though  prejudiced  history  of  Denmark  found  in  the 
Edinburgh  Encyclopedia,  article,  Denmark  ;  an  authority  which  will  hardly 
be  suspected  of  partiality  to  Catholicity,  or  of  enmity  to  the  Reformation 
Some  of  the  chief  facts  are  confirmed  by  Fryxell. 


440  REFORMATION    IN   DENMARK. 

the  clergy,  and  the  people  earnestly  protested  against  the 
scandalous  innovation;  but  he  persisted  in  his  mischievoua 
design,  and  even  had  recourse  to  violence.  He  arrested  and 
put  to  death  the  archbishop  Lund,  and  he  published  a  law 
which  forbade  unmarried  ecclesiastics  to  purchase  property, 
and  contained  other  provisions  that  trenched  on  the  rights  or 
greatly  restricted  the  immunities  of  the  clergy. 

The  result  was  his  expulsion  from  the  throne  by  a  general 
movement  of  all  the  orders  composing  the  states  of  the  king- 
dom.* After  many  strange  wanderings  and  vicissitudes,  the 
tyrant  was  finally  consigned  to  a  Danish  prison,  where  he 
inhabited  for  many  years  a  cell  which  was  walled  up,  with  a 
mis-shapen  dwarf  as  his  only  attendant !  He  had  been  the 
vile  slave  of  his  concubine's  mother  throughout  his  reign ; 
having  been  guided  in  his  state  policy  mainly  by  her  wily 
and  unscrupulous  suggestions.  He  perished  by  a  death  more 
terrible  even  than  that  which  he  had  so  often  inflicted  on 
others ! 

Though  Christian  H.  is  generally  and  no  doubt  justly 
painted  as  a  cruel  and  remorseless  tyrant,  yet  it  is  certain 
that  towards  the  close  of  his  reign,  in  1521,  he  published  a 
code  of  laws  containing  some  very  wise  and  humane  provi- 
sions ;  which  circumstance,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  strongly 
contributed  to  hasten  his  deposition  and  flight.  This  code 
provided  for  abolishing  the  impious  and  wicked  practice, 
which  had  hitherto  prevailed  in  Denmark,  of  buying  and 
selling  poor  farmers,  and  thereby  making  a  traflic  of  Chris- 
tians, and  reducing  the  peasantry  to  an  abject  slavery. 
Under  its  humane  enactments,  the  peasants,  when  maltreated 
by  one  landlord,  had  the  right  to  flee  elsewhere  for  shelter 
and  protection.  The  code  also  forbade,  under  the  most 
stringent  penalties,  the  inhuman  usage  of  the  Danish  wreck 

*  See  Alzog,  Histoire  Universelle  de  I'Eglise;  1  vol.  4to,  Tournai,  1851, 
p.  567.  He  quotes  Erico  Pontoppidano,  Precis  de  I'hist.  de  la  Peforrae  en 
Danemarke  ;  Munter,  Holberg,  and  other  historians.  Fryxell  also  says  that 
Christian  "encouraijed  the  <l()ctnnes  of  Luther." — Hist.  Sweden,  ii,  104. 


FREDERIC    I.    INTRODUCES    REFORMATION.  44] 

ers,  who  were  wont  to  seize  on  and  plunder  such  vessels  so. 
had  been  cast  by  storms  on  their  shores,  or  as  they  had 
decoyed  to  destruction  by  false  signals;  and  were  in  the 
habit  of  robbing,  sometimes  of  murdering  the  shipwrecked 
Bailors  and  passengers.*  These  prohibitions  cut  oti"  one  of 
the  principal  sources  of  profit  from  the  unprincipled  nobles, 
who  had  made  a  practice  of  selling  their  peasants,  and  who 
for  gain  had  winked  at  or  openly  encouraged  the  brutal  prac- 
tices of  the  organized  bands  of  wreckers.  Christian  was 
openly  accused  by  them  of  siding  with  the  peasants  against 
the  nobles ;  while  the  clergy  looked  upon  him  as  unfriendly 
to  the  Catholic  religion.  Both  united  against  him,  and  he 
was  deposed  at  the  diet  of  Wyberg  in  1522. 

2.  After  the  flight  of  Christian,  his  uncle,  the  duke  of  Hol- 
stein,  was  called  to  the  Danish  throne,  under  the  name  of 
Frederic  I.  The  very  first  thing  the  new  sovereign  was 
asked  to  do,  was  to  abolish  the  humane  laws  which  had  been 
enacted  by  his  predecessor,  and  to  restore  to  the  nobility — 
what  was  really  a  most  flagrant  abuse,  but  what  they  now 
claimed  as  a  right — unlimited  control  over  their  serfs.  This 
he  readily  did  by  signing  a  solemn  instrument,  called  a  ca- 
pitulation, which  placed  the  property  and  the  lives  of  the 
serfs  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  the  nobles ! 

Thus  commenced  that  series  of  innovations  on  the  ancient 
Catholic  constitution  of  Denmark,  which  ended  in  totally 
destroying  every  element  of  liberty  that  it  contained,  and  in 
making  the  Danish  king  a  despotic  monarch,  supreme  both 
in  church  and  state.  As  we  shall  soon  see,  the  commence- 
ment of  this  radical  change  in  the  polity  and  constitution  of 
the  country  coincided  precisely  with  the  rise  and  establish- 
ment of  the  Reformation.  This  revolution  was,  in  fact,  its  im- 
mediate and  real  cause,  without  whose  operation  so  complete 
and  so  thorough  a  destruction  of  popular  liberty  would  have 
been  well  nigh  impossible.     This  is  a  very  curious  fact,  so 

*  This  statement  made  by  the  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia  if 
fully  confirmed  by  Fryxell. — Hist.  Sweden,  ii,  104. 


442  REFORMATION    IN   DENMARK- 

singular,  that  it  will  scarcely  be  credited  without  the  strong 
est  evidence.  Says  the  Protestant  writer  in  the  Edinburg 
Encyclopedia : 

"  By  all  the  former  capitulations  which  the  Danish  sovereigns  had  signed, 
these  orders  of  men  (the  nobles  and  clergy)  had  never  been  able  to  obtain  a 
legal  sanction  to  the  right  which  they  claimed  over  the  lives  of  their  farm- 
ers ;  all  they  could  obtain,  was  the  right  of  judging  them  for  small  oflfenses ; 
but  by  one  of  the  articles  of  the  capitulation  which  Frederic  signed,  the 
nobles  obtained  formally,  not  only  the  right  of  life  and  death  over  their 
farmers,  but  also  that  of  condemning  them  to  lose  all  their  goods,  whenever 
they  supposed  that  they  had  acted  illegally  ;  this  power  the  king  could  not 
in  realit}^  bestow,  since  by  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  constitution  of  Den- 
mark, the  farmers  formed  a  distinct  order  of  the  state,  and  had  always  been 
recognized,  though  not  always  treated  as  such.  The  oppression  and  treachery 
to  which  this  extended  right  of  the  nobility  gava  rise,  was  so  galling  and  in- 
supportable, that  the  people  began  to  entertain  those  feelings  and  sentiments 
which  afterwards  made  them  concur  in  that  revolution  which  entirely 
changed  the  constitution  of  Denmark." 

The  revolution  here  referred  to  occurred  nearly  a  century 
and  a  half  later,  in  1660.  Lest  it  should  be  supposed,  that, 
even  at  this  late  day,  popular  liberty  was  restored,  it  may  be 
well  to  remark  here,  that  the  chief,  if  not  the  only  eifect  of 
the  revolution  in  question,  was  to  restrain  the  power  of  the 
nobility  by  making  the  king  absolute.  The  people  were  in- 
deed freed  from  the  grinding  tyranny  of  the  nobles ;  but 
they  were  liberated  from  this  species  of  thralldom,  only  to  be 
made  to  bow  their  necks  to  another  almost  ifnot  equally  galling 
— that  of  the  king.  Instead  of  many  petty  tyrants,  they  noAv 
had  one  supreme  and  absolute  master,  to  lord  it  over  them, 
supreme  in  church  and  state. 

"  The  royal  law,  as  it  is  called,  consists  of  forty  articles,  of  which  the  fol- 
lowing are  the  most  important:  The  hereditary  kings  of  Denmark  are 
above  all  human  laws ;  and  in  all  afRiirs,  ecclesiastical  and  civil,  they  do  not 
acknowledge  any  superior  judge  but  God  alone.  The  king  alone  possesses 
the  right  to  make,  repeal,  change,  and  interpret  all  laws,  except  the  royal 
law  which  is  irrevocable ;  the  king  shall  be  deemed  of  age  at  fourteen,  and 
from  that  tim(!  he  shall  have  no  master  or  guardian ;  from  the  aera  of  the 
royai  law,  the  kings  of  Denmark,  so  long  as  any  branch  of  the  royal  flxmily 
shall,  exist,  will  be  born  such,  without  havmg  any  occasion  for  an  election  ; 


AND    CRUSHES    POPULAR    RIGHTS.  443 

he  (the  king)  shall  not  be  obliged  to  take  any  oath,  or  enter  into  any  en 
gagement  whatsoever  respecting  the  monarchy,  seeing  that,  as  a  free  and  ab- 
solute sovereign,  his  subjects  can  neither  impose  upon  him  the  necessity  of 
an  oath,  nor  prescribe  any  conditions  to  him  which  shall  limit  his  authority. 
The  princes  and  princesses  of  the  blood  shall  not  appear  before  any  inferior 
judge,  because  the  king  is  himself  their  judge  in  the  first  and  last  instance. 
"  The  twenty-sixth  article  is  very  long  and  very  express  on  the  subject 
of  absolute  monarchy :  it  declares  that  every  thing  which  may  be  said  and 
written  to  the  advantage  of  an  absolute  and  hereditary  Christian  king,  should 
also  be  understood  in  the  most  favorable  sense  of  the  hereditary  king  of 
Denmark ;  and  it  directs  all  his  successors  '  to  take  very  particular  care  to 
defend  their  hereditary  right  and  absolute  dominion,  and  not  to  suffer  it  to 
be  called  in  question  upon  any  condition  whatever.'  "* 

Thus  it  is  incontestable,  that  whatever  of  popular  liberty 
there  was  in  Denmark  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  crushed  out  at  the  very  commencement  of  the 
Keformation  in  that  kingdom,  and  that  the  only  change  in 
the  civil  polity,  introduced  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  later, 
accrued  to  the  benefit  not  of  the  people,  but  of  royalty, 
which  was  then  declared  supreme  and  absolute.  This  is  a 
very  significant  fact,  and  it  is  as  undoubted  as  it  is  signifi- 
cant. 

.For,  be  it  remembered,  that  Frederic  I.  began,  and  his 
son  Christian  III.  consummated  the  work  of  the  Reformation 
in  Denmark.  The  Ileformation  was  altogether  and  exclu- 
sively a  movement  of  the  king  and  nobility ;  for  the  people 
had  been,  by  Frederic's  very  first  act,  too  thoroughly  en- 
slaved, to  be  able  to  take  any  part  in  it  whatsoever,  except  to 
hear  and  to  obey.  In  1526,  says  the  Protestant  writer  whom 
we  have  already  quoted : 

"Frederic's  attention  was  principally  occupied  by  the  rehgious  disputes 
which  arose   in    liis   kinirdom ;  he   himself  had   embraced    the    Protestant 


*  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia,  Ibid.  This  fundamental  law  of  Denmark, 
though  enacted  in  16G0,  was  not  signed  -by  the  three  orders  until  January, 
1661,  and  it  remained  in  tiie  royal  archives  till  the  accession  of  Christian 
V.  in  1670,  when  it  was  solemnly  promulgated.  The  power  which  it  gave 
to  the  sovereign  was  as  absolute  as  that  of  the  Czar,  or  of  the  Grand  Sig- 
aor  himself! 


4'14  REFORMATION    IN   DENMARK. 

religion,  but  the  nation  was  divided  into  two  parties  filled  with  the  most  bitter 
rancor  against  each  other.  The  policy  of  Frederic  on  this  occasion,  was 
liberal  and  enlightened  (!) :  he  published  an  edict  prohibiting  all  his  subjects 
under  severe  penalties  from  laying  any  restraints  on  conscience,  or  in  any 
manner  depriving  a  man  of  his  fortune,  reputation,  or  liberty,  on  account 
of  his  religious  opinions ;  the  doctrines  of  the  reformed  religion  were  also 
permitted  to  be  preached  openly,  without  the  least  molestation.  Tliis  edict 
was  soon  afterwards  ratified  at  a  general  diet  of  the  states,  at  which  it  was 
also  decreed  that  the  religious  of  all  orders  should  be  permitted  to  marry, 
and  to  live  in  any  part  of  the  kingdom  they  thought  proper,  without  respect 
to  pai'ticular  monasteries,  etc.  In  consequence  of  this  decree,  the  abbeys 
and  cloisters  were  deserted.  Lutheranism  now  spread  rapidly ;  the  city  of 
Malmo  publicly  prohibited  Mass  and  the  other  superstitions  (!)  of  the 
Eomish  Church ;  and  its  example  was  soon  followed  by  the  other  cities  and 
towns  ;  the  New  Testament  was  also  translated  into  the  Danish  language. 
The  progress  of  the  reformed  religion,  and  the  countenance  and  support 
which  Frederic  gave  to  it,  rendered  him  ver}''  obnoxious  to  the  clergy."* 

But  this  writer  does  not  tell  the  whole  truth.  He  conceals 
most  important  facts,  which  are  necessary  for  a  just  appreci- 
ation of  Frederic's  movements  in  the  matter  of  religion.  At 
his' coronation  this  prince  had  taken  a  solemn  oath  to  protect 
the  Catholic  religion.  When  openly  accused  of  its  violation 
at  the  diet  of  Odensee,  in  1527,  he  alleged,  in  vindication, 
the  flimsy  pretext,  that  the  oath  to  sustain  the  Catholic 
Church  did  not  bind  him  to  suffer  its  abuses;  of  which  he, 
of  course,  was  to  be  the  sole  judge.  Among  these  alleged 
abuses  was  the  Primacy  of  the  Holy  See,  which  he  accord 
ingly  suppressed,  or  at  least  suspended  in  its  exercise  over 
Denmark.  He  reserved  to  himself  the  exclusive  right  of 
confirming  the  nomination  of  bishops,  and  he  exacted  heavy 
fees  on  occasion  of  their  installation.  Thus  lloennow,  the 
newly  appointed  bishop  of  Roeskild,  had  to  pay  into  the 
royal  treasury  six  thousand  Danish  dollars,  before  he  cou'd 
obtain  possession  of  his  see.t 

3.  Frederic  I.  died  in  153/^,  and  he  left  two  sons.  Chris- 
tian and  John,  the  former  of  whom  had  been  reared  a  Prot 
estant,  and  the  latter  a  Catholic.    The  Danish  monarchy  was 

*  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia — IbH.     f  See  the  authorities  in  Alzog  sup.  cit 


CHRISTIAN    III.    ESTABLISHES   LUTHERANISM.  445 

not  as  yet  liereditcarj,  and  the  choice  of  a  successor  devolved 
upon  the  states  composed  of  deputies  from  the  different 
orders.  A  fierce  struggle  now  ensued  between  the  Catholic 
and  Protestant  parties,  as  to  which  of  the  two  sons  should 
be  chosen  king. 

"As  soon  as  Frederic's  death  was  known,  the  senate  convoked  the  depu- 
ties of  the  different  orders  of  the  states  at  Copenhagen.  The  bishops 
opened  the  debate,  by  inveighing  with  great  zeal  and  warmth  on  the  subject 
of  rehgion ;  and  when  they  found  that  the  lay  senators  did  not  coincide 
with  their  opinions,  they  demanded  that  the  decree  of  the  diet  of  Odensee, 
which  had  given  the  nobles  such  extensive  power  over  their  farmers,  should 
be  annulled;  the  nobility  were  alarmed,  and  endeavored  to  soothe  the  clergj', 
but  the  latter,  feeling  their  weight  in  the  assembly,  carried  their  point  so 
for,  that  the  tenths  were  restored  to  them.  The  next  subject  discussed 
related  to  the  choice  of  a  successor  to  Frederic  :  the  Catholic  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal senators  declared  for  John,  the  lay  and  Protestant  senators  for  Chris- 
tian." 

At  length  the  bishops,  fearing  worse  results, 

"  Consented  to  the  election  of  Christian  the  Third,  on  the  condition  that 
the  privileges  and  rights  of  the  senate  and  states  should  be  confirmed,  and 
that  he  should  not  he  the  evemy  of  their  religion.  The  rights  of  all  classes, 
except  those  of  the  formers,  were  amply  secured  by  the  capitulation,  which 
Christian  signed  when  he  ascended  the  throne  ;  but  the  fJirraers  were,  if 
possible,  in  a  still  worse  and  more  oppressed  condition  than  they  had  ever 
been  before."* 

It  will  be  remarked,  that  in  this  diet,  in  which  the  Prot- 
estant party  for  the  first  time  gained  the  ascendency  in 
Denmark,  the  rights  of  the  farmers,  or  common  people,  were 
still  further  crushed,  notwithstanding  the  energetic  protest 
of  the  clergy,  who  had  sought  to  protect  them  by  curbing 
the  power  of  the  nobles.  The  condition  of  the  people  be- 
came thus  far  worse  under  Christian  III.,  than  it  had  been 
even  under  Frederic  I.  Christian  certainly  fulfilled,  to  the 
letter,  that  part  of  the  capitulation  or  coronation-oath,  which 
required  him  to  allow  the  nobles  to  grind  the  common  people 
to  the  very  dust ; — did  he  comply  as  scrupulously  with  his 


*  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia — Ibid. 


446  REFORMATION   IN    DEN.MARK. 

other  more  solemn  engagement  "  not  to  be  the  enemy  of  the 
Catholic  religion"  or  of  its  ministers  ?  Our  prejudiced  Prot 
estant  historian  shall  inform  us ;  and  we  are  willing  to  abide 
the  verdict  which  necessarily  grows  out  of  the  facts  as  stated 
even  by  himself. 

"  As  soon  as  Christian  III.  was  firmly  seated  on  the  throne,  he  turned  his 
attention  to  the  state  of  religion,  and  resolved  to  carry  into  execution  a  plan 
which  had  been  communicated  to  liim  by  Gustavus  (Wasa),  for  reducing  the 
power  of  the  clergy.  He  accordingly  assembled  the  senate  with  great  se- 
cresy,  and  they  immediately  came  to  the  resolution  to  annex  all  the  Church 
lands,  towns,  fortresses,  and  villages  to  the  crown,  and  to  abolish  forever  the 
temporal  power  of  the  clergy.  All  the  bishops  in  the  different  parts  of  the 
kingdom  were  arrested  about  the  same  time  ;  and  that  the  nation  might 
not  be  alarmed  by  this  extraordinary  measure,  the  king  convoked  the  states 
at  Copenhagen ;  the  nobility  were  ordered  to  be  there  in  person,  and  the 
commons  by  their  deputies,  but  the  clergy  were  not  summoned  to  attend. 
After  a  strong  speech  from  the  king  against  the  rapacity  of  the  clergy,  the 
senate  confirmed  the  decree  of  the  diet ;  and  the  power  and  privileges  of 
the  clergy  were  declared  to  be  annihilated  forever.  The  senate  next  settled 
the  succession  in  the  duke  Frederic,  the  king's  eldest  son.  In  return  for 
these  concessions,  the  king  confirmed  the  nobilitj''  in  all  their  rights,  parti- 
cularly in  what  they  called  the  right  of  life  and  death  over  their  vassals,  and 
of  punishing  them  in  what  manner  they  thought  proper.  Thus  was  the  power 
of  the  clergy  forever  destroyed  in  Denmark  ;  but  the  conclusion  which  the 
nobles  drew  from  this,  that  their  own  authority  and  power  would  be  so 
much  the  more  augmented,  was  soon  proved  to  be  erroneous ;  for  as  a 
great  part  of  the  crown  lands  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  clergy,  these 
lands  being  again  annexed  to  the  crown,  the  royal  authority  was  considera- 
bly increased.  The  oppression  of  the  farmers  still  continued,  and  the  nobles 
displayed  a  restless  and  increasing  desire  to  prevent  them  fi-om  ever  rising 
in  the  state  ;  for  the  senate  passed  a  law,  forbidding  any  person,  either  eccle- 
siastic or  secular,  who  was  not  noble,  to  buy  any  freehold  lands  in  the  king- 
dom, or  to  endeavor  to  acquire  such  lands  by  any  other  title."* 

It  was  well  for  the  men  who  enacted  this  iniquitous  statute 
to  talk  of  "  the  rapacity  of  the  clergy  !"  The  clergy  had  stood 
up  valiantly  for  their  religion  and  for  their  long  established 
rights ;  they  had  nobly  vindicated  the  right  of  the  pooi 
farmers,  or  peasants,  that  is,  of  the  body  of  the  peopli'.^  to  be 

*  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia. — Ibid. 


TERRIBLE   PENAL    LAWS.  447 

treated  as  men  and  not  as  beasts  of  burden  ;  in  both  claims 
they  were  overborne  by  mere  brute  force  triumphantly  wielded 
by  the  rapacious  king  and  nobles.  They  fell  in  the  struggle ; 
but  along  with  them  and  with  the  Church  which  they  repre- 
sented, fell  also  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  Danish  people ! 
The  same  blow  which  destroyed  the  Catholic  religion  in 
Denmark  struck  down  to  the  dust,  and  deprived  of  all  liberty, 
and  almost  of  manhood  itself,  every  Dane  who  happened  not  to 
be  born  of  noble  lineage !  The  Reformation  in  Denmark  was 
clearly  for  the  advantage  of  the  king  and  nobles,  and  for  the 
oppression  through  them  of  the  great  mass  of  the  population. 
If  the  facts  do  not  lead  to  this  conclusion,  they  have  no  mean- 
ing whatsoever. 

The  diet  referred  to  was  held  in  1536.  On  the  20th  of  Au- 
gust of  that  year,  the  king  caused  all  the  bishops  to  be  ar 
rested  and  imprisoned.  Liberty  was  offered  to  them  only  on 
condition  of  their  resigning  their  sees.  All  of  them  appear 
to  have  gained  their  liberty  by  accepting  this  iniquitous  con- 
dition, except  the  courageous  Roennow,  bishop  of  Rceskild, 
who  firmly  refused,  and  di<:'U  in  prison  in  the  year  1544,  a 
confessor  for  eight  years  and  finally  a  martyr  for  his  faith. 

In  1537,  the  Lutheran  minister  Bugenhagen  was  called 
from  Wittenberg  to  complete  the  work  of  Reformation  thus 
auspiciously  begun.  Through  his  instrumentality  the  new 
Lutheran  church  of  Denmark  was  so  organized,  as  to  be  en- 
tirely subservient  to  the  will  of  the  king,  without  whose  au- 
thority it  could  move  neither  hand  nor  foot.  The  king 
immediately  appointed  seven  superintende7its  to  take  the 
place  of  the  deprived  bishops.  At  a  later  period,  these  royal 
superintendents  took  the  name,  but  could  not  regain  the  au- 
thority of  bishops.  The  nev^,^  ecclesiastical  organization  was 
confirmed  and  legally  established  at  the  diet  of  Odensee,  held 
in  1539 ;  and  a  subsequent  diet,  which  was  convened  at 
Copenhagen  in  October,  1546,  abolished  all  the  civil  and  po- 
litical rights  of  Catholics,  and  declared  the  property  of  the 
Catholic  Church  confiscated  forever  for  the  benefit  of  th« 


448  REFORMATION   IN    NORWAY. 

king  and  tlic  nobles.  No  Catholic  could  henceforth  hold  any 
civil  office,  or  succeed  by  inheritance  to  any  possession.  Cath- 
olic priests  were  forbidden  to  remain  on  the  soil  of  Denmark 
under  the  penalty  of  death ;  and  the  same  dreadful  punish- 
ment was  to  be  awarded  to  all  who  dared  give  them  shelter 
in  their  houses !  Exile  or  death  were  the  only  alternatives 
now  ofiered  to  the  Catholics  of  Denmark  !* 

Thus  was  the  Reformation  established  in  Denmark.  Con- 
ceived by  a  cruel  and  blood-thirsty  tyrant,  begun  by  a  per- 
jured monarch,  v^lio  had  sworn  to  defend  the  Catholic  reli- 
gion, it  was  consummated  through  wholesale  spoliation  and 
downright  violence  by  another  perjured  king,  who  had  prom- 
ised at  his  accession  "  not  to  be  an  enemy  of  the  Catholic 
Church."  With  such  facts  as  these  before  us,  to  talk  of  the 
Reformation  being  the  spontaneous  movement  of  the  people 
tired  of  the  yoke  of  Rome  and  panting  after  spiritual  liberty, 
is  simply  absurd  ;  and  if  the  subject  were  not  so  very  grave 
and  so  very  sad,  it  would  excite  a  smile  at  the  simplicity 
which  has  accredited  so  unfounded  an  assertion. 


T  II.  NORWAY. 

When  Sweden  threw  off  the  yoke  of  Denmark,  and  estab- 
lished her  independence  under  Gustaf  Wasa,  Norway  still 
continued,  at  lest  nominally,  a  dependency  of  the  Danish 
crown.  And  when  the  change  of  religion  took  place  in 
Denmark,  it  was  expected,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  Nor- 
way would  follow  the  example.  The  Lutheran  doctrines  had 
already  penetrated  into  this  kingdom  through  the  open  con- 
nivance, if  not  the  direct  agency  of  the  faithless  bishop  of 
Drontheim,  who  was  an  active  partisan  of  the  depceed  tyrant 
Christian  II. 

It  would  appear,  however,  that  the  new  religious  move- 

*  See  Alzog,  sup.  cit.,  for  the  authorities. 


NORWEGIAN   LIBERTY    DESTROYED.  449 

ment  was  not  popular  with  the  masses  of  the  Norwegiai' 
people,  and  that  nothing  short  of  actual  violence  could  quell 
their  determined  opposition,  or  subdue  their  firm  purpose 
to  adhere  to  the  ancient  faith.  After  the  bishop  of  Dron- 
theim  had  been  forced  to  fly  the  country,  in  1537,  another 
bishop  was  compelled  to  resign  his  see,  and  a  third  was  cast 
into  prison.  Thus  deprived  of  their  chief  pastors,  the  Nor- 
wegians were  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  the  Danish  govern- 
ment, which  immediately  took  active  measures  to  enforce  the 
new  religion  on  a  reluctant  people.  Stringent  laws  were 
passed,  by  which  all  the  inferior  clergy  were  compelled 
either  to  embrace  Lutheranism,  or  to  resign  their  places  and 
fly  the  country.  To  their  honor  be  it  said,  many  of  the 
monks  preferred  exile  to  apostasy.* 

Thus  the  method  adopted  for  crushing  the  Catholic  relig- 
ion in  Norway  was,  if  possible,  still  more  summary  and  un- 
just than  that  which  had  been  employed  in  Denmark ;  while 
both  equally  destroyed  the  rights  of  the  people.  Though 
nominally  united  with  Denmark  since  the  Union  of  Calmar 
in  1397,  Norway  had  been  hitherto  virtually  free,  and  had 
been  governed  by  her  own  laws.  All  this  was  now  to  be  com- 
pletely changed;  and  with  the  Catholic  religion  her  inde- 
pendence and  liberties  were  to  be  destroyed  forever.  Says 
our  Scottish  historian  :f 

"Norway  was  still  unwilling  to  acknowledge  Christian  (III.)  ;  the  Catho- 
lic religion  kept  its  ground  there  longer  and  more  firmly  than  it  did  in  Den- 
mark. The  states  of  the  former  kingdom  (Norway)  being  assembled  at 
Drontheim,  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1536,  Christian  sent  notice  to  them 
that  he  was  king  of  Denmark,  and  demanded,  by  virtue  of  the  union  of  the 
two  kingdoms,  to  be  elected  their  king  also ;  but  the  clergy  representing  this 
demand  as  haughty  and  the  presage  of  a  tyrannical  government,  the  peo- 
ple rose  in  a  tumultous  manner,  massacred  several  of  the  king's  friends,  and 
compellt;d  the  rest  to  quit  the  kingdom.  Christian  on  this  resolved  to  have 
recourse  to  the  most  decisive  measures.     He  accordingly  marched  an  army 


*  Gebhardi,  Histoire  de  Daneraark,  p.  156 ;  apud  Alzog,  loco  cit 
f  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia,  Art.,  Denmark. 

VOL.  n. — 38 


i50  REFORMATION    IN    NORWAY. 

into  Norway,  and  before  the  end  of  the  year  the  \vhole  kingdom  was  reduced 
to  a  state  of  obedience  and  tranquillity.  The  Danish  nobility  persuaded  the 
king  to  take  advantage  of  the  subjugation  of  Norway,  to  strip  the  kingdom 
of  its  independence ;  and  a  decree  was  accordingly  passed,  stating  that,  as 
the  kingdom  of  Norway  had  declined  in  its  power  and  resources,  so  as  to 
be  no  longer  capable  of  supporting  a  king,  and  as  the  greatest  part  of  its 
senators  had  shown  themselves  enemies  to  the  crown  of  Denmark  ;  there 
fore  the  said  kingdom  of  Norway  shall  be  and  forever  remain  subjected  to 
the  crown  of  Denmark,  so  that  in  future  it  shall  no  more  be  a  kingdom 
apart,  nor  shall  it  any  more  be  so  called,  but  shall  be  a  part  of  the  kingdom 

of  Denmark This  decree  was  carried  into  immediate  execution.     The 

senate  of  Norway  was  suppressed ;  the  states  no  longer  had  any  influence 
in  the  elections,  and  the  Danish  nobility  were  appointed  to  most  of  the 
places  of  confidence  and  emolument  in  that  kingdom." 

Thus  the  Reformation,  which  everywhere  had  the  promise 
of  liberty  upon  its  lips,  cast  a  blight  over  the  social,  material, 
and  political  prospects  of  Norway,  from  the  effects  of  which 
she  has  not  since  been  able  fully  to  recover.  First  a  degraded 
dependency  of  Denmark,  and  subsequently  a  degraded  de- 
pendency of  Sweden,  her  independence  has  ceased  to  exist, 
her  energies  have  been  weakened,  her  commerce  has  been 
crippled,  and  her  national  spirit  has  been  almost  wholly 
extinguished.  Still,  in  the  midst  of  his  degradation,  the 
Norwegian  loves  his  country,  clings  to  it  amidst  all  reverses 
of  fortune,  and  can  illy  brook  any  thing  said  to  its  disparage- 
ment. The  same  home  feeling  exists  also  among  the  inhabi 
tants  of  Lapland  and  Greenland. 

In  the  course  of  his  late  travels  in  Norway,  our  country- 
man. Bayard  Taylor  fell  in  with  "  the  Catholic  bishop  of  the 
Arctic  Zone," — or,  as  we  believe  he  is  more  correctly  styled, 
the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  the  North  Pole.  He  describes  him  aa 
an  intelligent  and  highly  accomplished  "Russian  baron, 
whose  conversion  had  cost  him  his  estates."  "What  ideas  the 
Protestant  Norwegians  of  the  present  day  have  of  religious 
liberty,  may  appear  from  the  following  incident,  described 
by  Taylor,  as  having  occurred  on  the  vessel  on  which  he  waa 
coasting  Norway : 


CONVERSION    OF    ICELAND ITS    GOLDEN    AGE.  451 

"  A  short  time  afterwards,  my  attention  was  called  to  the  spot  where  they 
stood,  by  loud  and  angry  exclamations.  Two  of  our  Norwegian  savans 
stood  before  the  bishop,  and  one  of  them  with  a  face  white  with  rage,  was 
furiously  vociferating  :  '  It  is  not  true  !  it  is  not  true ! !  Norway  is  a  free 
country !'  '  In  this  respect,  it  is  not  free,'  answered  the  bishop,  with  more 
coolness  than  I  thought  he  could  have  shown  under  such  circumstances  : 
'  You  know  verj'  well  that  no  one  can  hold  any  office  but  those  who  be- 
long to  your  state  church — neither  a  Catholic  nor  a  Methodist,  nor  a  Qua- 
ker ;  whereas  in  France,  as  I  have  said,  a  Protestant  may  even  become  a 
minister  of  the  government.' — '  But  we  do  not  believe  in  the  Catholic  faith ; 
we  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it!' — screamed  the  Norwegian. — 'We  are 
not  discussing  our  creeds,  answered  the  bishop  :  '  I  say  that,  though  Norway 
is  a  free  country  politically,  it  does  not  secure  equal  rights  to  all  its  citizens, 
and  so  far  as  the  toleration  of  religious  beliefs  is  concerned,  it  is  behind  most 
of  the  other  countries  of  Europe.' — Ke  thereupon  retreated  to  the  cabin,  for 
a  crowd  had  gathered  about  the  disputants,  and  the  deck  passengers  pressing 
aft,  seemed  more  than  usually  excited  by  what  what  was  going  on.  The 
Norwegian  shaking  with  fury,  hissed  through  his  teeth  :  '  How  dare  he  to 
come  here  to  insult  our  national  feeling!' — Yes,  but  every  word  was  true; 
and  the  scene  was  only  another  illustration  of  the  intense  vanity  of  the 
Norwegians  in  regard  to  their  country.  Woe  to  the  man  who  says  a  word 
against  Norway,  though  he  say  nothing  but  what  every  body  knows  to  be 
true."* 


III.  ICELAND. 

Iceland  was  discovered  by  Norman  navigators  in  861,  and 
it  was  soon  afterwards  colonized.  In  the  following  century, 
the  Saxon  priest  Frederic  preached  the  gospel  with  much 
success  among  the  Icelanders,  Other  apostolic  missionaries 
soon  followed,  and  completed  the  good  work  which  he  had 
commenced.  About  the  year  1000,  a  large  popular  assem- 
bly, after  a  spirited  debate,  solemnly  received  the  Christian 
leligion  ;  but  on  condition  that  the  inhabitants  should  still  be 
allowed  to  observe  certain  popular  usages,  among  which 
were  "  secret  sacrifices,  the  exposure  of  infants,  and  eating 
the  flesh  of  the  horse."  The  last  named  condition  was  not 
likely  to  present  any  very  serious  obstacle  to  their  being 

*  Northern  Travel,  etc.,  sup.  cit.,  p.  297-7, 


452  REFORMATION  .  IN   ICELAND. 

receivea  into  the  Christian  fold ;  but  the  two  first  could  no" 
be  consistently  accepted.  Gradually,  however,  these  heathen- 
ish prejudices  gave  way  before  the  increasing  light  of  the 
gospel,  and  in  1056  St.  Adalbert,  archbishop  of  Bremen, 
and  the  great  apostle  of  the  North,  had  the  satisfaction  of 
being  able  to  consecrate  the  priest  Isleif  first  bishop  of 
Skalholt,  the  oldest  see  in  Iceland. 

Under  the  influence  of  Christianity,  the  Icelanders  ad- 
vanced rapidly  in  civilization.  From  the  tenth  to  the  thir- 
teenth century,  the  Island  was  the  center  of  Northern  civil- 
ization, activity,  and  enterprise.  The  government  was  a 
species  of  republic,  controlled  by  its  own  laws,  which  were 
generally  wise  and  well  adapted  to  the  material  and  social 
advancement  of  the  people.  This  was  the  golden  age  of 
Icelandic  civilization.  About  the  year  1000,  Icelandic  navi- 
gators discovered  and  colonized  Greenland ;  which  was  also 
soon  afterwards  converted  to  Christianity,  and  received  its 
bishops,  first  from  Bremen,  and  at  a  later  period  from  Nor- 
way.* The  conversion  and  early  civilization  of  Iceland  had 
indirectly  an  important  bearing  on  European  civilization ;  as 
from  this  precise  epoch  the  invasions  of  Europe  by  the  North- 
men seem  to  have  ceased. 

After  the  annexation  of  Iceland  to  the  Danish  crown,  about 
the  year  1380,  its  commerce  and  prosperity  rapidly  declined. 

In  1482,  a  terrible  plague  swept  ofi'  more  than  half  of  the 
inhabitants ;  and  the  population  recovered  but  slowly  from 
this  terrible  blow.  Still  the  Island  was  beginning  to  re- 
gain something  of  its  former  prosperity,  when  the  Reforma- 
tion came,  and  inflicted  on  its  inhabitants  an  injury  much 
greater  and  much  more  permanent  than  the  great  pestilence 
itself. 

It  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  that  the  Reformation  was  in- 

*  See  Finni  Johnnei  Historia  Ecclesiastica  Islandi^e ;  quoted  by  Alzog,  sup. 
sit.,  p.  282.  The  navigators  who  penetrated  to  the  far  West,  and  discovered 
Vineland,  were  probably  Icelanders,  whose  enterprise  was  as  great  as  theii 
commerce  was  extensive,  during  the  period  to  which  we  refer. 


THE   REFORMATION    INTRODUCED    BY    VIOLENCE.  453 

troduced  into  Iceland  by  downright  violence,  and  against  the 
known  and  clearly  expressed  wishes  of  the  population.  A 
very  prejudiced  writer  tells  us,  that  "the  Reformation  was 
not  effected  without  violence.  John  Areson,  bishop  of  Hoo- 
lum,  was  the  most  strenuous  and  violent  opposer  of  the  intro- 
duction of  Lutheranism."* 

The  people  of  Iceland  rallied  around  the  zealous  bishop  of 
Hoolum ;  and,  with  arms  in  their  hands,  declared  that  they 
would  not  be  compelled  to  embrace  the  new  religion,  or  sub- 
mit to  the  authority  of  the  new  Lutheran  bishop. — How  was 
their  opposition  subdued  ?  It  was  overcome  by  the  sharp  ar- 
gument of  the  sword !  The  king  of  Denmark  dispatched  a 
large  force  to  the  Island,  which  encountered,  and  by  over- 
whelming numbers  and  superior  discipline  defeated  the  in- 
surgents. The  Catholic  bishop  was  seized  and  put  to  death. 
Still  the  disaffection  continued,  and  it  was  finally  put  down 
only  by  brute  force  wielded  by  these  foreign '  Danish  troops. 

Thus  was  Lutheranism  established  by  violence  in  Iceland, 
about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Since  that  time, 
the  independence  and  liberties  of  the  Island  have  wholly  dis- 
appeared ;  while  her  literature  and  her  civilization  have  con- 
tinued to  droop.  Until  a  very  recent  period  Iceland  has 
produced  no  writers  worthy  of  the  name ;  these  have  appeared 
fitfully,  and  at  long  intervals,  like  the  aurora  borealis.  Her 
golden  age  will  never  return. f 

The  church  establishment  in  Iceland  has  been,  ever  since 
the  Reformation,  a  mere  creature  of  the  Danish  crown,  which 
has  moulded  its  doctrines  and  discipline  at  will.  The  follow- 
ing is  a  curious  example  of  this  dependency,  furnished  by  the 
Scottish  writer  whom  we  have  already  quoted :  "  The  two 
sees  of  Skalholt  and  Hoolum  happening  to  become  vacant  at 
the  same  time,  they  were  united  in  the  year  1791,  in  the 
person  of  Geir  Vidalin,  who  now  enjoys  the  title  of  the  bishop 


*  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia,  Art.,  Iceland. 

i   See  Harboe,  La  Reforme  en  Islan<le  ;  quoted  by  Alzog,  sup.  cit,  p.  568 
60 


454  REFORMATION    EN   ICELAND. 

of  Iceland,  and  is  settled  at  Reikavik." — Thus,  bj  a  simple 
act  of  his  will  or  caprice,  the  Danish  monarch  blotted  out 
the  two  old  Catholic  sees,  and  erected  a  new  one,  thereby 
removing  the  last  trace  of  a  connection  with  the  Church, 
under  the  influence  of  which  Iceland  had  become  compara 
tively  great  and  flourishing. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  Reformation  could  never  gain  a  foot- 
hold in  the  genial  and  sunny  South.  The  colder  North 
was  a  far  more  congenial  climate  for  the  new  gospel. — And 
here  we  accordingly  take  our  leave  of  the  Reformation — 

IN  IcELAIfD. 


NOTES    AND    DOCUMENTS. 

NOTE  A,  Page  108. 
Articles  of  Religion  and  Book  of  Common  Prayer, 

In  his  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  the  AngHcan  bishop  Shoit 
furnishes  an  elaborate  account  of  the  various  successive  changes  and  amend- 
ments introduced  into  the  collection  of  Articles  of  Religion,  as  well  as  into 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  of  the  church  as  established  by  law.  If  both 
are  not  now  perfect,  it  is  certainly  not  for  the  want  of  repeated  revisions  and 
improvements.  These  numerous  variations  run  through  a  period  of  more 
than  a  hundred  years ;  the  last  revision  of  the  Prayer  Book  having  been 
made  at  as  late  a  date  as  1661.  The  limits  of  this  Note  will  not  allow  us 
to  do  more,  than  barely  to  indicate  the  time  and  number  of  the  various 
changes  which  were  introduced  ;  and  for  a  fuller  account  we  must  refer  our 
readers  to  the  work  of  Bishop  Short,  p.  167,  seqq.,  and  p.  278,  seqq.;  where 
the  whole  of  this  singular  history  of  successive  reformations  in  what  was 
originally  characterized  as  the  work  of  God,  set  forth  "  by  the  aid  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  will  be  found  in  all  its  curious  details. 

I.    THE     ARTICLES    OF    RELIGION. 

1.  In  regard  to  the  Articles  of  Religion,  from  the  six  originally  set  forth  by 
Henry  VIII.,  they  grew  to  forty-two  under  Edward  VI.  These  were  pub- 
lished in  1553,  appended  to  a  short  catechism.  Cranmer  composed  them, 
assisted  probably  by  Ridley,  and  they  were  submitted  to  the  revision  of 
Cecil  and  Cheke.  Cranmer  appears  to  have  derived  them  from  his  own 
active  researches,  and  from  the  Augsburg  and  other  German  Confessions 
It  would  appear  from  what  Bishop  Short  says,  that  they  were  not  formally 
sanctioned  by  the  convocation,  and  that  comparatively  few  of  the  clergy 
subscribed  them. 

2.  In  1562,  the  Articles  were  submitted  to  another  examination,  remult- 
jng  in  another  amendment.     Archbishop  Parker  prepared  them  for  the 

(455) 


456  NOTE   A. 

convoca'ion,  where  they  were  consideralily  altered;  and  were  at  first 
reduced  to  thirty-eight,  which  number  contained  all  that  were  then  printed, 
and  subsecinently,  by  some  mysterious  process,  raised  to  the  present  number 
— thirty-nine.  In  the  parliament  of  1571,  Elizabeth,  who  had  previously 
successfully  opposed  the  passage  of  the  bill  sanctioning  the  Articles,  finally 
suffered  it  to  become  a  law  ;  and  as  they  had  now  received  the  sanction  of 
the  head  of  the  Anglican  church,  they  were  subscribed  and  printed. 

3.  Great  discussions  subsequently  arose  in  reference  to  several  of  these 
Articles,  particularly  the  twentieth,  concerning  the  power  of  the  church  "  to 
decree  rites  and  ceremonies  "  and  her  "  authority  in  controversies  of  faith." 
This  question  was  much  agitated  in  the  examination  of  Archbishop  Laud  in 
1637  ;  and  the  genuineness  of  the  Article  seems  to  have  been  finally  settled 
by  a  canon  published  in  1604. 

4.  It  would  be  amusing,  if  it  were  not  so  sad,  to  examine  all  the  succes- 
sive controversies  carried  on  in  the  Anglican  church  about  the  meaning  of 
the  various  Articles,  the  genuineness  of  some  of  them,  the  obligation  of 
subscribing  them,  and  the  importance  or  non-importance  attached  to  the  act 
of  subscription.  This  insular  church,  after  an  almost  continued  agitation 
and  controversy  of  three  hundred  years,  has  not  yet  been  able  to  determine 
with  certainty  as  to  the  real  nature  and  extent  of  its  fixith,  and  the  precise 
meaning  of  its  Articles  of  Religion  ! 

II.  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER. 

The  case  was  even  worse,  if  possible,  with  regard  to  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Pi'ayer.  This  has  undergone  even  more  changes,  and  has  given  rise 
to  even  more  discussions,  than  the  Articles  themselves.  We  will  merely 
note  the  dates  of  the  various  amendments  and  alterations,  as  furnished  by 
Bishop  Short,  p.  278. 

1.  In  1545  ;  the  King's  Primer,  printed  by  authority 

2.  In  1548  ;  the  first  communion  service. 

3.  In  1549 ;  first  Liturgy  of  Edward  VL  pubhshed. 

4.  In  1550 ;  First  ordination  service  published. 

5.  In  1552  ;  Second  Liturgy  of  Edward  VI. 

6.  Same  3^ear  ;  Second  ordination  service. 

7.  In  1560  ;  Liturgy  of  Elizabeth. 

8.  In  1604  ;  Alterations  introduced  by  James  I. 

9.  In  1633  ;  Alterations  by and  Charles  I. 

Archbishop  Laud  is  accused  of  having  introduced  these  last  changes ;  but 
the  author  does  not  seem  fully  to  accredit  the  charge.    See  p.  282,  and  note 

10.  In  1661 ;  Last  revision — Authorized  Liturgy. 

11.  To  this  was  subsequently  added  the  service  foi  the  consecration  of 
cburcbes,  together  with  certain  political  services. 


BOOK   OF    COMMOx\    PRAYER.  457 

Here  we  have  no  less  thcan  seven  different  revisions  of  the  Common 
Prayer  Book,  running  through  a  period  of  one  hundred  and  sixteen  years ! 
That  the  amendments  were  not  merely  verbal  or  unimportant,  is  apparent 
from  the  great  interest  taken  in  them,  by  those  most  concerned,  and  the 
angry  controversies  which  raged  on  occasion  of  them  between  different 
sections  of  the  Anglican  church ;  which  controversies  are  not  ended  to  this 
very  day  !  The  first  change  from  Henry's  Primer  to  Edward's  first  Liturgy 
was  immense,  as  every  one  concedes  ;  and  that  from  the  first  to  the  second 
Litwrgy  of  Edward,  though  the  time  intervening  was  only  three  years,  was 
also  very  considerable.  In  this  very  short  time,  what  had  been  done  "  by 
the  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  was  found  by  those  godly  men  to  have  been 
very  badly  done  ;  and  several  "  superstitious  observances  " — such  as  praying 
for  the  dead,  exorcisms,  anointing  with  oil  in  baptism  and  in  the  visitation 
of  the  sick — which  were  retained  in  1549,  were  expunged,  we  suppose  also 
"by  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  in  1552  !  (Ibid.,  p.  278-9.)  And  so  of 
many  other  subsequent  changes.  Bishop  Short  makes  one  admission  which 
we  copy  : 

"  In  giving  an  account  of  the  Common  Prayer  Book,  it  will  be  more  cor- 
rect to  describe  it  as  a  work  compiled  from  the  services  of  the  Cimrch  of 
Rome,  or  rather  as  a  translation  of  such  portions  of  them  as  were  free  from 
all  objection,  than  as  an  original  composition." — (P.  278,  \  741.) 

Though  this  is  a  well  ascertained  fact,  conceded  by  all  men  of  learning 
and  candor,  yet  we  do  not'  believe  that  it  is  either  generally  k'aown  or  gen- 
erally admitted  among  Episcopalians.  Were  we  called  upon  to  characterize 
this  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  we  should  describe  it  as  the  Roman  Missal, 
spoiled  by  a  very  partial  and  a  very  garbled  translation,  which  leaves  out 
the  very  best  parts — those  precisely  which  are  most  unearthly,  most  grand, 
and  most  sublime.  No  doubt  the  Anglican  liturgy  is  still  impressive,  and 
not  devoid  of  a  certain  grandeur  of  thought  and  expression ;  but  if  the 
mutilated  fragments  of  the  Roman  Missal  be  so  grand  and  beautiful,  what 
must  be  the  original  work  itself!  This  has  stood  in  all  its  majestic  grandeur, 
and  beautiful  proportions,  for  nearly  eighteen  hundred  years. 

Those  who  may  desire  to  examine  more  fully  this  interesting  subject,  are 
referred  to  an  excellent  work  lately  published  in  Baltimore  by  Kelly, 
Hedian  &  Piet,  entitled  "Letters  to  an  Episcopalian,  on  the  origin,  history, 
and  doctrine  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  by  Augustine  Bede ;  1859." 
In  this  volume,  the  author  of  which  is  well  known,  though  he  writes  under 
a  nom  de  plume,  the  question  is  learnedly  and  ably  discussed  in  all  its  bear- 
ings. In  order  to  complete  our  rapid  sketch,  we  extract  from  it  some  general 
conclusions  reached  by  the  author,  followed  by  an  account  of  the  changes 
introduced  in  the  United  States ;  which  latter  we  suppose  to  contain  an 
eccurate  statement  of  facts,  though  no  ai-thority  is  given : 
VOL.  II. — 39 


458  NOTE    A. 

"  There  arc  two  other  important  fiicts  which  I  have  laid  before  you  in  the 
course  of  tiiis  historical  sketch,  and  which  must  not  be  overlooked.  The 
first  is,  that  the  Prayer-Book  was  put  forth  by  parliament,  and  that  it  was 
alternately  set  up  and  abolished,  according  to  the  religious  sentiments  of  the 
reigning  sovereign.  Thus,  parliament  set  it  up  under  Edward,  and  parlia- 
ment abolished  it  imder  Marj'.  Again,  pai'liament  set  it  up  under  Elizabeth, 
»nd  parliament  abolished  it  a  second  time  under  Cromwell,  and  suljsequently 
set  it  up  a  third  time,  under  Chailes. 

"  The  second  f;\ct  is,  that  this  Prayer-Book  was  not  only  set  forth  by  par- 
liament, but  it  was  forced  upon  the  people  of  England  by  the  penal  enact- 
ments of  that  body.  Its  adoption  was  compulsory.  No  choice  was  left  to 
either  clergy  or  laymen.  However  much  opposed  to  it,  they  had  to  use  it, 
or  suffer  the  loss  of  office,  and  undergo  ruinous  fines  and  a  degrading  impris- 
onment. Thus,  its  history  is  a  history  of  persecution, — bitter,  unrelenting, 
protracted,  and  even  murderous  persecution.  Its  history,  indeed,  is  written 
in  blood.  It  is  enough  to  make  one's  hair  stand  on  end,  enough  to  make 
the  blood  boil,  to  read  of  the  cruel  sufferings  to  which  the  poor  Catholics 
were  subjected,  in  order  to  compel  them  to  adopt  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer.  And  however  much,  my  friend,  j'ou  may  esteem  that  book,  you 
must  condemn  the  cruel  and  arbitrary  measures  by  which  it  was  fastened 
upon  the  English  people.  And  whether  its  merits  be  greater  or  less,  you 
must  perceive  and  admit  that  if  it  has,  to  some  extent,  supplanted  the  Cath- 
olic Missal,  the  change  was  brought  about,  not  by  a  sense  of  the  superior 
,'xcellence  of  the  Prayer-Book,  but  by  arbitrary  power,  civil  enactments, 
and  cruel  persecutions — in  one  word,  by  hrute  force. 

"My  historical  notice  of  the  Prayer-Book  has  thus  far  been  confined  to 
the  changes  which  it  underwent  in  England.  I  have  now  to  say  something 
concerning  another  revision,  which  it  was  subjected  to  in  this  country. 
Down  to  the  period  of  our  national  independence,  the  Pra3^er-Book,  as  last 
amended  under  Chai'les  II.,  was  used  by  that  body  of  religious  persons,  in 
this  comitry,  who  acknowledged  the  authority  of  the  chuich  of  England. 
But  when  the  colonies  became  separated  from  the  mother  country,  these 
persons  considered  themselves  free,  ecclesiastically,  and  immediately  pro- 
ceeded to  establish  an  independent  church.  One  of  their  first  cares,  in  the 
process  of  setting  up  for  themselves,  was  to  alter  and  amend  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  as  they  had  received  it  from  the  old  country.  Accord- 
ingl^f,  at  a  convention  held  in  Philadelphia  in  1785,  the  Prayer-Book  under- 
went a  general  review  ;  and  among  other  great  changes  then  made  in  it,  the 
Nicene  Creed  was  thrown  out !  What  think  you  of  that,  my  friend  ?  Is  it 
not  a  terrible  argument  against  the  spirit  and  faith  of  the  members  com- 
posing that  convention  ?  The  Prayer-Book,  as  then  amended,  was  called 
'  The  Proposed  Book.'  At  a  convention  held  in  Wilmington,  the  following 
year,  the  subject  was  again  taken  up,  and  the  Nicene  Creed  was  restored, 
but  the  Athanasian  Creed  was  left  out!  And  this  latter  Creed  lias  been  left 
out  to  this  day,  although  still  retained  in  the  Prayer-Book  of  the  church  of 
England !  The  Prayer-Book,  thus  amended,  was  adojjted  and  ratified  in 
convention  in  1789,  with  the  exception,  however,  of  the  Thirty-Nine  Arti- 
".les,  which  were  the  source  of  much  controvcrs_y,  and  which  were  not 
adopted  until  the  year  1801 ;  and  only  then,  rather  because  they  found  it 
nupossible  to  agree  upon  any  other  set  of  doctrines,  than  that  tliey  relished 
the  Thirty-Nine.  But  still  the  Prayer-Book  was  imperfect.  In  1792  the 
Ordinal  was  revised  and  altered.  In  1795  a  service  was  added  for  the  con- 
secration of  a  church.     In  1804  another  office  was  inserted  in  it,  for  the 


BOOK    OF    COMMON   PRAYER.  459 

institution  of  a  minister — and  at  later  periods,  several  instalments  of  hymns 
were  added.  Thus,  it  has  already  undergone,  in  this  countr}'^,  in  a  brief 
period,  some  half  a  dozen  reviews  and  revisions,  consisting  of  omissions, 
alterations,  and  amendments,  of  more  or  less  doctrinal  importance,  even  to 
the  setting  aside,  first,  of  one  entire  creed,  then  of  another ;  both  of  them, 
creeds  which,  from  the  fourth  century,  have  been  revered  as  the  symbols  of 
true  orthodoxy !  But  after  all  the  revisions  and  amendments  which  the 
Prayer-Book  has  undergone,  first  in  England,  then  in  America,  how  utterly 
unsatisfactory  has  been  the  result.  Further  changes  have  been  repeatedly 
called  for,  and  are  still  desired,  by  many  in  both  countries.  High  Church- 
men are  not  satisfied  with  it,  and  Low  Churchmen  are  even  less  satisfied 
with  it.  And,  indeed,  I  doubt  if  a  single  Episcopalian  can  be  found  who  is 
entirely  satisfied  with  it.  All  parties  in  the  church  would  like  to  see  changes 
introduced,  but  the  great  difficulty  is,  that  they  are  unable  to  agree,  like  the 
conference  under  James  II.,  as  to  what  these  changes  shall  be.  High 
Churchmen  would  make  the  book  more  Catholic — Low  Ch-irchmen  would 
make  it  more  Protestant." — P.  51-2. 

Among  the  changes  introduced  in  the  American  revision,  we  will  mention 
but  two.  The  first  is  the  permission  given  in  the  rubric  to  "any  churches" 
which  prefer  it,  to  omit  that  part  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  which  says  of 
Christ :  "  He  descended  into  hell." — (Ibid.,  p.  149.)  The  second  is  the  total 
omission  of  the  following  important  rubric  found  in  the  English  Prayer- 
Book 

"Here  shall  the  sick  person  be  moved  to  make  a  fecial  covfession  of  his 
sins,  if  he  feel  his  conscience  troubled  with  any  weighty  matter.  After 
which  confession,  the  priest  shall  absolve  him  (if  he  humbly  and  heartily 
desire  it)  after  this  sort : 

"  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  left  power  to  His  Church  to  absolve 
all  sinners  who  truly  repent  and  believe  in  Him,  of  His  great  mercy  forgive 
thee  thine  offenses  :  and  by  His  authority  committed  to  me,  I  absolve  thee 
from  all  thy  sins,  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.     Amen."— (Ibid.,  p.  246.) 


NOTE  B,  Page  183. 
ANGLICAN  ORDINATIONS. 

In  his  "  Comparative  View  of  the  Grounds  of  the  Catholic  and  Protestant 
O'hurches,"  Dr.  Fletcher  has  treated  this  subject  with  so  much  moaeration, 
succinctness,  and  thoroughness,  that  we  can  not  probably  do  better  than  to 
republish  his  twelfth  chapter  entire.     It  will  well  repay  the  perusal. 


460  NOTE   B. 


ON    THE    ORDINATIONS    OF   THE   CHURCH    OF    ENGLAND. 

"It  is  evident  unto  all  men,  diligently  reading  the  holy  Scripture,  and  ancieu 
authority,  tliat,  from  the  apostles'  time,  there  have  been  three  orders  of  ministers  in 
Christ's  Church, — bishops,  priests,  and  deacons  ;  wliich  offices  were,  evermore,  had 
in  such  reverend  estimation,  that  no  man  might  presume  to  execute  any  of  them,  ex- 
cept he  were  first  called,  tried,  etc.;— and  also  by  public  prayer,  with  "imposition  of 
hands  were  approved,  and  admitted  thereto  by  lawful  autliority." — Preface  to  tke 
Ordination  Service. 

Such  is  the  doctrine  of  the  church  of  England.  It  believes,  like  the  Cath- 
olic, that  Christ  Jesus  has  instituted  an  order  of  ministers  in  his  Church  ; 
that  these  are  initiated  into  it  by  the  application  of  the  episcopal  consecra- 
tion ;  and  that  such  only,  who  have  received  this  holy  ordinance,  are  to  be 
considered,  eitaer  as  the  pastors  of  the  faithful,  or  as  the  administrators  of 
the  sacred  mysteries.  Whence,  in  conformity  to  such  opinion,  it  considers 
the  dissenting  ministers  of  every  sect,  and  description,  as  a  mure  set  of  lay- 
men, unauthorized  to  perform  any  spiritual  function,  and  unfitted  to  admin- 
ister any  sacrament ; — their  ministry,  no  ministry  at  all ;  their  churches,  no 
churches,  according  to  that  statement  of  Bishop  Dodwell,  which  I  have  cited 
alread)'-  :  "  where  there  is  no  episcopal  ordination,  there  is  no  ministr)^ ;  no 
sacrament ;  no  church." 

I  have  not,  in  the  foregoing  chapter,  called  in  question,  nor  so  much  as 
appeared  to  suspect  the  validity  of  the  ordinations  employed  by  the  church 
of  England.  I  have  rathei',  on  the  contrary,  supposed  or  seemed  to  sup- 
pose that  they  are  valid  :  and  that,  consequently^  by  virtue  of  them,  its 
prelates  are  truly  bishops  ;  and  its  parsons  truly  priests.  I  have,  hitherto, 
seemed  to  allow  all  this.  But,  what  then,  must  the  consequence  be,  if  it 
should  so  turn  out,  that  its  ordinations  are  after  all  null  f  and  that,  not- 
withstanding the  confident  claims  which  it  arrogates  to  itself  of  having 
inherited  the  genuine  forms,  and  rite,  of  holy  orders  from  the  parent  church, 
— still,  it  does  not  ])oss3ss  them  ?  The  consequence  in  such  case  would  be 
most  serious  ;  and  indeed,  according  to  the  maxims  themselves  of  the  estab- 
lishment, ruinous  to  its  pretensions.  For,  it  would  thus,  according  to  the 
words  just  cited  from  Dodwell,  "be  no  church;  have  no  ministry;  no 
sacrament."  Such  would  confessedly  be  the  effects  that  would  result  to 
the  established  chiu-ch  from  the  nullity  of  its  ordinations. 

The  considei'ation,  therefore,  of  this  awful  question  is,  to  the  memlwrs  of 
this  religion,  an  object  of  the  most  vital  interest.  It  has,  according! j^,  both 
at  the  early  periods  of  the  Reformation,  and  on  many  occasions  since,  awak- 
ened all  the  solicitude,  and  stimulated  all  the  talents,  zeal,  and  ingenuity  of 
its  best  defenders.  In  fact,  no  question  deserved  their  attention  bettei-. — 
However,  to  the  Catholic,  the  subject, — though  certainly  very  interesting. — 
is  jet  after  all  but  a  matter  of  secondary  moment.  Because,  since  even 
valid  ordinations  do  not  of  themselves  confer  any  aymmisslon, — the  real 
grounds  of  all  pastoral  power, — so,  of  course,  not  even  would  the  certainty 
of  the  validity  of  the  English  orders  suffice,  by  any  means,  to  prove  thfe 
divine  foundation  of  the  established  church.  It  would  prove,  indeed, — -just 
as  it  did  in  the  cases  of  the  Donatist,  and  the  Nestorian,  clergy, — that  the 
men  who  have  received  the  sacred  consecration  ai-e  i'e,\lly  bishops,  and 
priests  : — but,  it  would  prove  nothing  more.  It  would  not  prove  that  they 
are  authorized,  either  to  conduct  the  faithful,  or  to  e.xerc  ise  any  pastoral 
fundi  in.     For  these  reasons, — although  I  am  quite  unable  to  believe,  yet  I 


FLETCHER    ON    ANGLICAN    ORDINATIONS.  461 

am  not  going  to  denji,  the  validity  of  our  English  ordinations.  I  am  going 
only  to  stiite  a  few  of  those  many  circumstances,  which,  to  my  apprehension 
of  things, — and  according  to  what  I  consider  the  dictates  of  impartial  criti- 
cism, appear  to  render  the  claim  extremely  doubtful  und  improbabh. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  circumstance,  which  ought  I  conceive  to  have 
some  weight  upon  the  Protestant  who  is  not  biassed  by  partiality  or  warped 
by  prejudice, — and  which  should,  more  or  less,  abate  the  confidence  which 
he  is  plejvsed  to  found  upon  the  alleged  pretension, — that,  notwithstanding 
all  the  ardor  and  eloquence  with  which  it  has  been,  and  is  yet,  defended, — 
it  was  still  very  little  regarded  by  the  first  fiithers  antl  apostles  of  the  En- 
glish church.  For,  referring  to  the  sentiments  which  tho.se  men,  nearly  all 
of  them,  entertained,  respecting  the  subject  of  ordination,  and  the  derivation 
of  any  pedigree  from  the  parent  Church,  it  will  be  found,  that  they  were, 
not  only  very  vague  and  slovenly,  but  completely  the  reverse  to  those  which 
now  constitute  the  general  doctrines  of  the  established  clergy,  "'rhe  first 
English  reformers,"  says  Dr.  McCrie,  "by  no  means  considered  ordination 
by  the  parent  Church,  or  descending  from  the  parent  Church,  as  necessary. 
They  would  have  laughed  at  the  man,  who  would  have  asserted  seriously, 
that  the  imposition  of  the  hands  of  the  bishop  was  essential  to  the  validity 
of  ordination.  They  would  not  have  owned  that  person  as  a  Pi'otestant, 
who  would  have  ventured  to  insinuate  that,  where  this  was  wanting,  there 
was  no  Christian  ministry  ;  no  ordinance  ;  no  church  ; — and  perhaps,  no 
salvation." — "  The  private  opinions,"  he  adds,  "  of  the  first  English  reform- 
ers were  similar  to  those  of  the  reformers  of  Switzerland  and  Geneva. — 
Hooper,  in  a  letter  dated  February  8,  1550.  informs  BuUinger  that  the 
archbishop  of  Canterbury  ;  the  bishops  of  Rochester,  Ely,  St.  David's,  Lin- 
coln, and  Bath,  agreed  in  all  things  with  the  Helvetic  huiches.  Packhurst, 
bishop  of  Norwich,  in  a  letter  to  Gualter  does  .he  janie. — Cranraer  says 
positively,  that  V)ishops  and  priests,  are  not  two  things,  but  one  otfice,  in  the 
beginning  of  Christ's  religion.  Doctors  Cox  and  Redman  say  the  same 
thing.  Thirteen  bishops  and  a  great  number  of  ecclesiastics  subscribed 
the  proposition.  Latimer  and  Hooper  maintained  the  identity  of  bishops 
and  pastors,  by  divine  institution.  So  also  did  Pilkinton,  Bishop  of  Dur- 
ham, .Jewell,"  etc. 

Another  Protestant  writer, — Mr.  Macdiarmid, — speaking  of  the  notions 
which  Cranmer  entertained  upon  the  subjects  of  episcopacy  and  episcopal 
power,  observes: — "Cranmer  so  fully  considered  himself  as  merely  an 
oiBcer,  acting  by  the  king's  authority  ;  and  was  so  full}^  convinced  that  his 
episcopal  power  ended  like  that  of  other  officers  with  the  life  of  the  mon- 
arch who  conferred  it,  that  on  the  death  of  Henry  VTII.  he  refused  to 
exercise  any  jurisdiction  till  he  had  received  a  new  commission  fi'om  King 
Edward." — Indeed,  not  only  did  this  venerable  patriarch  of  the  English 
church  carry  his  ideas  to  the  foregoing  degree  of  latitude,  but  he  even  went 
so  far,  Burnet  tells  us,  as  to  maintain  that  no  ordination  whatsoever  is  re- 
quired to  make  men  bishops,  or  priests,  but  merely  the  king's  election  and 
nomination.  "  He  contended,"  says  the  historian, — who  also  has  preserved 
the  document  which  attests  the  fact, — "he  contended,  in  an  assembly  of 
bishops,  that  the  king's  election  and  nomination,  alone,  without  any  cere- 
mony of  ordination,  sufficed  to  make  priests  and  bishops." — The  same  no- 
tion. Collier  also  informs  us,  was  in  like  manner  entertained  by  Barlow,  the 
supposed  consecrator  of  Archbishop  Parker ; — and  which,  hence,  ought  here 
to  appear  the  more  striking.  "  Barlow,"  he  says,  maintained  the  same  sin- 
gular proposition." — ^Such  as  these, — so  loose  and  crude  were  the  senti- 


462  NOTE    B. 

ments  which  the  first  founders  of  the  church  of  England  entertained  upoT; 
the  subjects  of  ordination  and  spiritual  power.  The  reason  is  obvious.  They 
were  perplexed.*  They  felt  the  difhculty  and  the  inconsistency  of  pretend- 
ing to  have  derived  a  Protestant  mission  from  Catholic  pastors.  Thej^  con- 
sidered it  an  absurdity  to  affect  to  have  received  any  spiritual  generation 
from  a  church  which  they  had  reprobated  as  idolatrous  ;  and  were  actually 
pulling  down,  as  antichristian.  Their  opinions,  if  they  be  entitled, — as 
surely  they  should  be, — to  the  respect  of  the  established  clergy,  or  of  the 
Protestant  in  general,  ought,  at  all  events,  to  lessen  that  overweening  confi- 
dence which  they  found  upon  the  alleged  grounds  of  episcopal  ordinations. 

However,  it  is  true,  that  the  above  opinions,  although  thus  strikingly 
recommended  ;  and  although  even  they  continued  to  be  the  prevailing  doc- 
trines of  the  reformers  during  the  reigns  Ixith  of  Henr}'  and  the  sixth 
Edward, — yet,  on  the  accession  of  Elizabeth, — the  leal  foundress  of  the 
present  establishment, — they  appear  to  have  considerably  subsided  ;  and 
sentiments  more  consonant  to  the  venerable  doctrines  of  antiquity,  again 
returned  to  engage  the  public  mind.  At  all  events,  this  is  certain,  that 
Ehzabeth  had  not  imbibed  the  Calvinistic  notions  of  the  first  reformers. 
She  had  been  educated  more  or  less  a  Catholic ;  and  although,  from  motives 
of  policy  and  temporal  interest,  she  had  resolved  to  pull  down  the  Catholic 
Church, — still,  revering  many  of  its  institutions,  she  at  the  same  time  was 
desirous  to  retain  them.  She  was  an  admirer  of  the  Ejiiscopal  order  ;  either 
because  she  considered  it  as  established  by  our  Redeemer  foi-  the  government 
of  his  kingdom  ; — because  it  was  consonant  to  the  general  wishes  of  the 
public; — because  it  was  a  splendid  and  ornamental  thing; — or  else,  because 
she  looked  upon  it  as  the  best  remedy  against  the  growth  of  puritanism  ; 
which,  also,  she  disliked,  as  peculiarly  hostile  to  the  claims  of  monarchy. 
She  therefore, — beginning  as  she  now  was  to  organize  anew  both  the 
church  and  the  state, — determined  to  preserve  the  sacred  institution. 

But  then,  there  occurred  here  a  very  serious  and  perplexing  difficultj'. 
It  was, — how  to  procure  the  consecrators  of  her  new  ministiy.  She  had 
deposed  and  imprisoned  the  Catholic  bishops ;  who  all  save  Kitchin  had 
refused  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy : — whilst,  in  relation  to  Edward's 
prelates,  she  seems, — as  they  were  a  set  of  Zuinglians ;  and  as,  moreover, 
their  consecration  had  been  declared  null  in  the  preceding  reign  of  Mary, — 
she  seems  to  have  entertained  a  very  mean  opinion  of  their  competency  to 
perform  the  sacred  rite.  Wherefore,  knowing  as  she  did  that  the  real  epis- 
copal character  was  vested  in  the  persons  of  the  Catholic  bishops,  she, 
accordingly,  although  reluctantly, — for  she  had  persecuted  them  severely, — 
addressed  herself  to  these.  She,  in  the  first  instance,  indeed, — being  appre- 
hensive of  a  refusal, — applied  to  Dr.  Creagh,  the  archbishop  of  Armagh,  who 
was  at  that  time  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower.  She  urged  him  to  perform  the 
important  task,  promising  him,  upon  this  condition,  not  only  his  liberty 
but  great  rewards.     However,  the  good  man  refused. — Disappointed  in  this 

*  We  find,  that  even  so  late  as  the  year  1562,  when  Parker,  Jewell,  Horn,  etc.,  gave 
out  their  new  version  of  the  Scriptures,  distorting  the  sacred  text,  they  interpi-eted 
the  ^(^iiporovii,  (which  antiquity,  always, and  even  modern  Protestant  translators,  now 
interpret  "  the  impo.sition  of  hands,") — they  interpreted  tliis, — "ordination  by  elec- 
tion,"—meaning  thus  to  imply,  that  the  election  of  the  princ(>,  without  the  need  of 
any  episcopal  consecration,  suffices  to  make  men  bishops.  This  translation  was  suf-; 
fered,  too,  to  remain  in  the  approved  vei'sions  of  the  Bible  until  the  reign  of  James 
the  First,  when  the  ancient  letter, — "imposition  of  hands," — was  again  restored  to 
ihc  sacred  text.  The  circumstance  of  the  perverted,  but  artful  expedient,  serves 
forcibly  to  point  out  the  sentiments  of  the  men  who  used  it. 


FLETCHER    ON    ANGLICAN    ORDINATIONS.  463 

attempt,  she  now,  therefore,  applied  to  the  aforesaid  prelates.  She  issued  a 
commission,  directed  to  the  followinq:  individuals, — Tiinstal,  Vjishop  of  Dur- 
ham ;  Bourne,  of  Bath  ;  Pole,  of  Peterborough  ;  and  Kitchin,  of  Llandaff, 
— -joining  to  them,  in  the  instrument,  Barlow,  moreover,  and  Scorey  ;  and 
directing  them  to  consecrate  Dr.  Matthew  Parker,  archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
But  the  four  former,  just  like  the  venerable  Creagh,  resolutely  declined  the 
oflSce.  Not  even  could  Kitchin  himself,  with  all  his  mean  obsequiousness, 
be  induced  to  perform  it.  Wherefore,  hopeless  of  success  from  any  of  the 
ancient  prelates,  she  now  issued  another  commission,  addressed  to  William 
Barlow,  John  Scorey,  Miles  Coverdale,  and  John  FTodskins  ;  empowering 
these  to  consecrate,  as  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Doctor  Matthew  Parker. 
These  men,  therefore,  according  to  the  testimony  of  fJie  Lambeth  register, — 
performed  the  important  action.  The  ceremony  took  place,  says  the  same 
instrument,  upon  the  17th  of  December,  anno  1559.  Thus  was  created  and 
organized,  the  present  hierarchy  of  the  established  church ;  thus  were  laid 
the  foundations  of  its  ))astoral  power ;  and  thus,  also,  say  its  defenders,  its 
ministers  are  now  portions  of  those  hallowed  links,  which  constitute  the 
apostolic  chain. 

But,  alas — such  is,  forever,  the  fate  of  religious  innovations,  scarcely  had 
the  above  act  taken  place,  (if|  indeed,  it  ever  did  take  place,)  when  a  series 
of  doubts  and  apprehensions,  founded  upon  a  great  variety  of  motives,  began 
to  agitate  the  public  mind.  The  Catholics,  who  still  formed  the  far  larger 
portion  of  the  nation,  unanimously  denied,  not  only  the  competency  of  the 
aforesaid  men  to  perform  the  act  of  episcopal  consecration, — but  they  denied 
even,  that  they  had  ever,  themselves,  received  such  consecration.  They 
contended  that  Barlow,  the  chief  acting  consecrator  (as  it  was  alleged)  on 
the  eventful  occasion,  was  no  bishop.  Such  was  the  language  of  the  Cath- 
olics ;  who  loudly,  at  the  same  time,  and  incessantly,  called  upon  their  Prot- 
estant antagonists  to  produce, — if  the  fact  were  really  true — some  attestation 
or  other  to  evince  it : — as  to  evince  it,  was  certainly  of  the  most  vital  moment 
to  the  church  of  England. — But,  so  it  is : — the  attestation  was  sought  for, 
and  has  been  sought  for,  till  the  present  day, — in  vain.  Neither  Archbishop 
Bramhall,  with  all  his  industry  ;  nor  Ma.son,  with  all  his  art ;  nor  Burnet, 
with  all  his  researches ;  nor  Warton,  with  all  his  learning,  could  ever  find 
out  the  uj?eful  instrument.  So  that  Stevens,  a  learned  Protestant  clergy- 
man, makes  the  following  observation  upon  the  circumstance  :  "It  is  a  won- 
derful thing,  by  what  chance,  or  providence  it  happened,  that  Barlow's 
consecration,  who  M^as  the  principal  actor  in  this,  should  nowhere  appear ; 
nor  any  positive  proof  of  it  be  found,  in  more  than  fourscore  j'ears  since  it 
was  first  questioned,  by  all  the  .search  that  could  be  made  by  so  many 
learned,  and  industrious,  and  curious  persons."  (Great  question.)  The 
thing  is,  indeed,  certain,  that  the  supposed  consecration  of  Barlow  is  one  of 
those  facts,  which  not  all  the  diligence,  nor  all  the  ingenuity  of  the  estab- 
lished clergv  have,  ever  yet,  been  able  to  evince  satisflictorily  ; — a  circum- 
stance, surely,  which  .should  seem  to  merit  very  serious  consideration.  For, 
if  Barlow,  the  consecrator,  were  not-  himself  a  bishop, — then  neither  could 
he  make  Parker,  the  conserrnted,  such  : — since,  according  to  the  received 
orinciple  of  the  church  of  England,  it  is  only  a  bishop  that  can  make  a 
bishop.* 


*  A  circumstance,  too,  which  possibly  ini^lit  have  increased  the  unwillinofnoss  of 
the  public  to  believe  in  the  consecration  of  Barlow,  was  the  well  known  opinion, 
which  this  man  had  liimself  lono:  entertained,  and  publicly  avowed,  upon  the  suliject 
of  episcopal  ordination.     It  was  his  professed  doctrine,  declared  solemnly  before  the 


464  NOTE   B. 

Anothei  consirleration,  which,  at  least  equallv  ^^nth  the  preceding,  exciteJ 
a  great  deal  of  suspicion,  not  only  in  the  minds  of  Catholics,  but  also  amongst 
multitudes  of  thinking  ProteRtants,  was  this, — -that  even  the  very  action 
itself  of  the  alleged  consecration  of  Parker  was  very  generally  disbelieved 
— as  it  certainly  does  now  appear  to  be  a  very  dark  and  mysterious  ques- 
tion. "If,"  said  the  public,  "a  ceremony  of  such  infinite  importance  have 
really  taken  place,  how  then  comes  it,  that  there  are  no  undoubted  evidences 
to  attest  it? — no  witness  to  vouch  for  it?  How  comes  it,  that  it  has  not 
been  generally  known  and  noticed  ?"  Hence,  the  Catholic  writers  of  that 
period, — men,  too,  the  most  acute  and  learned  ;  men  who  watched  every 
occurrence,  and  pryed  into  every  event,  in  the  new  order  of  things ;  men, 
moreover,  who  were,  some  of  them,  personally  acquainted  with  the  newly- 
appointed  bishops,  (they  were  such  men  as  Harding,  Stapleton,  Allen,  Bris- 
tow,)  all  loudly  declared  that  the  whole  transaction  was  an  empty  fiction. — 
They  defied  their  antagonists, — Jewell,  Horn,  etc., — to  prove  the  contrary. 
"You  say,"  observed  Harding  to  Jewell,  "that  you  are  a  bishop  by  the 
consecration  of  the  archbishop  (Parker).  But,  pray,  how  was  the  archbishop 
himself  consecrated  ?  Your  metropolitan,  who  should  give  authority  to  all 
your  consecrations,  had,  himself,  no  consecration."  To  these  challenges, — at 
a  time,  when,  if  ill-founded,  it  was  most  ea.sy,  and  certainly  most  important, 
to  have  refuted  them, — no  satisfactory  answered  was  returned. — The  circum- 
stance, too,  is  singular,  that  the  alleged  act  of  the  consecration  of  Parker  is 
not  noticed  by.  any  Protestant  writer,  or  historian,  of  that  period, — not  even 
by  Stowe  himself,  the  warm  friend  and  confidant  of  the  prelate.  I  do  not 
say  that  this  silence  was  sufficient  to  authorize  the  conclusion  that  the 
ceremony  did  not  take  place.  But,  it  was  enough  to  excite, — as  it  did,  and 
forever  must  excite, — very  strong  suspicions  upon  the  subject. 

A  third  consideration,  which  again  in  the  eyes  of  multitudes  contributed 
to  lessen  theii-  confidence  in  the  first  Protestant  ordinations,  was  the  circum- 
stance that  they  were  completely  «??.OT??on/ra7 ; — and  indeed  not  only  this, 
but  even  ilh(jril  too.  They  were  uncanonical,  because  they  were  adminis- 
tered without  the  consent,  both  of  the  metropolitan,  and  of  the  bishops  of 
the  province ; — or  rather,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  will  of  both  of  them. 
They  were  uncanonical,  because  neither  Barlow  nor  his  fellow-consecrators, 


assembly  of  bishops,  etc.,  which  was  held  at  Windsor,  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign 
of  Edward  VI., — that  episcopal  consecration  is  an  useless  ceremony:  and  that  the 
king's  nomination  suffices,  alone,  to  make  a  bishoj).  This  is  a  fact,  which  both 
Burnet,  in  his  History  of  the  Reformation,  and  Stillingfleet,  in  his  Irenicon,  each  of 
them  admit.  Tlie  thing,  no  doubt,  was  calculated  to  increase  the  public  suspicion, 
respecting  the  man's  own  consecration.  For,  if  he  had  been  really  consecrated,  he 
would  not,  they  conceived,  have  thought  and  spoken  as  lie  had  done.  The  opinion, 
too,  might  liavo  been  somewhat  confiimed  by  tlie  consideration  of  the  well  known 
fact,  that,  although  both  Latimer  and  Ridley  had  acted  as  bishops,  and  sat  in  parlia- 
ment as  sucli,  yet  they  had  not,  either  of  them,  received  any  other  consecration,  save 
that  of  priesthood.  Tlius,  Foxe  relates  in  his  Mavtyrology,  that  when  these  men,  pre- 
viously to  their  execution,  were  solemnly  degraded  by  the  spiritual  powei',  tlie  offici- 
ating minister  on  the  occasion,— Dr.  brooks,  the  bishop  of  Gloucester,— ''declared 
them  degraded,  not  from  the  episcojial  character,  because  they  had  never  received  it, 
but  only  from  their  priestly  character."  Tlie  situation  of  Barlow  was,  probably 
similarto  theirs.  If  bishop,  he  was  only  such  by  princely  nomination.  "Eveii 
Cromwell,"  says  Towgood,  "the  vicegerent  of  Henry,  could  make  bishops." 

It  would  seem  as  if  Bishop  Bancroft  himself,  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
James,  entertained  no  very  strong  conviction  of  the  episcopal  character  of  Barlow. 
For,  when  pressed  by  Dr.  Alabaster,  on  the  subject  of  Parker's  consecration,  his  rei)ly 
WIS  :  "  I  hope,  in  case  of  necessity,  a  priest  may  be  sufficient  for  to  ordain  a  bishop." 


FLETCHER    ON   ANGLICAN    OKDINATIONS.  465 

(supposing  these  men  to  have  really  performed  the  act ;  and  to  have  been 
really,  at  the  same  time,  bishops)  possessed,  at  the  period  of  the  supposed 
ceremony,  one  particle  of  canonical  jurisdiction.  They  were  even,  at  that 
period,  themselves  under  the  sentence  of  canonical  deposition  from  every 
religious  function. — I  have  said,  too,  that  these  first  ordinations,  besides 
being  uncanonical,  were,  moreover,  illegal.  This  indeed  is  certain.  Be- 
cause the  first  consecrators,  when  they  are  supposed  to  have  performed  the 
solemn  act,  were  then  actually  laboring  under  the  sentence  of  legal  depriva- 
tion by  the  state  itself.  The  case  was  this : — the  laws  of  Mar}^,  which  had 
repealed  the  ordinal  of  Edward,  were  still  in  force ;  not  having  bt;en,  as  yet, 
altered  by  the  authority  of  the  parliament.  The  oi'dinal  of  Edward  had 
been  repealed  and  condemned  in  the  year  1553, — the  first  of  Mary.  This 
repeal  and  condemnation  continued  still  the  standing  law  of  the  nation,  until 
the  year  1562, — the  third  of  Elizabeth.  And  it  was  during  the  above  inter- 
val, that  Parker's  presumed  consecration,  as  well  as  that  of  a  ^q\\  other 
prelates,  are  supposed  to  have  taken  place ;  and  that  these  men  did  actually 
take  possession  of  the  sees  of  their  Catholic  predecessors. — So  that  the 
whole  transaction  is  thus  replete  with  objections, — a  breach  of  the  canons, 
which  it  violated  ;  and  an  outrage  of  the  laws,  which  it  infringed.  Insomuch 
that  our  historians  tell  us,  that  the  newly-intruded  bishops  began,  them- 
selves, to  be  uneasy.  "It  was  doubted,"  says  Neale,  "whether  Parker's 
consecration  was  canonical :  1st,  because  the  persons  engaged  in  it  had  been 
canonically  deprived,  and  were  not  yet  restored ;  2ndly,  because  the  conse- 
cration ought  to  have  been  directed  according  to  the  statute  of  the  25th  of 
Henry  VIII. ;  and  not  according  to  the  form  of  King  Edward's  ordinal ; 
inasmuch  as  that  book  had  been  set  aside  in  the  last  reign,  and  was  not  yet 
restored  by  parliament.  These  objections  made  the  new  bishops  uneasy. 
They  began  to  doubt  of  the  validity  of  their  ordination."* 

Indeed,  induced  by  the  above  considerations,  as  well  as  by  many  others, 
which  I  have  not  cited,  there  were  several  Protestant  writers  ; — and  these, 
too,  very  distinguished  members  of  the  established  church, — who  fiiirly  gave 
up  the  pretended  claim ;  going  even  so  far  as  to  throw  ridicule  upon  the 

*  We  may  trace  a  similar  kind  of  diffidence  pervading  the  minds  of  the  queen's 
judges,  even  some  time  after  the  consecration,  or  supposed  consecration,  of  the  new 
prelacy.  Bonner  had  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy,  which  had  been  tendered 
to  him  by  Horn,  the  presumed  bishop  of  Winchester.  His  refusal  was  founded  upon 
the  plea,  that  Horn  was  not  really  a  bisliop ;  nor,  therefore,  properly  empowered  to 
enquire,  or  tender  such  an  oath.  The  case  e.xcited  great  attention.  It  was  first  tried 
m  the  public  court  ;  and  then  referred  to  the  consideration  of  all  the  judges.  These, 
having  long  deliberated  upon  it,  decided  that  the  plea  of  Bonner  should  be  received, 
and  the  case  be  again  committed  to  a  jury,  in  the  county  of  Surrey.  However,  here, 
Heylin  informs  us,  the  government  interfered  ;  and  commanded, — deeming  the  thing 
more  prudent,— "that  the  decision  of  the  point  should  be  referred  to  the  following 
parliament,  for  fear  that  such  a  weighty  matter  might  miscarry."  Here,  then,  the 
business  appears  to  have  stopped.  For  Bonner,  although  so  peculiarly  hateful  to  the 
Protestants,  was  no  more  molested.  However,  it  was  in  the  ensuing  parliament,  (8 
Eliz. )  that  in  order  in  some  degree  to  check  the  growing  scandal,  the  new  bishops 
were  declared,  at  all  events,  "legal  bishops;" — whence  they  long  bore  the  name  of 
"parliamentar}'  bishops." 

And  not  only  did  this  diffidence  prevail  during  the  earlier  periods  after  the  first 
organization  of  the  new  religion, — it  continued,  we  find, — and  this,  again,  amongst  the 
Protestants, — even  so  late  as  in  the  reign  of  tlie  first  Charles.  Tluis,  Panzani,  the 
papal  envoy  at  this  prince's  court,  and  who  from  his  intercourse  with  tiie  cliief  no- 
bility was  peculiarly  competent  to  know  their  sentiments,  informs  us  in  his  Memoirs, 
that  "  nearly  all  the  principal  nobility  who  died — although  reputed  Protestants — dierf 
Catholics." 


4G6  NOTE   B. 

notion  of  a  Protestant  church  deriving  orders  from  the  Church  of  Rome 
Such  were  Whittaker,  Fulke,  Sutclili',  etc.  "I  would  not  have  you  think," 
Bays  the  former  writer,  "  that  we  make  such  reckoning  of  your  orders,  as  tc 
hold  our  own  vocation  unlawful  without  them.  And  therefore  keep  your 
orders  to  yourselves."  The  language  of  Fulke  is  similar  to  this.  "  You 
are  much  deceived,"  he  says,  in  his  repl)^  to  a  counterfeit  Catholic,  "you  are 
much  deceived,  if  you  think  we  esteem  your  offices  of  bishops,  priests,  and 
deacons,  any  better  than  laymen  ;  and  you  presume  too  much  to  think  that 
we  receive  your  ordering  to  be  lawful.  Again,  with  all  our  hearts,  we  defy, 
abhor,  detest,  and  spit  at  your  stinking,  greasy,  antichristian  orders."  (Re- 
tentive.) Surely  it  is  not  thus  that  these  men  would  have  written,  if  they 
had  conceived  that  the  hierarchy  of  their  church  had  dei-ived  its  commission, 
and  received  its  sacred  character  through  the  medium  of  the  ancient  pastors. 

The  doubts,  the  misgivings,  and  apprehensions  which  thus  pervaded  the 
feelings  of  the  public,  were  peculiarly  injurious  to  the  new  order  of  things; 
and  might  even,  unless  they  had  been  arrested,  have  proved  fatal  to  it. 
Elizabeth  .and  her  ministers  were  feelingly  sensible  of  this  :  and  they  accord- 
ingly devised  a  variety  of  expedients  to  stay  the  growing  evil.  Amongst 
other  contrivances  for  this  purpose,  they  issued  a  proclamation,  wherein  they 
caution  the  public  against  "  the  slanders "  cast  upon  the  new  order  of  the 
epi.scopacy;  assuring  them  that  "the  same  evil  speech  and  talk  is  not 
grounded  upon  any  just  matter  or  cause."  This,  no  doubt,  was  charitable. 
But,  as  such  assurances  did  not  suffice  to  allay  the  the  general  discontent, 
a  remedy  more  effectual  was  now  resorted  to.  It  was  this  : — clothing  her- 
self in  the  mantle  of  that  spiritual  omnipotence  which  the  laws  had  con- 
ferred upon  her,  and  addressing  a  commission  to  the  newly-created  pastors, 
— Elizabeth  solemnly  tells  them  that  she  now,  by  virtue  of  her  supreme 
power,  dispenses  with  every  defect,  and  supplies  for  every  deficiency  which 
may  have  attended  their  ordination.  "  We  supply"  says  she  to  them,  "by 
our  supreme  royal  authoritj^,  whatever  is  wanting  or  shall  be  wanting,  in 
order  to  the  performance  of  the  premises ;  either  in  the  things  which  shall 
be  done  by  you,  or  in  any  one  of  you,  your  condition,  state,  or  power,  etc. — 
the  circumstances  of  Ihe  time  ami  the  urgency  of  affairs  rendering  it  necessary." 
Such  was  the  contrivance  ;  such  the  panacea,  designed  by  the  ingenuity  of 
Elizabeth  and  her  ministers  to  remove  the  doubts,  and  to  appease  the  appre- 
hensions of  the  public,  on  the  score  of  the  new-formed  hierarchy.  If  seri- 
ously considered,  the  scheme  was  rather  calculated  to  hjghten  suspicion 
than  to  allay  it. 

Accordingly,  it  did  not  allay  it.  The  doubts,  and  fears,  and  suspicions,  of 
of  the  public  still  remained  unabated.  AVherefore,  she  had  now  recour.se 
(this  was  in  the  eighth  year  of  her  reign) — she  had  now  recourse  to  a  bet- 
ter, because  a  somewhat  stronger,  expedient.  She  procured  an  act  of  par- 
liament to  be  passed,  to  give  an  additional  force  and  sanction  to  the 
preceding  mandate.  In  this  she  again  declares  to  the  nation  that,  "  by  her 
supreme  power  .and  authority,  she  h.as  dispensed  with  all  causes,  and 
doubts,  of  any  imperfections,  or  disabilities,  that  can,  or  may,  in  an}'  wi.se, 
be  objected  .ag.ainst  the  same,  etc.  So  that  it  is  and  ma}-  be  very  evident 
and  apparent,  that  no  cause  of  scruple,  ambiguity,  or  doubt,  can,  or  m.ay, 
justly  be  cbjected  against  the  said  elections,  confirmations,  or  consecrations. 
Wherefore,  be  it  now  declared,  and  en.acted,  that  all  persons  that  have  been 
or  shall  be  m.ade,  ordered,  or  consecrated,  archbishops,  bishops,  etc.,  afler 
the  form  and  order  prescribed  in  the  said  order  and  form,  how  archbishops, 
bishops,  etc.,  should  be  consecnated, — be  in  very  deed,  archbishops,  bishops, 


FLETCHER    ON   ANGLICAN    ORDINATIONS  467 

etc., — any  statute,  law,  canon,  or  other  being,  to  the  contrary,  notwithstand- 
ing." Such  is  the  act,  or  i-ather  abstract  of  the  act,  provided  by  the  policy 
of  Elizabeth,  for  the  security  of  the  established  church ;  for  the  confirmation 
of  its  pastors  ;  and  for  the  removal  of  the  public  scruples.  "  It  was  thus," 
says  Heylin,  speaking  of  the  above  law, — "  it  was  thus  that  the  church  is 
strongly  settled  upon  its  natural  pillars." 

How  far  the  singular  measure  may  have  removed,  or  is  calculated  to  re- 
move, the  scruples  of  the  Protestant  mind,  it  is  not  for  me  to  say.  Neale 
tells  us,  that  "it  removed  the  scruples  of  the  bishops."  (It  put  these  men, 
let  the  reader  observe,  in  possession  of  the  privileges  and  temporal  preroga- 
tives of  their  Catholic  predecessors  : — which,  no  doubt,  was  not  a  little 
calculated  to  cure  their  scruples.)  But,  is  the  act  itself  really  of  such  nature, 
as  to  suffice  to  allay  the  doubts  and  to  satisfy  the  misgivings  of  a  prudent 
man  ?  I  think  not.  It  admits  the  defects  to  which  the  public  had  ob- 
jected :  only,  it  dispenses  with  them.  But,  then,  by  what  authority  ?  By 
the  authority  of  a  female,  assuming  to  herself  far  more  than  papal  power ; 
and  by  the  sanction  of  a  set  of  legislators,  invested  with  no  spiritual  char- 
acter, but  created  only  for  the  enactment  of  temporal,  and  human  laws. 
To  my  feelings,  the  circumstance  appears  less  calculated  to  appease  old  ap- 
prehensions, than  to  inspire  and  awaken  fresh  ones. 

The  apprehensions,  indeed,  still  continued  general.  The  Catholics  pressed 
<he  awful  subject  incessantly  upon  the  public  attention.  And  whilst  it  an- 
noyed the  established  clerg)^,  it  had,  also,  the  effect  of  withholding,  or  with- 
drawing, multitudes  from  their  communion.  Hence,  some  proceeding  again, 
more  efficacious,  if  possible,  than  any  of  the  foregoing  ones,  became  very 
urgently  necessary.  The  resources  of  art  lire  infinite  :  and  therefore,  the 
useful  secret  was  at  length  discovered. 

One  of  the  great  arguments,  the  reader  has  seen,  which  the  Catholics  had 
made  use  of  to  disprove  the  validity  of  the  new  ordinations ; — or  rather,  to 
give  no  credit  to  them, — was  this, — that  there  did  not  exist  any  evidence 
even  to  attest  the  alleged  and  simple  fact,  that  the  consecration  of  Parker, 
the  great  keystone  of  the  new  episcopal  arch,  had  ever,  itself,  so  much  as 
taken  place.  There  was  no  register,  they  said  ;  no  seal,  or  document,  to 
prove  it.  The  objection  was  certainly  striking ;  and  it  gave  rise  to  great 
perplexity.  However,  behold,  at  length,  (it  was  after  the  long  interval  of 
above  fifty  years)  the  great  mystery  became  unraveled.  Turning  over  one 
day  at  Lambeth,  a  heap  of  musty  records  and  long  neglected  papers,  the 
learned  and  curious  Mr.  Mason,  who  was,  at  that  time,  the  chaplain  of 
Archbishop  Abbot,  chanced  to  hit  upon  the  very  instrument  which  had  so 
long  been  wanted  ;  and  which  the  Catholics  had  in  vain  so  loudly  called 
for, — the  very  register  itself  of  Parher\s  consecration !  The  discovery  was 
deemed  quite  providential ;  and  at  all  events,  particularly  fortunate.  In 
this  important  document,  there  are  attested,  not  only  the  fact  of  the  con- 
secration of  Parker,  the  place,  the  time,  etc.;  but  the  whole  process  and 
order  of  the  ceremony.  So  that  now  it  was  hoped  that  the  objections  of 
the  Catholics  would  be  silenced,  at  least  upon  this  score. 

I  have  not  denied  the  validity  of  the  English  ordinations.  For  this 
reason,  I  am  not  going  to  assert,  either  that  the  above  register  w<as  rot  dis- 
covered :  or  that  the  ceremony,  which  it  announces,  was  not  performed. 
My  design  is  only  to  show,  that,  in  what  relates  to  the  new  hierarchy,  there 
is  always  a  something  or  other  that  is  awkward,  and  that  tends  to  excite 
suspicion.  —  No  sooner,  then,  was  the  instrument  brought  forward,  and 
.triumphantly  proclaimed,  than  the  Catholics, — ^for  the  spirit  of  crilicisra  is 


4GS  NOTE   B. 

never  still, — protested  positively  against  it.  They  treated  it  as  a  piece  of 
forgery,  the  useful  dicttite  of  the  archbishop,  and  the  handiwork  of  Masou. 
Perhaps,  they  were  mistaken.  But  after  all  there  was,  certainly,  a  great 
deal  in  the  whole  transaction  that  was  calculated  to  awake  suspicion.  An 
instrument,  or  attestation,  such  as  the  above,  was  of  the  highest  moment  to 
the  Protestant  cause  ;  both  in  order  to  silence  the  reproaches  of  the  Catho- 
lics, and  to  appease  the  uneasiness  of  the  public.  The  Catholics  had  inces- 
santly called  for  it,  and  challenged  the  new  prelates  to  produce  it.  "  We  say 
to  you,  Mr.  Jewell,"  called  out  Harding,  "and  to  each  of  your  companions, 
show  us  the  register  of  your  bishops  ;  show  us  the  letters  of  your  orders." 
The  challenge  was  given  in  vain.  No  register  was  produced  ;  no  letters  of 
orders  were  cited.  It  was  only  after  the  long  lapse  of  four  and  fifty  years, 
that  the  useful  evidence  at  last  came  to  light.  Now,  whence  this  astonish- 
ing silence  ?  Whence,  this  long  neglect,  or  forgetfulnes.s,  of  a  document, 
which  must  have  been  of  infinite  service  to  the  newly  established  church  ? 
If  it  had  really  existed,  said  the  Catholics,  it  could  neither  have  been 
neglected,  nor  forgotten.  Hence,  they  inferred,  that  the  instrument  was  a 
forgery.  I  have  Just  now  said,  that  possibly  their  opinion  was  false.  Their 
arguments,  too,  are  only  negative.  Still,  however,  there  is  much  in  the 
whole  business  that  is  singular  ;  much,  that,  according  to  the  canons  of  gen- 
eral criticism,  it  is  diflBcult  to  reconcile  and  solve  ;  and  much,  therefore, 
(for  this  is  all  that  I  am  now  contending) — much  that  leaves  ample  room 
for  doubt  and  apprehension. 

I  will  consider  only  one  further  circumstance,  in  relation  to  the  present 
subject.  It  is  one,  which,  like  those  which  I  have  been  discu.ssing,  has 
always  been  the  source  of  a  great  deal  of  controversy ;  and  to  multitudes 
the  occasion  of  a  great  deal  of  diffidence  and  tear.  It  is  a  circumstance, 
moreover,  peculiarly  important ;  and  happily,  less  involved  in  any  obscurity, 
and  more  easy  to  appreciate,  than  the  arguments  just  dismissed.  It  is  a 
circumstance,  which,  although  it  may  still  leave  room  for  doubt  to  some 
minds,  removes  every  doubt  from  mine  : — insomuch  that  if  there  existed  no 
other  motive  for  disbelieving  the  vahdity  of  the  English  ordinations,  this 
alone  would  engage  me  to  do  so.  I  am  allmiing  to  the  form  of  ordination, 
which  is  prescribed  in  the  ordinal  of  Edward  VI.;  and  which  was,  alone, 
made  use  of  by  the  established  church,  during  the  interval  of  upwards  of  a 
century.  If  that  form  be  invalid,  the  whole  question  is  at  once  decided. 
For  then,  invalid  also  must  have  been  the  ordinations  imparted  by  it.  Be- 
cause it  is  only  a  valid  form  that  can  confer  a  valid  consecration,  and  there- 
fore, create  a  valid,  and  real  priesthood.  So  that  nearly  the  whole  dispute, 
which  relates  to  the  established  church,  might  be  compressed  into  the  in- 
vestigation of  this  single  and  simple  question. 

It  is  a  maxim,  then,  in  religion,  which  the  members  of  the  established 
church  admit  equally  with  the  Catholics  ;  and  which  indeed  no  rational 
believer  will  contest, — that  in  the  administration  of  the  sacraments,  or  in 
the  dispensation  of  those  external  mediums  which  our  divine  Redeemer  has 
established  in  order  to  confer  grace  and  sanctification  upon  the  faithful, — • 
it  is  essential  to  employ  only  those /or?«.5,  and  to  i-etain  that  maitcr,  which 
have  been  selected  by  his  wisdom,  and  sanctioned  l)y  his  authoi'ity.  The 
reason  of  this  is  manifest.  It  is, — that  since  grace  is  not  in  the  power,  nor 
under  the  control,  of  man,  so  it  is  not,  consequently,  within  the  power  of 
any  human  being  to  attach  its  gift,  or  communication,  to  any  external  act 
or  object.  Tu  do  this,  is  only  in  the  will  and  power  of  him,  who  is  be 
author  of  grace  and  the  source  of  sanctification. — Accordingly,  the       '• 


FLETCHER    ON    ANGLICAN     ORDINATIONS.  4G& 

sequence  is, — and  it  is  also  the  doctrine  of  the  established  church, — that, 
since  episcopacy  is  a  sacred  institution,  and  imparted  through  the  external 
medium  of  hoi}'  orders, — so,  of  course,  only  that  form  should  be  employed  in 
its  communication  ;  only  that  form  can  effectually  confer  the  hallowed  dig- 
nity, which  has  been  dictated  to  us,  and  established  by  the  Eternal  Wisdom. 
It  must  necessarily  be  divine.  And  since  too,  in  conformity  to  the  nature 
of  things,  and  to  the  properties  of  all  the  other  institutions  of  grace,  since  it 
is  established,  in  order  to  confer  a  peculiar  g^-ace,  and  a  peculiar  character,  so 
it  ought,  moreover,  to  be  composed  of  such  words,  or  of  such  an  order  of 
terms,  as  are  expiessive  of  such  grace,  and  descriptive  of  such  appropriate 
character.  This  too  is  a  maxim,  which  the  theology  of  the  English  church 
admits. 

Wherefore,  these  preliminary  observations  made,  let  us  now  proceed  to 
examine  what  that  form  of  ordination  is,  which  is  prescribed  in  King  Ed- 
ward's ordinal  ;  and  which,  also,  I  have  observed,  was  alone  made  use  of 
in  the  consecration  of  tlie  English  hierarchy  for  the  space  of  above  a  century. 
The  following  is  the  tenor  of  it :  '  Take  the  Holy  Ghost  ;  and  remember, 
that  thou  stir  up  the  grace  of  God,  which  is  in  thee  by  the  imposition  of 
hands  :  for,  God  hath  not  given  us  the  spirit  of  fear,  but  of  power,  and  love, 
and  soberness." — That  these  are  the  words,  which,  along  with  the  imposi- 
tion of  hands,  constitute  the  form  of  the  episcopal  consecration,  is  a  point, 
which  no  one,  I  conceive,  will  pretend  to  call  in  question.  For,  except 
these,  there  is  certainly  nothing  in  the  whole  series  of  the  rest  of  the  expres- 
sions, that  can  reasonably  appear  to  do  so.  Whoever  weighs  all  the  words, 
which  are  made  use  of  in  the  administration  of  the  sacred  rite,  whether 
those  which  precede  the  above  ;  or  those  which  follow  them, — will  feel 
convinced  that  there  is  not  anj'  thing  in  either  of  them  to  which  it  is  po.s- 
sible  to  attach  the  grace  and  virtue  of  consecration.  The  words,  which 
precede  the  above,  imply  manifestly,  that  the  individual  upon  whom  the 
solemn  action  is  now  performing  is  not  yet  consecrated.  Tiic  words  which 
follow  them,  just  as  obviously  imply  that  he  is  now  consecrated.  In  short, 
if  there  be  any  thing  in  the  aforesaid  ordinal  that  constitutes  the  form,  and 
can  be  supposed  to  communicate  the  character,  of  the  episcopal  order,  it  is, 
beyond  all  doubt,  comprised  in  the  terms  just  cited."  "  Take  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  etc. 

Now,  is  there  indeed  sufficient  reason,  I  here  ask,  to  induce  any  prudent 
man  to  believe,  without  at  least  some  feelings  of  apprehension, — tha<t  this 
form  is  certainly  valid  ? — that  it  is  really  that  same  sacred  order  of  words, 
which,  dictated  by  the  divine  wisdom,  has  served  always  to  create,  and  to 
preserve,  in  the  Christian  church,  the  dignity  and  distinction  of  the  episco- 
pal body  ?  I  think  not ;  although  it  were  merely  for  the  following  reason, 
— that  such  form  is  not  onlj^  different  from  that  which  had  been  always 
hitherto  employed  in  the  parent  Church,  but  different  even  from  every  thing 
that  had  ever  been  hitherto  employed  in  any  Christian  church.  As  a  form 
of  ordination,  it  is  completely  new.  And  this  circumstance  alone  is  suffi- 
cient, I  will  not  say,  to  render  it  invalid, — but,  at  all  events,  to  render  it  ex- 
tremely dubious.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  in  relation  to  the  words  them- 
selves,— being  the  words  of  the  sacred  Scripture, — they  are,  hence,  sacred 
and  ancient.  Rut  tiien,  they  are  nowhere  prescribed  in  the  holy  volume, 
as  the  form,  or  order,  of  the  episcopal  consecration.  They  are  words  ad- 
dressed to  an  individual,  who  had  long  since  received  the  epi-scopal  conse- 
cration ;  and  containing  in  themselves  little  else  than  a  mere  exhortation  to 
piety.  In  short,  as  I  have  remarked,  they  are,  as  a  form  of  ordination,  new ; 
61 


470  NOTE    B. 

— nowhere,  until  the  recent  creation  of  the  church  of  Ensjland,  to  Ije  found 
in  any  onhnal  oi-  ritual,  either  Catholic,  heretical,  or  schismatical, — a  con- 
sideration this,  which  alone  should  serve  to  awaken  doubt. 

I  have  observed  likewise,  that  since  the  episcopal  consecration  is  designed 
to  confer  a  peculiar  character,  and  to  impart  an  appropiiate  grace  and  au- 
thority,—  so  the  terms  which  are  employed  in  the  sacred  rite  ought  of 
course  to  be  more  or  less  expressive  of  these  tenefits.  This,  too,  is  a 
maxim,  Avhich,  being  consonant  to  the  nature  of  things,  the  theologians  of 
the  English  church  make  no  difficulty  to  admit.  "  When  Christ,"  says 
Mason,  who  is  the  great  defender  of  the  English  ordinations,  "  when  Christ 
commanded  that  ministers  should  be  created,  his  command  implied,  that  fit 
words  should  be  used  in  ordaining  of  them, — that  is,  such  words  as  might 
contain  the  power  of  the  order,  then  given.  And  these  words,  inasmuch  as 
they  denote  the  power  given,  are  the  eesential  form  of  that  order."  Now  if 
this  principle  be, — as  it  certainly  is, — correct,  behold,  then,  again,  in  this 
circumstance,  another  motive,  if  not  absolutely  to  deny,  at  all  events  to  call 
in  question,  the  validity  of  the  f( 'restated  form.  For  it  is  evident  that  there 
is  nothing  in  it, — nothing  in  the  words,  which  compose  it, — that  either  de- 
notes any  peculiar  grace,  or  that  expresses  any  particular  character, — no- 
thing "as  might  contain  the  power  of  the  order  given."  The  words  relate  no 
more  to  the  episcopal,  than  they  do  to  the  priestly  dignity.  Indeed,  not 
only  this,  but  tliey  point  out  no  dignity,  no  office,  no  function,  or  character 
whatsoever.  They  are  words  which  might  be  used  in  the  administration 
of  any  sacrament — of  baptism,  of  the  eucharist,  of  confirmation  ; — or  still 
further,  on  the  occasion  of  prayer  or  exhortation  ; — as  it  was  in  reality  upon 
the  occasion  simply  of  exhortation,  that  the}^  were  addressed  by  St.  Paul  to 
his  disciple,  Timothj^  So  that,  hence  I  again  infer. — that,  preciselj^  as  there 
is  reason  to  doubt  of  the  validity  of  the  above  form  on  account  of  its  novelty, 
— so  likewise  there  is  at  least  an  equally  well-founded  motive  to  do  so,  on 
account  of  its  apparent  insufficiency. 

It  seldom  chances,  that  the  Protestant  will  condescend  to  acquiesce  in  any 
kind  of  suggestion  which  comes  from  the  Catholic,  be  this  ever  so  wise, 
palpable,  or  even  necessary.  Prejudice,  the  fruit  of  ignorance  ;  or  partiality, 
the  effect  of  habit ;  are  sure,  nearly  always,  to  check  the  useful  act.  How- 
ever, here, — in  lelation  tc  the  question  which  is  now  before  us, — singidar  as 
the  circumstance  is,  and  if  well  considered,  decisive,  perhaps,  of  the  whole 
controversy — here,  the  case  is  not  so.  Here  we  have  an  instance  of  wis- 
dom ; — an  example  of  one  of  those  slow  and  compunctious  returns  to  mod- 
eration, which,  only  now  and  then  occur  to  surprise  us  in  the  annals  of 
religious  rancour.  The  Catholics  had,  long  and  incessantly,  forced  upon  the 
attention  of  the  established  clergy  the  very  striking  imperfections  of  their 
form  of  ordination, — its  novelty,  its  inadequacy,  etc., — which  the  latter,  un- 
able perhaps  to  see,  or  at  least  unwilling  to  own,  had  also  long,  and  verj 
ardently  defended.  However,  at  length, — either  because  they  were  struck  by 
the  force  of  evidence,  or  because  they  were  alarmed  at  the  idea  of  their  own 
insecurity, — they  began  to  relent.  They  now  deemed  it  prudent,  not  indeed 
openly  to  avow  the  nullity  of  the  above  form,  (this  could  not  be  expected 
of  them)  but  very  sensil)ly  to  change  the  terms  of  it.  They  did  this; 
substituting  in  room  of  the  preceding  terms,  others  which  are  certainly 
a  great  deal  more  rational  and  consistent ;  more  conformable  to  ancient 
precedent,  and  expressing,  as  such  an  institution  ought  to  express,  both 
the  nature  of  the  office  intended  to  be  conferred,  and  the  character  of 
the  grace   appropriate  to  it.     In  short,   rejecting  the  long-used  form   they 


FLETCHER    ON    ANGLICAN    ORDINATIONS.  471 

now  adopted  the  following  new  one  in  its  stead  :  "  Receive  the  Holy 
Ghoat,  for  the  office  and  work  of  a  bishop,  in  the  church  of  God,  now  com- 
mitted unto  thee  by  the  imposition  of  our  hands,  in  the  name  of  the  Father, 
and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  remember,  that  thou  stir  up  the 
grace  of  God,  which  is  in  thee  by  the  imposition  of  our  hands.  For  God  hath 
not  given  us  the  spirit  of  fear,  but  of  power  and  soberness."  (They,  too,  be- 
sides this,  made  a  similar  alteration  at  the  same  time,  in  the  form  of  ordaining 
priests  ;  because  they  now  considered  this,  like  that  for  the  consecration  of 
the  prelacy,  imperfect.)  The  above  alterations  were  effected  in  the  reign  of 
the  second  Charles,  in  the  year  1662, — that  is,  exactly  a  hundred  and  twelve 
years  after  the  introduction  of  the  forms  prescribed  in  the  ordinal  of  Edward 
the  Sixth.  For  Burnet  dates  the  introduction  of  this  ordinal  in  the  year 
1550. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  discuss  the  merits  of  this  new  improvement. 
Neither  will  I  examine  any  further  than  I  have  done,  what  the  reasons  were 
which  induced  its  authors  to  adopt  it, — whether  it  was  in  consequence  of 
the  suggestions  and  importunities  of  the  Catholics,  as  I  have  seemed  to  sup- 
pose ;  or  in  consequence  merely  of  the  dictates  of  their  own  good  sense.  The 
only  observation  which  I  shall  make,  and  which  also  is  a  very  obvious  one, 
is  this ;  that,  since  in  their  wisdom  they  did  reject  their  long  established 
forms,  both  of  episcopal  and  priestly  ordination,  they  therefore  must  have 
deemed  them, — I  will  not  sa,y  invalid, — but,  at  all  events,  doubtful  and  im- 
perfect. For  surely,  if  this  had  not  been  the  case,  or  if  they  had  not  consid- 
ered them  defective,  it  is  impossible,  with  any  thing  like  reason,  to  account 
for  their  conduct.  They  would  not, — they  could  not, — have  rejected  or 
altered  what  they  looked  upon  as  perfect,  or  as  an  order  of  things  instituted 
by  the  eternal  wisdom,  or  as  handed  down  to  them  from  the  apostles.  They 
most  certainly  could  not  have  done  this.  It  was  a  piece  of  presumption,  of 
which  they  were  incapable.  Therefore,  is  the  consequence  obvious,  which  1 
have  just  been  stating, — namely,  that  since  the  English  clergy  have  in  their 
prudence  thought  proper  to  change  their  once-established  forms  of  ordina- 
tion, they  must,  consequently,  have  considered  them,  if  not  absolutely  null, 
at  all  events,  doubtful  and  imperfect. 

If  the  supposition  be  once  axlmitted,  or  if  it  be  true,  that  those  forms 
were  real.ly  invalid,  then  are  the  effects  in  this  case  truly  awful  to  the 
established  church  ;  so  awful  indeed,  as  even,  according  to  his  own  maxims, 
to  destroy  all  the  claims  of  its  ministers  to  the  genuine  dignity  of  the 
Christian  priesthood.  For  if  those  forms  were  invalid  then,  of  course,  it 
must  follow  that  the  consecrations  of  the  individuals  to  whom  they  were 
applied  must  have  been  invalid  too  : — since  it  is  only  a  valid  form  that  can 
possibly  confer  a  valid  consecration.  The  application  of  an  invalid  form,  let 
it  be  made  by  whomsoever  or  in  whatever  manner  it  ma}'',  is  but  an  empty 
and  unmeaning  ceremony, — its  effect  none.  Consequently,  consecrated  as 
were  the  whole  prelacy  and  priesthood  of  the  established  church  during  the 
space  of  upwards  of  a  century,  by  no  other  forms  than  those  prescribed  in 
the  ordinal  of  Edward, — it  plainly  follows  that  if  they  were  null, — then  null 
also  must  have  been  all  the  consecrations  designed  to  have  been  effected  by 
them  Such  consecrations,  howevei'  solemnly  performed,  were  completely 
unavailing ; — leaving  the  individuals  upon  whom  they  were  performed  pre- 
cisely what  they  were  before  the  awful  act, — priests,  if  liitherto  they  had 
been  priests, — laymen,  if  until  now  they  had  been  laymen. 

But  there  is  another  consequence  which  results  immediately  from  th6 
preceding  one  ; — and  which  agair  like  it, — aud  even  still  more  than  it.-  — 


472  NOTE   B. 

deserves  the  most  serious  consideration  of  the  the,  ghtful  Protestant,  ft  is 
this, — that  if  the  forms  of  Edward's  ordinal  were  invahd,  then  are  the 
orders,  both  of  the  episcopacy  and  the  priesthood,  long  since  extinct  in  the 
church  of  P]ngland.  The  reason  is  plain  : — those  forms  had  alone  been  made 
use  of  in  this  church  for  upwards  of  a  hundred  years  ; — its  prelates  and  its 
ministers  having  been  all  of  them  during  that  interval  consecrated  solely  by 
them.  Therefore,  if  they  were  really  null, — and  hence  incompetent  to  com- 
municate the  pastoral  character, — so  it  is,  of  course,  evident,  that  when  the 
alteration  of  them  took  place,  in  1662,  (that  is,  a  humWed  and  twelve  years 
after  their  first  introduction')  this  sacred  dignity  must  ere  this  have  vanished. 
It  is  true,  that  at  the  above  epoch  the  established  clergy,  sensible  of  the  de- 
fects of  those  forms,  introduced  and  employed  new  ones,  for  wiser  in  their 
stead.  But  then  unfortunately  the  improvement,  after  such  length  of  inter- 
val, could  not  possibly  have  been  of  any  avail.  It  came  too  late.  For  if  the 
men  who  now  began  to  use  the  new  forms,  had  not  been  themselves  validly 
ordained,  they  could  not  now, — the  thing  is  evident, — validly  ordain  their 
brethren.  They  could  not  impart  a  character  which  they  did  not  them- 
selves possess  ; — could  not  make  priests  or  bishops,  unless  they  were  them- 
selves such ; — as  it  is  a  maxim  of  the  established  church,  that  it  is  only  a 
bishop  that  can  make  a  priest  or  bishop.  So  that,  if  once  the  invalidity  of 
the  forms  cf  ordination  prescribed  in  Edward's  ordinal  be  established,  the 
consequence  in  the  case  is  undeniable, — that  then  the  real  pastoral  character 
and  commission  have  been  long  since  extinguished  in  the  church  of  En- 
gland ;  and  that,  therefore  again,  by  an  ulterior  consequence,  this  establish- 
ment reposes  upon  no  grounds  which  can  be  prudently  deemed  divine ; 
according  to  that  principle  of  Dodwell  already  cited  ;  and  which  also  is  a 
fixed  principle  of  the  English  church  :  "  Where  there  is  no  real  and  episco- 
pal ordination,  there  is  no  ministr}',  no  church,"  etc. 

Such  as  these, — for  I  have  cited  only  a  few  of  them, — are  the  difficulties 
which  surround  the  question  of  our  English  ordinations, — that  "question 
of  questions,"  as  it  has  justly  been  denominated  by  several  of  its  defenders. 
Its  difficulties,  indeed,  to  whosoever  has  discussed  the  subject  carefully,  are, 
— besides  being  very  various, — in  the  highest  degree  perplexing.  It  is  in- 
volved in  obscurities,  in  contradictions,  and  defects  which  no  ingenuity  can 
elucidate  ;  no  criticism  reconcile  ;  no  theology  explain  satisfavtorHy.  I  am 
convinced,  that  whoever  will  give  himself  the  trouble  to  study  the  great 
subject  well  and  with  a  mind  unbiassed  by  any  partiah'ty,  will  feel  himself 
compelled  to  acknowledge  this  ; — or  at  all  events,  lie  will  doubt.  Awful  con- 
sideration this ! — because  to  be  reduced  to  doubt  of  the  very  object  which 
is  supposed  to  constitute  the  chief  basis  itself  of  the  establishment,  is  in 
reahty  to  be  reduced  to  doubt  equally  of  its  divinity  ; — for  a  doubtful  min- 
istry makes  of  course  but  a  doubtful  church. — However,  unhappily  so  it  is  : 
— Few  study  the  important  question  ;  although  no  question  deserves  more 
care.  Men  reconcile  themselves  easily  to  any  th-.ng  ;  above  all,  where  to 
do  so  is  agreeable  to  their  worldly  interests,  to  the  spirit  of  the  public 
fashion,  and  to  inclination.  But  superior  to  considerations  like  these,  and 
conducted  by  the  pure  love  of  truth,  let  any  prudent  and  impartial  indivi- 
dual explore  and  fathom  the  perplexing  subject  to  the  bottom  ;  and  the 
result,  I  will  answer  for  it,  will  at  all  events  be  that  which  I  have  just  now 
stated  : — he  will  doubt. 


INSTRUMENTS    AND   METHOD    OF   TORTURE.  473 


NOTE  C,  Page  193. 

DTSTllUMENTS  AND  METHOD   OF  TORTURE   UNDER   ELIZA 

BETH. 

We  here  republish  Dr.  Lingard's  note  C,  at  the  end  of  vol.  viii  of  his 
English  History — referred  to  approvingly  by  Hallam  in  his  Constitutional 
History.  The  note  presents  a  succinct  view  of  the  system  of  torture  adopted 
by  Elizabeth  and  Cecil. 

The  following  were  the  kinds  of  torture  chiefly  employed  in  the  Tower : 

1.  The  rack  was  a  large  open  frame  of  oak,  raised  three  feet  from  the 
ground.  The  prisoner  was  laid  under  it,  on  his  back,  on  the  floor ;  his  wrists 
and  ancles  were  attached  by  cords  to  two  rollers  at  the  ends  of  the  frame  ; 
these  were  moved  by  levers  in  opposite  directions,  till  the  body  rose  to  a 
level  with  the  frame.  Questions  were  then  put ;  and  if  the  answers  did  not 
prove  satisfiictory,  the  sufferer  was  stretched  more  and  more  till  the  bones 
started  from  their  sockets. 

2.  The  scavenger's  daughter  was  a  broad  hoop  of  iron,  so  called,  consist- 
ing of  two  parts,  fastened  to  each  other  by  a  hinge.  The  prisoner  was  made 
to  kneel  on  the  pavement,  and  to  contract  himself  into  as  small  a  compass 
as  he  could.  Then  the  executioner,  kneeling  on  his  shoulders  and  having 
introduced  the  hoop  under  his  legs,  compressed  the  victim  close  together, 
till  he  was  able  to  fasten  the  extremities  over  the  small  of  the  back.  The 
time  allotted  to  this  kind  of  torture  was  an  hour  and  a  half,  during  which 
time  it  commonly  happened  that  from  excess  of  compression  the  blood 
started  from  the  nostrils ;  sometimes,  it  was  believed,  from  the  extremities 
of  the  hands  and  feet.     See  Bailoli,  250. 

3.  Iron  gauntlets,  which  could  be  contracted  by  the  aid  of  a  screw.  They 
served  to  compress  the  wrists,  and  to  suspend  the  prisoner  in  the  air  fi-om 
two  distant  points  of  a  beam.  He  was  placed  on  three  pieces  of  wood,  piled 
one  on  the  other,  which,  when  his  hands  had  been  made  fast,  were  succes- 
sively withdrawn  from  under  his  feet.  '•'  I  felt,"  says  F.  Gerard,  one  of  the 
sufferers,  "the  chief  pain  in  my  breast,  belly,  arms,  and  hands.  I  thought 
that  all  the  blood  in  my  bod^^  had  rifti  into  my  arms,  and  began  to  burst  out 
at  my  finger  ends.  This  was  a  mistake  :  but  the  arms  swelled,  till  the  gaunt- 
lets were  buried  within  the  flesh.  After  being  thus  suspended  an  hour,  I 
fainted  ;  and  when  I  came  to  myself,  I  found  the  executioners  supporting 
me  in  their  arms  :  they  replaced  the  pieces  of  wood  under  my  feet ;  but  as 
soon  as  I  was  recovered,  removed  them  again.  Thus  I  continued  hanging  for 
the  space  of  five  hours,  during  which  time  I  fainted  eight  or  nine  times." 
Apud  Bartoli,  418. 

4.  A  fourth  kind  of  torture  was  a  cell  called  "  little  ease."  It  was  of  so 
small  dimensions,  and  so  constructed,  that  the  prisoner  could  neither  stand, 
walk,  sit,  nor  lie  in  it  at  full  length.  He  was  compelled  to  draw  himself  up 
in  a  squatting  posture,  and  so  remain  during  several  days. 

I  will  add  a  few  lines  from  Rishton's  Diary,  that  the  reader  may  form 
some  notion  )f  the  proceed  mgs  in  the  Tower. 

VOL-   II. — 40 


474  NOTE   1). 

Dec.  5,  1580.     Sevenil  Catholics  were  lirouiiht  from  different  prisons. 

Dec.  10.  Thomas  (yottam  and  Luke  Kii'hye,  priests  (two  of  the  numbtjr) 
suffered  compression  in  the  scavenger's  daugiiter  for  more  than  an  hour 
Cottam  bled  profusely  from  the  nose. 

Dec.  15.  Ralph  Sherwine  and  Robert  Johnson,  priests,  were  severely 
tortured  on  the  rack. 

Dec.  16.     Ralph  Sherwine  was  tortured  a  second  time  on  the  rack. 

Dec.  31.  John  Hart,  after  being  chained  five  days  to  the  lioor,  was  led 
to  the  rack.     Also  Henry  Orton,  a  lay  gentleman. 

1581,  Jan.  3.  Christopher  Thomson,  an  aged  priest,  was  brought  to  the 
Tower,  and  racked  the  same  day. 

Jan.  14.     Nicholas  Roscaroc,  a  lay  gentleman,  was  racked. 

Thus  he  continues  till  June  21,  1585,  when  he  was  discharged.  See  his 
Diarium,  at  the  end  of  his  edition  of  Sanders. 


NOTE  D,  Page  205. 
THE  FATE  AND   PUNISHMENT  OF   THE   CHURCH   ROBBERS. 

Sib  Henry  Spelman,  a  zealous  Anglican  waiter  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, published  two  works  on  the  awful  punishments  awarded  by  Almighty 
God  to  those  who,  at  the  time  of  the  Anglican  Reformation,  laid  sacrilegious 
hands  on  church  property.     Both  of  them  were  published  after  his  death. 

One  of  these  publications,  now  hnng  before  us,is  entitled  :  "De  nox  tem- 
EBANDis  EccLESiis ;  Churches  NOT  TO  BE  VIOLATED.  A  Tract  of  the  rights 
and  respects  due  unto  churches,  etc.  Written  by  Sir  Henry  Spelman, 
Knight;  the  fifth  edition.  Oxford,  1676."  The  other  is  better  known,  and 
it  has  been  lately  republished  in  England  by  two  Anglican  parsons  :  its  title 
is,  "The  History  and  Fate  of  Sacrilege.",  In  the  Dublin  Review  for  Sep- 
tember, 1846,  we  find  an  able  paper,  from  the  graceful  and  copious  pen  of 
Cardinal  Wiseman,  reviewing  the  latter  work.  Prefixed  to  the  Tract  in  our 
possession  we  find  a  lengthy  introduction  "To  the  Reader,"  written  by  a 
son  of  Sir  Henry  Spelman,  and  containing  much  curious  matter,  quaintly 
treated  in  the  style  of  the  seventeenth  century,  setting  forth  the  punish- 
ments with  which  some  of  the  principal  actors  in  the  Anglican  Reformation 
were  visited. 

As  the  subject  possesses  considerable  interest,  we  will  here  republish,  first, 
an  extract  from  the  Introduction  referred  to;  and  secondly,  the  more  inipoit- 
Int  portion  of  the  article  from  the  Dublin  Review.  We  are  confident  that 
our  readers  will  be  gratified  to  have  these  documents  before  them  for  reference. 
Sir  Henry  Spelman's  honesty  was  as  well  known,  as  his  candor  was  widely 
appreciated ;  for  we  find  in  an  epistle  prefixed  to  his  Tract  on  not  violating 


FATE   AND   PUNISHMENT    OF   THE   CHURCH    ROBBERS.       47b 

churches  a  staiement  to  the  effect,  that  several  lay  possessors,  or  hnpropri 
ators  of  church  property,  were  induced  by  his  arguments  to  restore  the  sac 
rilegious  spoil. 


I.— STATEMENT  BY  SIR  HENRY  riPELMAN'S  SON. 

Cardinal!  Woolsejr  being  dead,  his  servant  Cromwell  succeeds  him  in  his 
court,  favor  and  fate,  as  their  births  were  aHke  obscure,  their  rise  alike  emi- 
nent, so  alike  miserable  were  their  downfall :  wonder  not  at  the  first  part 
of  their  fortune,  but  contemplate  the  latter ;  policie  in  kings  preferres  able 
men  to  high  places  and  honour ;  for  authoritie,  power,  and  esteeme  of  the 
persons  advantages  their  actions,  of  which  wise  princes  reap  the  harvest, 
the  actors  get  but  gleanings :  while  the  king  makes  Cromwell  a  baron,  his 
secretary,  lord  privy  scale,  his  vicegerent  in  ecclesiasticis,  he  doth  but  facili- 
ate  his  owne  great  worke  of  dissolving  monasteries,  a  businesse  wherein 
Cromwell  was  too  much  versed,  and  unhappily  too  successofull.  Report 
spake  him  a  great  stickler  for  the  Protestant  religion,  and  that  although  the 
gospel  had  lost  a  pillar  in  Queene  Anne  BuUen,  yet  was  another  raised  in 
Cromwell,  for  he  had  caused  the  Bible  to  be  read,  the  Creed,  Paternoster, 
and  Ten  commandments  to  be  learned  in  English,  and  expounded  in  every 
church :  some  thought  that  Cromwell  hoped  to  bury  popery  in  the  ruines 
of  the  abbies,  and  thereby  give  the  better  growth  to  the  more  pure  Protest- 
ant religion  ;  how  pious  soever  his  intents  were  in  refoi-ming  religion,  yet 
was  not  the  manner  of  effecting  them  (it  seems)  acceptable  to  heaven  ;  for 
by  parliament  in  the  31  of  H.  8  (Henry  VIII.)  he  perfected  his  dissolutions, 
and  in  April,  in  the  32  of  H.  8,  he  is  made  earle  of  Essex,  and  lord  great 
chamberlaine  of  England,  high  in  the  king's  favour  and  esteeme,  yet  in- 
stantly, while  sitting  at  the  councel-table,  he  is  suddainly  apprehended  and 
sent  to  the  Tower,  whence  he  comes  not  forth,  untill  to  his  execution,  for  in 
parliament  he  is  presently  accused  of  treason  and  heresie,  and  unheard,  is 
attainted.  Some  do  observe  that  he  procured  that  law  of  attainting  by 
parliament,  without  hearing  the  partie,  and  that  himselfe  was  the  first,  that 
by  that  law  died  unheard,  for  in  Julv  following  he  was  thei-eupon  beheaded. 

Next  consider,  that  King  Henry  the  eighth,  who  ingrossed  sacriledge  and 
retailed  it  to  posteritie,  what  the  Pope  permitted  Woolsey,  (saith  Cambden,) 
H.  8  :  with  the  assent  of  his  parliament,  permits  himselfe  ;  the  first  to  catch 
the  Pope,  pretends  charitie  and  good  workes  (colledges  shall  be  built)  ;  the 
later  to  wnn  the  laity  in  parliament  was  offered  with  the  revenue  of  religious 
houses  to  maintain  40  carles,  60  barons,  300  knights,  40,000  souldiers,  and 
forever  ease  the  subject  of  taxes  and  subsidies;  both  obtained  their  desires 
in  dissolving,  neither  perform  the  ends  promised.  H.  8  had  first  furthered 
Woolsey  in  his  dissolution,  and  thereby  found  the  way  to  mine  all  the  rest. 

In  the  27th  year  of  his  reign,  by  parliament,  he  dissolves  the  lesser  houses, 
and  in  the  31th  the  great  ones,  in  the  37th  all  the  colledges,  hospitals,  and 
free  chappels,  except  some  few.  and  possesseth  all  their  lands,  goods,  and 
treasure.  For  the  first  halfe  of  his  reigne  (while  free  from  sacriledge)  he 
was  honoured  of  his  allies  abroad,  loved  of  his  subjects  at  home,  successe- 
full  in  his  actions,  and  at  peace,  as  it  were,  with  God  and  man  ;  but  after 
his  sacriledge  (as  in  disfavour  with  both)  his  subjects  rebell,  first  in  Suffolke 
after  in  Lincolne,  Somerset,  Yorkcshire,  and  the  northerne  parts,  as  al.so  in 
Ireland  ;  such  dearth  of  bread  and  corne  in  England,  (the  granarie  of  Chris- 


476  NOTE   D. 

tendome,)  that  many  dye  starved,  which  hath  not  been  since  the  40  of  H.  3k 
And  now  (like  Saul  forsaken  of  God)  he  falls  from  one  sinne  to  another. 
Queen  Catharine  (the  wife  of  his  bosomo  for  20  3'eares)  must  now  be  put 
away,  the  marriage  declared  voyd,  and  he  desirous  of  sonnes,  rather  then 
pillars  to  beare  his  name,  marries  the  Lady  Anne  Bullen,  and  'by  her  had 
the  Lady  Elizabeth,  and  in  the  27th  of  his  reign  a  sonne  born  dead  (to  his 
great  affliction)  the  l!)th  of  May,  1536.  The  28th  of  his  reigne  she  is  be- 
headed, and  the  next  day  he  marries  the  Lady  Jane  Seymore,  who .  being 
with  child  by  him,  she  (nature  unwilling  to  give  birth  to  the  sonne  of  such 
a  father)  wants  strength  to  bring  forth  :  the  father  commands  her  inscission, 
and  the  mother  the  12  of  Octob.  dyes  to  give  a  short  life  to  her  sonne ;  and 
the  sixt  of  January  in  the  31th  yeare,  the  king  weds  the  Lady  Anne  of 
Cleve,  and  in  July  after  is  divorced  :  and  in  August  following  he  marries 
the  Lady  Katharine  Howard,  and  in  Deceml)er,  in  the  33.  of  his  reign,  she 
is  attainted  and  dies  on  the  block :  and  in  July,  in  the  35th  of  his  reign,  he 
marries  the  Lady  Katharine  Parre.  Here's  wives  enough  to  have  peopled 
another  Canaan,  had  he  had  Jacob's  blessing ;  but  his  three  last  are  child- 
lesse,  and  the  children  of  the  two  first  are  by  statute  declared  illegitimate, 
and  not  inheritable  to  the  crown. 

But  himself  growing  aged  and  inflrme,  hopeless  of  more  children,  and 
not  willing  to  venture  the  support  of  his  crown  and  familie  upon  a  single, 
and  so  weak  a  prop,  as  was  his  son  Prince  Edward ;  in  the  35.  year  of  his 
reign  he  entailes  the  crown  upon  his  children,  after  his  death,  they  all  suc- 
cessively sway  his  scepter,  and  all  dye  childless,  and  his  family  is  extinct, 
and  like  Herostratus,  his  name  not  mentioned,  but  with  his  crimes.  His 
crown  happily  descends  to  the  issue  of  his  eldest  sister,  and  a  foiTaign  nation 
(like  Cyrus  his)  fills  his  throne. 

Among  the  many  great  and  active  men  aiding  H.  8  in  his  dissolution  of 
monasteries,  and  receiveing  great  reward  out  of  his  church  spoile,  Charles 
Brandon,  duke  of  Suffolk  was  the  chief:  he  had  four  wives;  his  first  the 
daughter  of  Nevil,  Marquesse  Mounteagle,  who  dyed  without  issue.  By  his 
second  wife  he  had  one  daughter,  married  to  Stanly,  Lord  Mountague,  but 
dyed  without  issue.  His  third  wife  was  Mary,  queen  dowager  of  France, 
and  sister  to  Henry  8th  ;  by  her  he  had  one  son,  Heniy,  and  two  daughters, 
Frances  and  Elianor.  His  son  was  created  earl  of  Lincoln,  but  d3'ed  a 
a  child ;  his  daughter  Frances  married  Gray,  Marquesse  Dorset,  and  after 
duke  of  Suffolk,  who  had  one  son,  Henry,  who  dyed  young ;  Jane  Gray 
his  eldest  daughter  married  to  Guildford  Dudley,  and  was  with  him  beheaded 
about  5.  Mary.  Katharine  his  second  daughter  was  married  to  Edward, 
Lord  Seymore,  eldest  son  to  the  duke  of  Sommerset  ;  Mary,  his  third 
daughter,  married  to  Martin  Keyes,  and  dyed  without  issue.  Ellenor,  sec- 
ond daughter  to  Charles  Brandon,  married  to  Clifford,  earle  of  Cumberland, 
a  gallant  family,  lately'  extinct. 

The  queen  dowager  dying,  Charles  Brandon  married  the  daughter  and 
heir  of  the  Lord  Willoughby  of  Eresby,  who  inriched  him  with  two  sons, 
Henry  and  Charles ;  but  the  duke  dying  atout  the  36.  of  H.  8,  left  his  title 
and  estate  to  his  son  Henry,  who  enjo3'ed  it  until  5.  E.  6,  then  dying  of  the 
sweating  sickness,  left  them  to  his  brother  Charles,  who  onlv  lived  to  be  his 
brother's  heir,  and  duke  of  Suttblk  ;  and  the  same  da_v,  and  of  the  same 
disease  with  his  brolher  d}'ed  :  and  with  him  the  title,  name,  and  fiimily  of 
Brandon. 

The  statute  of  H.  8.  13  gives  the  monastery  of  Sibeton  in  Suffolk,  to  the 
dnke  of  Norfolk,  ard  the  chauntry  of  Cobham  in  Kent,  to  the  Lord  Cobham, 


FATE   AND    PUNISHMENT    OF   THE   CHURCH    KOBliERS.       477 

iince  which  time  how  heavj^  the  hand  of  justice  hath  fallen  upon  these  noble 
families,  inform  thyself  from  our  annals. 

Consider  next  tlie  duke  of  Somerset,  protector  to  Edward  the  sixth. 
Goodwin  in  his  annals  saith,  He  was  a  just  and  pious  man,  a  zealoua 
reformer  of  religion,  a  faithful  preserver  of  the  king  and  commonwealth, 
save  that  with  the  common  error  of  the  time,  his  hands  were  deep  in  sacri- 
ledge.  In  the  first  year  of  Edward  the  6th  he  procured  the  dissolution  of 
some  chauntries,  free  chappels,  and  hospitals,  left  undissolved  by  H.  8.  In 
the  third  year,  he  permits  (if  not  procures)  his  brother  Thomas,  Lord  Sey- 
more,  untried,  (saith  Goodwin)  to  be  attainted  by  parliament,  and  shortly 
after  (not  unblamed)  signed  a  warrant  for  his  execution,  whereupon  his 
brother  lost  his  head,  and  he  a  friend. 

The  same  year  his  zeal  to  R 'formation  adds  new  sacriledge  to  his  former ; 
for  he  defiices  some  parts  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  converts  the  charnel  house, 
and  a  chappel  by  it,  into  dwelling  houses  ;  and  demolishing  some  monu- 
ments there,  he  turns  out  the  old  bones  to  seek  new  sepnlchers  in  the  fields  : 
next  he  destroyes  the  steeple,  and  part  of  the  Church  of  St.  Johns  of  Jeru- 
salem, by  Smithfield,  and  with  the  stone  beginneth  to  build  his  house  in  the 
Strand  ;  but  as  the  leprosie  with  the  Jews,  with  us  the  curse  of  sacriledge, 
cleaves  to  the  consecrated  stone,  and  they  become  unsuccesful,  so  as  the 
builder  doth  not  finish  his  house,  nor  doth  his  son  inherit  it.  In  the  fifth 
year  of  Edward  the  6th  the  duke  was  indicted,  and  found  guilty  of  felony, 
which  was  (saith  Hollinshead)  upon  a  statute  made  the  third  and  fourth  of 
Edward  the  6th,  and  since  repealed :  whereby  to  attempt  the  death  of  a 
privy  counsellour  is  felonie,  (Goodwin  saith)  upon  the  statute  of  3.  H.  7, 
but  erroniously,  that  not  extending  to  barons  :  it  is  observable,  that  this  law 
was  but  the  year  before  passed  by  himself,  and  himself  the  onely  man  that 
ever  suffered  by  it.  The  statute  being  since  repealed,  Goodwin  observes 
and  wonders,  that  he  omitted  to  pray  the  benefit  of  his  book,  as  if  heavens 
would  not,  that  he  that  had  spoiled  his  church,  should  be  saved  by  his 
clergy  ;  and  it  is  observable,  that  in  the  reign  of  Edw.  6th  none  of  the  no- 
bility dyes  under  the  rod  of  Justice,  but  the  duke  of  Somerset  and  his 
brother,  the  lord  admiral,  all  the  unckles  the  king  had :  and  their  crimes 
comparatively  were  not  hainous. 


II.— REVIEW  OF  SPELMAN  BY  CARDINAL  WISEMAN, 

The  History  and  Fate  of  Sacrilege.  By  Sir  Hexry  Spelman.  Edited 
in  part  from  two  MSS.,  revised  and  corrected,  with  a  continuation,  large 
additions,  and  an  Introductory  Essay.  By  two  Priests  of  the  Church  of 
England.     London  :  Masters,  1846. 

We  have  long  been  looking  out  for  this  republication  of  Sir  H.  Spehnan's 
posthumous  work,  and  it  appears  at  a  moment  which  seems  to  us  most  pro- 
pitious. It  is  not  indeed  likely  that  the  holders  of  old  Catholic  church 
property  will  become  alarmed,  and  restore  their  ill-gotten  possession  to  us 
again ;  for  as  we  shall  see,  but  few  descendants  of  the  original  granters  of 
church  property  now  hold  it ;  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  expect  such  a 
sacrifice  from  those  who  have  gained  it  through  purcliase  or  other  indirect 
modes.*     It  is  not,  therefore,  from  anj"  idea  that   Sir  Henry  Spelman's  fear- 

*■  We  liave,  however,  known  several  instances  lately,  where  property  has  come  into 
Catholic  bauds  by  purchase  or  inheritance,  where  a  portion  of  it  consisting  of  impro' 


478  ,  NOTE   D. 

fill  tale  of  judj^menis  upon  churcli  despoilers,  will  awaken  slumhenng  con- 
sciences to  restitution,  that  we  are  j;,lad  to  see  his  work  printed  in  -a  popular 
form,  and  with  such  valuable  additions.  If  we  calculate  upon  any  gain 
from  it,  it  is  rather  from  the  hope  that  sensible  and  religious  minds  will 
reason  thus:  if  God  by  such  visible  judgments  punishes  those  who  destroy, 
plunder,  or  profane  places,  things,  or  persons  once  consecrated  to  Him  and 
His  poor,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  hope  that  He  will  bless  those  who  repair 
such  sacrilegious  violence,  and  repair,  restore,  or  newly  give  what  is  needful 
for  religious  and  charitable  purposes  ? 

But  independently  of  such  considerations,  we  think  that  the  republication 
of  this  work  will  necessarily  prove  useful.  It  will  disgust  peopb  more  and 
more  with  that  terrible  event  in  English  history,  the  horrors  of  which  have 
been  gilded  by  the  name  of  Reformation  ;  and  some  will  ask  themselves, 
can  that  have  been  God's  work,  which  was  conducted  by  the  wholesale  com- 
mission of  a  crime,  which  till  then  had  been  rare  in  Christendom  ?  Can  that 
have  been  His  work,  which  throughout,  was  a  systematic  plundering  of  what- 
ever had  been  dedicated  to  Him  ?  Can  that  have  been  His  work,  which 
brought  down  vengeance  from  heaven  upon  all  who  shai'cd  it?  In  trutli,  the 
more  the  public  mind  is  informed  on  the  true  history  and  character  of  that 
revolution  and  rebellion  against  God  and  His  Church,  the  more  will  it  be  led 
to  abhorence  of  that  ungodly  event,  and  sympathy  for  all  that  it  overthrew. 
For  our  parts,  we  sometimes  ask  ourselves  with  no  small  amazement,  what 
is  there  now  left  for  men  to  cling  to  in  that  event,  or  to  justify  to  them  the 
name  which  the}^  give  it  ?  The  antiquarian,  like  Mr.  Paley  or  Mr.  Neale, 
loathes  its  profane  and  sacrilegious  destruction  of  sacred  edifices  and  holy 
things;  the  liturgist,  like  Mr.  Maskell,  deplores  the  abolition  of  ancient 
oflBces,  and  the  presumption  of  abrogating  the  "apostolic  canon  of  the  Mass  ;" 
the  ascetic  sees  nothing  but  loss  in  the  overthrow  of  all  mystical  devotion 
and  feeling  worship ;  the  friend  of  charity  regrets  the  loss  of  those  institu- 
tions by  which  the  poor  M'ere  succoured  and  instructed,  and  a  refuge  was 
opened  to  repentant  or  afflicted  spirits ;  and  the  theologian  laments  over  the 
imperfection  and  deficiency  of  the  new  formularies  of  faith  then  sanctioned, 
over  the  indefiniteness  of  belief  which  they  have  introduced,  the  heretical 
doctrines  which  they  tolerate,  and  the  removal  of  the  safeguards  of  truth 
which  they  etfected.  In  fact,  what  did  the  Eeformation  change  which 
sensible  and  devout  men  would  not  give  much  to  get  back?  Truly,  it  is 
hard  to  say  ;  but  we  believe  that  the  gains,  which  any  but  very  violent 
Protestants  would  enumerate,  would  be  mostly  negative.  We  would 
defy  any  one  to  state  the  smallest  amount  of  positive  good  which  it  brought 
into  the  English  church. 

But  to  pursue  this  subject  would  lead  us  far  astray  ;  we  will  resume  there- 
fore our  present  matter,  by  repeating,  that  Sir.  H.  Spelman's  History  of 
Sacrilege  will  do  good  to  the  truth,  by  giving  additional  evidence  of  the 
frightful  amount  of  execrable  crime  which  formed  an  essential  part,  instru- 
ment, and  development  of  the  Reformation. 

The  editors  have  enlarged  the  original  work  by  much  additional  matter, 
and  they  have  also  illustrated  the  text  by  careful  collations ;  but  their  most 
valuable  improvement  on  the  old  editions,  consists  in  their  preliminary  essay, 
which  occupies  nearly  one  hundred  and  thirty  pages.  The  olject  of  this  is 
to  prove  in  a  more  systematic  form,  what  Spelman's  work  aims  at  doing  at 

S nation  of  tithes,  has  been  settled,  or  spent,  upon  religious  objects.     The  former  is, 
owe^er,  the  only  true  way  of  dealing  with  it  with  security. 


FATE   AND   PUNISHMENT    OF   THE    CHURCH    ROBBERS.       479., 

»nce  by  evidence.  It  is  as  the  counsel's  speech  premised  to  the  calling  of 
witnesses.  Without  some  such  introductory  dissertation,  the  lull  force  of 
Spelman's  reasoning  would  not  have  been  felt  by  many  readers  ;  and  in  this 
age  of  little  faith,  olyect^ons  might  and  would  probably  have  beon  raised 
gainst  it,  which  it  was  prudent  and  wise  to  anticipate  and  solve.  Yet  for  us, 
uch  a  course  must  be  unnjcessary.  Were  anyone  to  write  "the  History 
nd  Fate  of  Murder,"  there  is  not  a  single  reader,  we  are  convinced,  who  on 
taking  it  up,  would  not  l^e  prepared  to  tind  it  contain  a  series  of  facts,  all 
demonstrative  of  the  wonderful  pursuit  of  the  murderer  by  divine  justice, 
and  of  the  strange  and  unexpecteil  ways  in  which  it  has  often  overtaken 
him.  The  most  astute  lawyer,  and  the  most  obtuse  peasant,  would  equally 
agree  how  much  there  is  that  is  clearly  providential  in  the  detection  and 
punishment  of  this  crime  ;  so  that  the  proverb  that  "  murder  will  out,"  is 
almost  as  much  a  legal  aphorism  as  a  homely  saying.  Now  they  who  be- 
lieve Sacrilege  to  be  an  enormous  crime,  (and  no  one  who  has  read  Scriptuie 
or  learnt  his  Catechism  can  believe  otherwise,)  will  be  equally  prepared  to 
find  it  punished  by  God  in  some  signal  way  ;  at  least  will  easily  yield  to  the 
evidence  of  focts,  that  the  casa  is  so.  Again,  whoever  believes  In  Providence, 
and  in  its  punishment  of  crime,  will  as  naturally  expect  that  the  chastisement 
will  be  of  a  peculiar  character  for  this  offense,  because  experience  and  the 
common  consent  of  men  show  such  an  allotment  of  peculiar  judgments  for 
peculiar  transgressions.  Some  of  these  are  inherent  in  the  sin,  but  others 
present  no  necessary  connection  with  it,  3'et  stOl  are  clearly  analogous  and 
appropriate. 

Thus  a  sinful  addiction  to  mere  sensual  enjoyment  and  the  gratifying  of 
animal  appetites,  will  lead  to  the  destruction  of  the  power  of  indulging  them 
— will  consume  the  flame,  destroy  vigor,  form,  complexion,  bring  an  early 
decreptitude  and  disease  into  the  limVjs  and  the  vitals,  and,  in  quaint  phrase, 
soon  make  "  a  wreck  of  the  rake,"  as  a  warning  to  others  not  to  run  upon 
the  same  rock.  What  demonstration  do  we  require  that  "  pride  will  have  a 
fiill,"  or  in  more  sacred  phrase,  that  "  pride  goeth  before  destruction,  and  the 
spirit  is  lifted  up  before  a  fall  ?" —  Prov.  xvi :  18.  Who  would  ever  be  sur- 
prised at  being  told  that  one,  who  had  been  hard-hearted  to  the  poor,  a  harsh 
and  oppressive  landlord,  and  an  extortioner,  was  come  himself  to  want,  and 
was  brought  down  to  humble  himself  to  obtain  his  bread  ?  or  who  thinks  it 
other  than  a  most  probable  story,  that  the  pirate  who  cut  away  the  bell 
from  the  Inchcape  rock  should  himself  be  shipwrecked  on  it  ?  or  that  a  man 
who  had  amassed  wealth  by  cheating  his  clients,  or  by  plundering  his  wards, 
or  by  usurious  contracts,  should  see  it  clean  melt  in  his  hands  like  snow, 
and  flow  away  like  water  in  a  sieve,  approving  the  sayings  of  all  ages,  "male 
parta,  male  dilabuntur,"  and  "  ill-gotten,  ill-spent." 

Now,  if  the  fate  of  sacrilegious  men  be  shown  through  history  to  be  such 
as  by  natural  analogy,  as  well  as  by  religious  principles,  seems  to  present  an 
appropriate  and  well-proportioned  punishment  of  their  crime,  we  cannot  see 
how  any  one  can  refuse  to  consider  it  as  a  punishment  from  God,  unless 
he  either  deny  at  once  that  there  is  such  a  crime,  or  that  Providence  ever 
interferes  to  inflict  chastisement. 

And  now  with  regard  to  the  appropriateness  of  the  pvmishment.  Let  it 
be  observed,  that  a  punishment  will  be  the  more  appropriate,  in  pro])ortion  as 
it  better  defeats  the  objects  of  the  crime  ;  and  that  not  merely  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  retributive  justice,  but  as  a  warning  to  others,  who  will  be  deterred 
from  committing  the  sin,  if  they  see  that  it  hinders,  instead  of  promoting, 
what  they  desire  by  it.     Thus,  as  we  have  seen,  unjust  acquisition  will  have 


480  NOTE   D. 

its  righteous  retribution  in  poverty  and  want.  Sacrilege  may  be  divided 
into  two  classes,  according  to  the  principle  which  suggests  and  directs  its 
commission.  It  may  be  an  act  of  sudden  violence,  the  moraentar}-  work  of 
passion  ;  sacred  places  may  be  profimed,  and  holy  things  broken,  destroyed, 
or  carried  of!"  by  a  licentious  soldiery  in  war,  whether  through  rage  or  through 
covetousness ;  and  persons  consecrated  to  God  may  be  ill-treated  in  anger  or 
through  revenge.  To  this  class  of  sacrilege,  resulting  from  an  evil  passion, 
committed  under  its  passing  influence,  belong  most  of  the  sacrileges  of  an- 
cient times — such,  in  fact,  as  preceded  the  Reformation.  But  well  may 
Spelman,  on  coming  to  this  period  in  his  history,  exclaim  :  "I  am  now  come 
out  of  the  rivers  into  the  ocean  of  iniquity  and  sacrilege."  (p.  131.)  For 
then,  for  tlie  first  time,  was  witnessed  systematic  sacrilege,  sacrilege  by  law, 
by  principle,  coolly  calculated,  unflinchingly  executed,  not  cloaked  over  with 
excuses,  but  plainly  avowed,  justified,  boasted  of  as  a  good  work  ;  sacrilege 
universal  in  its  character,  not  allowing  any  one  possible  branch  or  form  of 
the  crime  to  be  overlooked  ;  embracing  saints,  cardinals,  bishops,  priests, 
clerks,  monks,  friars,  nuns,  the  sick  and  the  poor,  the  aged  and  the  child  ; 
cathedrals,  abbeys,  monasteries,  convents,  chantries,  hospitals,  schools ;  tak- 
ing hold  of  manors,  glebes,  farms,  buildings,  rights,  rents,  and  every  possible 
species  of  property ;  seizing,  and  appropriating,  and  turning  to  profane  use, 
every  thing  sacred — iron-work,  and  stone-work,  and  wood-work,  roofs  and 
bells,  altars  and  church-furniture,  shrines,  tabernacles,  holy  vessels,  and  plate 
of  ever}'  kind  ;  plundering  and  confiscating,  breaking,  burning,  razing, 
wresting,  murdering  by  violence  or  by  course  of  law.  No  person,  no  place, 
no  thing,  no  mode  was  overlooked,  through  which  sacrilege  could  be  com- 
mitted. Rut  this  fully-planned,  and  fully-executed  villainy  clearly  was  not 
the  fruit  of  an  outburst  of  passion  :  it  had  a  purpose  and  an  end.  The  king 
and  his  counselors  wished  and  intended  to  enrich  themselves,  and  to  leave 
to  their  children  and  their  families  for  ever  the  broad  lands  and  rich  treas- 
ures accumulated  through  agas  in  the  Church.  They  fully  designed  to 
"  build  up  their  own  houses,"  with  the  stones  of  the  sanctuary  ;  to  make 
their  descendants  rich  with  the  spoils  of  the  temple.  Now,  whatever  addi- 
tional punishment,  in  body  or  mind,  in  goods  or  reputation,  it  may  have  ■ 
pleased  God  to  inflict  on  the  authors  of  such  sacrilegious  rapine,  this  we 
ought  not  to  be  surprised  at  finding  a  general  consequence — the  total  frus- 
tration of  the  hopes  and  purposes  of  the  crime.  We  may  expect,  as  a  natu- 
ral chastisement  of  such  calculating,  covetous  spoliation  as  here  took  place, 
the  overthrow  and  ruin  of  such  families,  or  the  loss  to  them  of  their  ill-gotten 
wealth,  or  hereditary  disturbance  in  their  succession. 

A  priori,  such  is  the  punishment  of  the  Reformation  sacrilege,  which  we 
might  reasonably  expect :  and  at  any  rate,  if  facts  lead  to  the  observation  of 
such  results,  we  shall  at  once  see  their  fitness.  Again,  looking  at  the  posi-  • 
live  law,  as  the  popular  and  universal  conviction  respecting  the  almost  in- 
evitable punishment  of  murder,  (which,  being  a  social  crime,  is  generally 
eflepted  by  providential  delivery  of  the  perpetrator  to  human  justice.)  ac- 
cords exactly  with  the  divine  award,  "Whosoever  shall  shed  man's  blood, 
his  blood  shall  be  shed,"  (Gen.  ix :  6,)  so  will  the  experience  of  past  ages 
and  of  the  present  time,  that  sacrilege  is  a  plague-spot  on  the  family  of  the 
original  criminal,  and  a  canker  to  his  inheritance,  be  easily  pronounced  in 
harmony  with  the  awful  declaration  of  God,  who  adds  to  the  first  of  His 
commandments,  that  lie  is  "  mighty  and  jealous,  visiting  the  sins  of  the 
fathers  upon  the  children,  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation."  (Exod. 
XX  :  4.)     Now,  it  is  against  this  commandment  so  guarded,  that  the  crime 


FATE    AND    PUNISHMENT    OF   THE   CHURCH    ROBBERS.      481 

of  sacrilege,  whether  considered  as  an  act  of  grievous  covetousness,  ("  which 
is  a  serving  of  idols,")  or  as  a  direct  oflense  against  God's  honour  and  wor- 
ship, and  a  rebellious  attempt  to  rob  Him  of  what  has  once  been  given  Him 
is  committted. 

Nor  will  it  suffice  to  show  that,  in  some  particular  instances,  this  punish- 
ment has  not  occurred,  any  more  than  a  few,  or  even  many,  cases  of  un- 
avenged murder  will  weaken  the  conviction  derived  from  daily  experience. 
And  yet  the  very  small  number  of  exceptions  in  the  case  of  sacrilege  ought 
rather  to  confirm  our  argument.  The  active  researches  of  the  editors  of 
Spelman's  work  have  led  them  to  the  conclusion  that  only  fourteen  families 
yet  hold  abbey  lands  in  direct  succession  to  six  hundred  and  thirty  original 
grantees !  And,  even  in  some  of  those,  the  curse  of  strange  misfortunes 
has  accompanied  the  line  to  our  days. 

It  was  a  consideration  of  this  sort,  which,  in  fact,  led  Spelman  to  write 
his  work.  He  lived  within  eighty  3'ears  of  the  guilty  epoch,  and  could  thus 
more  easily  trace  the  history  of  the  original  acquirers  of  Church  property. 
Having  himself  experienced  nothing  but  misfortune  from  the  possession  of 
a  sacrilegious  estate,  of  which  he  was  at  last  glad  to  be  rid,*  he  commenced 
an  examination  on  a  limited  scale.  He  drew  a  circle  from  a  house  near  his 
own,  with  a  radius  of  twelve  miles.  This  contained  twenty-five  abbey- 
sites,  and  twenty-seven  gentlemen's  parks.  He  found  that,  while  not  one 
of  the  latter  had  changed  families,  every  one  of  the  former,  except  two,  had 
changed  them,  "  thrice  at  least,  and  some  five  or  six  times."     (P.  Ixxxix.) 

Here  is  another  example  given  by  Raynerus,  in  his  Apostolatus  Benedicti- 
nus.  He  took,  in  one  part  of  England,  two  hundred  and  sixty  flimilies 
which  had  received  part  of  the  Church  spoils  ;  and,  on  the  other  side,  twenty 
gentlemen,  to  whom  Thomas,  duke  of  Norfolk,  left  legacies  of  £40  a  year 
out  of  his  own  estate.  Eveiy  one  of  the  latter  had  a  son  "flourishing  in 
his  father's  inheritance,"  while  not  sixty  of  the  king's  grantees  had  trans- 
mitted their  estates  to  their  children.     (P.  xcii.) 

The  editors  of  the  work  before  us  have  taken  great  pains  to  collect  what 
we  may  call  the  statistics  of  sacrilege.  They  have  examined  the  different 
averages  of  possession  by  individuals  and  by  families,  of  lands  that  formerly 
belonged,  and  of  lands  that  have  never  belonged,  to  the  Church.  The  fol- 
lowing are  their  results  : 

Ohurch  lands.  Family  estates. 

Average  possession  in  years  by  each  individual,     --17     -----23 

do  do  do        do  a  family      -     -    -     -    38t 70 

The  figures  in  the  second  column  are  purposely  understated.:f 
It  is  impossible  to  read  the  two  appendices,  in  which  the  fate  of  the  fami- 
lies who  first  received  grants  of  abbeys  is  detailed,  and  not  be  struck  with 
the  literal  fulfillment  of  God's  threats.  Many  of  the  original  possessors  died 
childless  ;  of  several  we  read,  "extinct  in  the  third  generation,"  "extinct  in 
the  fourth  generation,"  and  of  others  we  may  easily  compute  by  the  dates, 

*  Giving  the  history  of  sacrilege  in  Blackborough  and  Wrongey  abbeys,  ho  thus 
mentions  himself  among  the  losers  by  it.  "  Sir  H.  Spelman,  a  great  lost-r,  and  not 
beholden  to  fortune,  yet  happy  in  this,  that  he  is  out  of  the  briars ;  but  especially 
that  thereby  he  fir.st  discerned  the  infelicity  of  meddling  with  consecrated  places." — 
P.  193. 

+  In  Warwickshire,  the  averages  arc  fifteen  years  for  an  individual,  and  twenty- 
seven  for  a  family. 

X  In  one  hundred  of  Kent,  the  average  possession  of  a  family  is  two  huadred  and 
eight  years. 

VOL.  n. — 41 


482  NOTE   D. 

that  it  was  about  the  same  period  in  their  descents  that  theji  received  their 
final  blow.  In  others,  each  generation  presents  a  series  of  misfortunes  and 
premature  deaths ;  while  many  astonish  us  by  the  total  failure  of  issue, 
where,  according  to  human  probabilities,  there  should  have  Vjeen  a  numeroug 
oft'spring.  As  an  awful  example,  we  will  quote  the  history  of  Charles,  duke 
of  Sutlblk. 

"This  despoiler  of  thirty  monasteries  was  married  four  times.  By  his  first 
wife  he  had  no  children.  By  his  second,  a  daughter,  Mary,  married  to  Lord 
Monteagle,  by  whom  she  had  three  sons,  of  whom  two  died  without  issue ; 
the  third  left  issue  only  a  daughter,  and  in  him  the  title  became  extinct.  By 
his  third  wife  the  duke  had  issue  one  son,  created  earl  of  Lincoln,  who  died 
at  an  early  age,  and  two  daughters.  Frances  married  Henry,  duke  of  Suf- 
folk, who  was  beheaded,  1554 ;  and  by  him  she  had,  1.  Lad}'  Jane  Gray, 
beheaded ;  2.  Lady  Catherine  Gray,  married  Henry,  Lord  Herbert,  who  di- 
vorced her,  and  then  Edward,  earl  of  Hertford,  beheaded  ;  3.  Lady  Mary 
Gray,  married  to  Martin  Keys,  and  died  without  issue.  After  the  execu- 
tion of  her  husband,  Frances  Brandon  married  Adrian  Stokes,  and  appears 
by  him  to  have  had  no  issue.  The  duke's  third  daughter,  Eleanor,  married 
Henry,  earl  of  Cumberland,  and  by  him  had  two  sons,  Henry  and  Charles, 
who  both  died  young  ;  and  Margaret,  married  to  Henry,  earl  of  Derby.  By 
his  fourth  wife  the  duke  had  two  sons,  who  both,  in  turn,  succeeded  ;  and 
died  of  the  sweating  sickness  in  one  day,  July  14th,  5  Ed.  VI.  A  more  re- 
markable instance  could  scarcely  be  found,  wherein,  in  the  next  generation, 
a  man's  name  has  been  clean  put  out." — Appendix  ii. 

But  not  only  the  original  seizers  of  church  lands  have  been  thus  punished, 
but  the  Divine  attainder  seems  to  attach  itself  to  the  property,  and  to  follow 
it  even  into  hands  comparatively  innocent.  The  extraordinarily  broken  and 
interrupted  descent  in  famihes  that  hold  it,  is  truly  wonderful.  Thus,  in 
the  Russell  flimily,  instanced  by  Tanner,  as  an  exception  to  the  general  rule 
about  the  transmission  of  ecclesiastical  lands,  we  find  that  in  ten  generations 
the  eldest  son  has  succeeded  to  his  father  only  thrice.  And  in  the  same 
family  there  have  been  four  violent  deaths,  (not  in  the  field  of  battle),  two 
within  the  last  six  years. — p.  312. 

Our  readers  will  allow  us  to  introduce  here  an  illustration  "  of  the  law  of 
succession  "  in  sacrilegious  families,  because  it  applies  to  a  part  of  England, 
once  so  rich  in  noble  abbeys  and  splendid  churches,  and  one  that  has  not 
been  much  referred  to  hy  the  editors  of  Spelman.  We  allude  to  Yorkshire  ; 
and  we  will  insert  the  very  words  of  the  letter,  which,  at  our  request,  con- 
veyed the  information.  We  can  only  add,  that  we  have  every  reliance  on 
the  integrity  and  the  accuracy  of  our  informant. 

"  I  have  a  friend  in  this  neighborhood,  and  his  name   is .     He  is  a 

magistrate,  and  a  gentleman  of  very  extensive  reading,  and  of  great  research 
in  books  which  treat  of  times  long  gone  by. 

"  One  day,  whilst  I  was  telling  him  of  the  immense  advantage  which  En- 
gland, in  better  days,  had  reaped  from  her  monastic  institutions,  he  asked 
me,  if  I  were  aware  that  families  enjoying  that  property,  had  never  been 
able  to  retain  it  for  three  successive  generations  ; — that  is — father,  son,  and 
grandson.  I  answered,  that  I  had  never  paid  attention  to  the  subject  as  far 
as  succession  was  concerned.  'Tben,'  said  he,  'let  me  tell  you,  that  I  my- 
self have  paid  very  great  attention  to  it :  and  I  have  never  been  able  to  dis- 
cover one  single  solitary  mstance,  of  any  family  possessing  the  monasterial 
property  for  three  successive  generations  of  father,  son,  and  grandson  ;  and, 
I  defy  you,'  added  he,  '  to  produce  an  unbroken  hue  of  three  generations.' 


SANDERS    ON   THE   ANGLICAN   REFORMATION.  483 

"  I  replied,  that,  '  whatever  might  have  been  the  case  up  to  the  present 

time,  there  was  at  this  moment,  every  appearance  of  a  regular  succession  in 
flither,  son,  and  grandson,  at  Kirklees  Hall,  near  Huddersfield.  Sir  George 
Armitage,  the  present  possessor,  has  one  foot  in  the  grave.  His  son  is  ready 
to  succeed  him,  and  that  son  has  healthy  male  issue.'     '  Time  will  show,' 

said  Mr. .     And  time  did  soon  show  :  for,  the  eldest  son  fell  ill,  and 

went  to  the  grave  a  month  or  two  before  his  father ;  and  thus,  the  regular 
succession  was  broken. 

******** 

"  On  a  re-perusal  of  your  letter,  I  gather  that  you  want  information  con- 
cerning families  in  this  immediate  neighborhood.  At  Nostell  Priory,  pos- 
sessed by  Mr.  Winn,  there  has  been  no  regular  succes.^ion  from  father,  to  son 
and  grandson,  since  the  monks  were  most  cruelly  and  most  unjustly  de- 
prived of  it. 

"  The  present  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  who  possesses  monasterial  property,  and 
who  resides  about  sixteen  miles  from  this  place,  has  lost  his  eldest  son. 

"  Sir  Edward  Dodsvvorth,  (formerly  Smith,)  who  possessed  the  monaste- 
rial property  of  Newland,  has  died  without  lawful  issue. 

"  Temple  Xewsham,  about  ten  miles  from  hence,  has,  I  believe,  passed 
from  family  to  family,  without  ever  having  a  grandson." 

The  writer  of  this  letter  further  corroborates  these  statements,  by  the 
striking  fact,  that  in  our  ro3'al  succession  since  the  sacrilegious  spoliation  of 
the    Church,  uo  sovereign  has  been  succeeded  by  a  grandson  on  the  throne. 


NOTE  E.  Page  222. 

SANDERS  ON  THE  ANGLICAN  REFORMATION. 

We  propose  here  to  furnish  a  few  extracts  fi-om  the  justly  celebrated 
work  of  Nicholas  Sanders  on  the  English  Schism. 

Sanders  was  a  contemporary  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Like  many  others,  he 
suffered  much  for  his  faith,  and  was  compelled  to  live  in  exile.  A  native  of 
Charlew^od  in  the  county  of  Surrey,  England,  he  received  his  early  educa- 
tion in  the  college  of  Wykeham,  founded  by  the  famous  bishop  of  this 
name.  He  afterwards  passed  at  Oxford  in  1548,  where  he  became  a  great 
proficient  in  theology  and  canon  law,  and  was  made  bachelor  in  1551.  In 
1557  he  was  promoted  to  the  distinguished  position  of  professor  of  canoo 
law  in  this  university.  In  1560,  he  was  compelled  to  resign  his  place,  in 
consequence  of  the  persecutions  inaugurated  by  Elizabeth  against  all  who 
would  not  forsake  the  ancient  faith.  He  then  betook  himself  to  Roine,  where 
he  received  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity.  He  accompanied  the  celebrated 
Cardinal  Hosius  to  the  Council  of  Trent,  as  one  of  his  theologians,  and  sub- 
sequently went  with  him  to  Poland  and  Louvain.     In  the  famous  university 


484  NOTE    E. 

of  the  latter  city  he  was  retained  for  some  time  as  royal  professor  of  theo- 
logy. Pope  St.  Pius  V.  afterwards  invited  him  to  Rome,  whence  Pope  Gre- 
gory XIII.  sent  him  first  to  Spain  and  later  to  Ireland,  in  the  honorable 
capacity  of  apostolic  nuncio.  The  fear  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  the 
English,  who  gave  no  quarter  to  Catholic  priests,  especially  to  those  who- 
had  ventured  to  return  from  exile,  compelled  him  to  take  refuge  in  the 
forests  ;  where  he  died,  a  confessor  of  the  faith,  about  the  year  1581,  or 
1582.  Besides  his  celebrated  work  on  the  English  Schism,  he  left  several 
others  of  less  note.* 

As  a  contemporary,  who  knew  well  the  things  of  which  he  wrote,  and  as 
a  man  of  irreproachable  character  and  elevated  position,  who  proved  his 
sincerity  by  enduring  protracted  privations  and  sufferings  for  his  religious 
convictions,  his  authority  must  have  great  Aveight  with  all  impartial  men. 
With  this  view,  we  will  furnish  a  few  specimens  of  his  statements  in  regard 
to  the  Anglican  Reformation,  some  of  which  are  sufficiently  curious.  Hallam 
and  others  have  attempted  to  throw  discredit  on  his  testimony,  but  they 
have  furnished  no  valid  reasons  for  so  doing.  It  is  easy  to  call  a  man  "  a 
liar." — as  Hallam  does  Sanders  in  his  Constitutional  History,  without  any 
proof  whatsoever;  but  it  is  more  difficult  to  substantiate  the  injurious  accu- 
sation. Sanders  may  have  received  some  things  on  trust,  and  he  may 
have  been  betrayed  into  occasional  mistakes  in  minor  points  ;  but  we  have 
scarcely  a  doubt  of  his  substantial  accuracy,  much  less  of  his  general  truth- 
fulness. If  he  misstated  facts,  why  was  he  not  refuted  at  the  time,  while 
the  events  were  all  so  fresh,  and  while  his  enemies  had  the  press  in  England 
exclusively  in  their  hands  ? 

1.  Sanders  boldly  states  that  Anne  Boleyn  was  the  natural  daughter  of 
Henry  VIII. !     His  testimony  is  as  follows  : 

"  Thomas  Boleyn  was  at  that  time  at  the  court  of  Francis  I.  in  the  quality 
of  ambassador,  with  the  Chevalier  Anthony  Brun.  As  soon  as  he  had  heard 
of  the  love  of  Henry  (for  Anne)  and  his  design,  he  took  post,  without  having 
obtained  the  previous  permission  of  the  king,  and  came  to  England.  He 
believed  that  there  would  be  danger  of  his  life,  if  any  other  excepf  himself; 
in  proper  person,  should  discover  to  Henry  the  secret  of  the  birth  of  Anne. 
He  met  Norris  the  chamberlain,  and  begged  ths,t  he  would  make  his  journey 
seem  good  in  the  eyes  of  the  king,  and  would  manage  to  obtain  for  himself 
a  private  audience.  Having  obtained  this,  he  related  to  the  prince  (King 
Henry)  that  which  had  formei'lj^  taken  place  during  his  embassy  in  France: 
'  That  in  his  absence  his  wife  was  brought  to  bed  of  Anne  :  that  for  this 
reason  he  had  wished  to  repudiate  her;  that  he  would  have  done  so,  had  it 
not  been  for  thp  order  of  his  majesty,  who  had  commanded  him  to  i)ardon 
her ;  to  which  he  had  consented,  after  his  wife  had  avowed  to  him  that  the 
king  was  the  father  of  his  last  daughter  (Anne.)' 

"  Henry  commanded  him  to  be  silent,  and  said,  '  that  there  were  so  many 

*  See,  for  an  abstract  of  his  life  and  writings,  Moreri,  Grand  Dictionaire  HistC' 
rique.     Amsterdam  and  La  Haye,  1702. 


SANDERS   ON   THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  485 

persons  who  had  had  pcart  in  the  good  graces  of  his  wife,  that  it  could  not  be 
known  who  wa.s  the  real  father  of  Anne ;  wiiosoever  it  might  be,  however, 
that  he  wished  to  espouse  her,  and  that  he  (Boleyn)  sliould  never  speak  of 
that  which  he  had  Just  now  mentioned.' — Thereupon  the  king  laughing  left 
him  on  his  knees." — Histor}-  of  the   English  Schism,  p.  '61. 

"Anne  was  born  in  England  two  years  after  the  departure  of  Thomas 
Boleyn  ;  thus  it  is  simply  impo.ssible  that  she  could  have  been  his  daughter. 
Henry  in  truth  had  fallen  in  love  with  the  wife  of  Thomas  Boleyn,  and  had 
sent  him  to  France  with  the  specious  quality  of  ambassador,  in  order  to 
have  a  more  free  intercourse  with  his  mistress.  Boleyn  learned  on  his 
return  the  bad  conduct  of  his  wife,  and  he  caused  her  to  be  called  before  the 
official  of  Canterbury,  on  the  charge  of  adultery  :  she  informed  the  king, 
who  sent  immediately  the  marquis  of  Dorchester  to  Boleyn,  to  cause  him 
to  stop  any  further  measures,  to  pardon  his  wife,  and  receive  her  again  into 
favor." — Ibid.,  p.  17. 

2.  In  proof  of  the  cruelty  of  Henry,  the  example  of  Pole  and  of  others 
is  adduced  by  our  author,  who  writes  thus  : 

"  Pole  in  the  course  of  four  months  composed  four  books,  on  the  unity 
of  the  Church,  which  he  dedicated  to  Henry,  and  caused  a  copy  to  be  put 
into  his  hands.  In  this  work  Pole  refutes  in  a  learned  manner  the  primacy 
of  the  king,  shows  forth  his  crimes  with  remarkable  clearness,  and  endeavors 
to  teach  him  the  way  of  penance  for  the  remission  of  his  sins.  The  king 
was  so  outraged  at  his  boldness,  that  he  caused  him  to  be  declared  a  traitor 
to  his  country,  and  guilty  of  high  treason.  Henry  laid  also  several  plots 
for  his  life,  caused  his  mother  to  be  put  to  death,  as  well  as  his  brother  and 
uncle ;  indeed,  very  little  more,  and  he  would  have  extinguished  his  whole 
race." — Ibid.,  p.  106. 

"  On  the  14th  June  1535,  the  king  caused  three  more  of  the  Carthusian 
fathers  to  be  arrested,  and,  after  having  kept  them  for  fourteen  days  in 
prison  with  irons  upon  their  necks,  arms,  and  legs,  so  that  they  were  unable 
to  make  use  of  their  limbs,  he  caused  them  to  be  dragged  through  the 
streets  of  London  to  the  place  of  execution.  They  were  hung  for  a  few 
moments,  thence  taken  down  still  alive  and  their  members  cut  off — even 
those  which  modesty  does  not  permit  us  to  name — and  thrown  into  the  fire. 
The  executioner  or  hangman  opened  their  sides  with  a  knife,  tore  out  their 
entrails,  and  threw  them  in  the  same  manner  into  the  flames :  finally  he  cut 
off  their  heads,  and  divided  their  bodies  into  four  parts,  which  he  caused  to 
be  boiled,  then  they  were  hung  up  in  diHerent  pa#"ts  of  the  city,  as  a  spec- 
tacle for  the  people  !" — Ibid.,  p.  110. 

Shortly  afterwards  ten  more  of  the  Carthusians  were  thrown  into  prison 
and  treated  witli  so  much  cruelty  and  inhumanity,  that  they  all  died  in  pri.son 
of  hunger  and  filth ;  on  hearing  which  Cromwell  expressed  pain  that  they 
had  died  so  easl}' ! — Ibid. 

3.  Of  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries,  Sanders  writes  as  follows  : 

"On  the  4th  of  February  the  pretended  or  real  disorders  of  religious 
houses  having  been  brought  forward,  the  parliament  ordered,  that  the  rev- 
enues of  all  the  convents  which  did  not  exceed  seven  hundred  crowns, 
should  be  reunited  to  the  royal  domain,  or,  in  other  words,  confiscated  to 
the  government.  Tlie  less  wealthy  monasteries  seemed  to  be  the  less  ne- 
nessary  for  the  public  ;  some  said  that  because  of  the  small  number  of  the 
62 


486  NOTE  E. 

religious,  the  regular  discipline  was  illy  observed.  The  king  therefore  at- 
tacked  these  first,  in  order  to  be  able  to  get  into  his  power  afterwards  these 
which  wero  more  weallliy,  as  well  as  not  to  excite  the  abbots,  who  were 
more  influential  and  who  had  a  voice  in  parliament.  These,  esteeming 
themselves  free  from  danger,  were  thought  to  be  less  apt  to  oppose  the  will 
of  the  king." — Ibid.,  p.  133. 

"  Thus,  at  once,  three  hundred  and  seventy-six  monasteries  \vere  ruined, 
and  their  spoils  augmented  the  king's  revenues.".  .  .  .  "More  than  six  thou- 
sand persons  of  both  sexes  returned  to  the  secular  life."  ....  "A  remaikahle 
fact,  in  connection  with  all  this  devastation,  is,  that  eight  months  afterwards 
the  people  were  so  heavily  laden  with  taxes,  that  they  took  arms  to  rid 
themselves  of  burdens  so  wholly  intolerable." — Ibid. 

4.  Speaking  of  Henry  before  and  after  the  divorce,  he  says  : 

"Before  Henry  had  divorced  his  wife,  he  had  sent  very  few  of  his  sub- 
jects to  the  scaffold,  an;l  only  two  gentlemen  of  rank,  Edmund  Pole,  count 
of  Suffolk,  and  the  duke  of  Buckingham.  The  former  of  these  was  be- 
headed more  by  order  of  Henry  VII.  than  by  himself;  Henry  VII.  when 
dying  had  recommended  that  he  should  be  punished  on  account  of  having 
been  engaged  in  some  revolt ;  and  he  had  granted  the  life  of  the  latter 
(Buckingham)  to  the  importunities  of  Wolsey.  But  after  his  separation 
from  the  Church,  and  from  Queen  Catharine,  it  would  be  impossible  to  say 
how  much  blood  lie  spilled,  both  of  the  nobility  and  people.  Among  those 
who  had  to  feel  his  violence,  may  be  enumerated  three  or  four  queens,  two 
princesses,  two  cardinals,  of  whom  one  was  condemned  to  death  for  con- 
tempt of  authority  ;  twelve  dukes  and  marquises,  and  counts  or  sons  of 
counts  ;  eighteen  barons  or  gentlemen ;  thirteen  abbots  or  priors ;  and 
seventy-.seven  monks  and  priests.  Cardinal  Pole  remarked,  that  the  favor- 
ites of  the  king  akways  ran  the  greatest  risk  of  their  necks  ;  of  which 
Wolsey,  Compton,  Norris,  the  Boleyns,  Cromwell,  the  Howards,  etc.,  are 
striking  examples." — P.  210-1. 

5.  Of  Henry's  fearful  death,  he  writes : 

"Henry  VITI.  died  in  London,  January  28th,  1546,  at  the  same  time 
that  Luther  died  in  German)^ ;  and  two  months  after  the  death  of  Henr)% 
Francis  I.  of  France  also  departed  this  life.  Henry  was  not  much  regretted 
by  his  subjects  having  incurred  their  hatred  by  his  bad  conduct. 

"  Henry  was  hard  beset  by  his  sickness,  when  some  one  informed  him 
of  the  extremity  in  which  he  was  placed  ;  whereupon  he  asked  for  a  glass 
of  white  wine,  and  looking  steadfastly  at  one  of  his  friends,  he  said  to  him  ; 
"  All  is  lost  ! "  It  is  said,  that  he  died  after  having  repeated  several 
times  the  word  monks.  Henry  had  then  reigned  thirty-seven  years,  nine 
months,  and  six  days.  Twenty-one  of  these  were  pas.sod  in  union  with  the 
Church,  five  years  in  contests  with  her  without  knowing  what  precise  stand 
to  take  ;  whilst  during  the  rest  of  his  life — about  twelve  years — he  re- 
mained in  manifest  revolt  against  the  Holy  See." — P.  212. 

6.  The  state  of  ecclesiastical  matters  in  England  under  Edward  VI.  can  be 
readily  conceived  from  the  fact,  that  Cranmer  himself,  although  archbishop 
of  Canterbuiy,  was  obliged  to  submit  to  the  law  that  no  ordinations  could 
be  held  unk  ss  by  the  express  consent  of  a  mere  child  !  Nor  was  the  per- 
mission to  ordain  given  absolutely,  but  conditionally  and  for  a  certain  time 
only.     The  fot  )wing  was  the  form  of  the  permission  obtained  by  Cranmer 


SANDERS    ON    THE    ANGLICAN    REFORMATION.  487 

"Edward,  by  the  grace  of  God,  king  of  England,  France,  and  Ireland 
sovereign  head  on  earth  of  the  English  and  Irish  church,  as  well  in  spiritual 
as  in  temporal  concerns  ;  to  the  Kev.  Thomas,  archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
health,  etc. :  Since  all  jurisdiction,  both  secular  and  ecclesiastical,  emanates 
from  the  royal  power,  etc. :  For  this  reason,  we  give  you  power,  by  the 
present  letters,  which  are  available  only  so  long  as  it  will  be  pleasing  to  us, 
to  confer  in  your  diocese  of  Canterbury  sacred  orders,  and  even  the  priest- 
hood to  all  who  will  present  themselves." — P.  22'2-3. 

"  After  the  parliament  had  arranged  temporal  concerns,  which  were  their 
principal  care,  they  passed  to  religious  matters.  Up  to  this  time  both 
bishops  and  priests  had  been  ordained  according  to  the  rite  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  saving  and  excepting  howevei-,  that  they  all  refused  to  be  subject 
to  the  Holy  See.  They  established  therefore  for  the  future  a  new  form  of 
ordination,  by  the  authority  of  a  baby  king :  they  also  prescribed  a  new 
method  for  the  administration  of  the  sacraments,  and  a  Ritual  was  published 
and  confirmed  by  the  state  assembly." — P.  240-1. 

7.  Of  Elizabeth's  insincerity  and  tyranny,  Sanders  treats  at  great  length. 
We  can  furnish  but  one  or  two  specimens.  The  first  signs  of  Elizabeth's 
change  of  religion,  or  rather  of  its  loss,  were,  according  to  him, 

"  The  silence  which  she  placed  upon  the  Catholic  preachers ;  the  permis- 
sion which  she  gave  to  the  banished  heretics  to  return  home ;  and  the  order 
which  she  gave  to  a  bishop  when  going  to  the  altar  to  celebrate  the  holy 
Sacrifice,  not  to  elevate  the  consecrated  Host.  It  was  on  this  account  that 
the  archbishop  of  York,  to  wliora  the  right  of  consecrating  the  queen  be- 
longed, after  the  death  of  Cardinal  Pole,  primate  of  Canterbury,  refused  to 
lend  his  aid ;  all  the  other  bishops  excused  themselves  in  like  manner  ;  one 
alone,  the  last  of  the  whole  body,  performed  the  ceremony.  Elizabeth 
however  did  not  refuse  to  take  the  ordinary  oath,  'to  maintain  the  Catholic 
faith,  and  preserve  the  privileges  and  liberties  of  the  Church.'  She  believed 
that  in  order  to  get  the  reins  of  government,  deception,  dissimulation,  and 
perjury  were  permitted.  She  allowed  herself  to  be  anointed,  although 
with  scorn  and  disdain ;  for  when  she  had  retired  into  her  pavilion  to  take 
the  royal  habit,  she  said  to  her  maids  of  honor  :  '  Don't  approach  me,  that 
stinking  oil  would  give  you  heart-ache.'  " — P.  327. 

"  During  the  reign  of  Mar}-,  Elizabeth  made  an  open  profession  of  the 
Catholic  religion.  She  even  went  so  far  as  to  wish  one  day,  that  the  earth 
might  open  and  swallow  her  up,  if  this  were  not  her  real  faith  !  Many 
gentlemen  of  the  court  were  witnesses  of  this  imprecation." — P.  320. 

8.  The  foregoing  extracts  were  translated  by  a  friend  from  a  French  trans- 
lation of  the  work  of  Sanders,  published  in  Paris  in  1683.  Though  some- 
what free,  the  translation  is  substantially  accurate.  We  have  since  found 
in  the  library  of  the  archbishop  of  Baltimore,  one  of  the  earliest  editions  of 
the  original  work  in  Latin,  published  at  Cologne  (Colonias  Agrip.)  in  1610. 
From  this  edition  we  take  what  is  by  fixr  the  most  important  passage  in  the 
work  :  that  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  ordination  of  Parker  and  his  col- 
leagues— the  first  "  parliamentary  bishops."  The  importance  of  this  testi- 
mony can  scarcely  be  exaggersted ;  for  Sanders  was  not  only  an  Englishman 
and  a  contemf  >rary,  but  he  may  be  said  to  have  been  almost  an  eye-wit 


488  NOTE    E. 

ness  of  the  transaction  which  he  records  ;  for  he  was  then  professor  of  car  »d 
law  in  the  university  of  Oxford. 

We  pubUsh  the  testimony  tirst  in  Latin,  and  then  in  an  English  trans- 
lation. 

"  Sod  cum  ipsi  superintendentes  creandi  essent,  nee  a  Cathohcis  episcopis 
impetrare  potuerint  ut  ipsis  manus  admoverent,  nee  inter  se  aut  tres,autduos 
episcopos,  nee  ullum  prorsus  perfidias  suae  Metropolitanum  ab  aliis  episcopis 
ordinatum  haberent,  cujus  vel  manu  vel  consensu  consecrari  possent;  nee 
etiam  ad  vicinas  Lutheranorum  aut  Calvinistarum  ecclesias  se  contulerunt 
ut  indc  mutuas  episcoporum  (qui  forte  nee  ibi  erant)  operas  peterent.  In- 
stabant  quidem  multum  apud  quemdam  archiepiscopum  —  Hibernum,  quem 
tunc  in  careers  Londinensi  in  vinculis  habebant,  ut  illis  in  hac  necessitate 
succurreret,  ipsi  libertate  et  praemiis  propositis,  si  vellet  istorum  ordinationi 
praeesse  ;  sed  vir  bonus  nuUo  modo  adduci  potuit  ut  hajreticis  sacras  manus 
imponeret,  vel  alieno  peccato  communicaret.  Atque  ita,  cum  omni  legitiina 
ordinatione  desHtuti  vuhjo  dicerentur,  et  ipsis  legibus  Anglicanis  vere  proba- 
rentur  non  esse  episcopi,  brachium  saeculare  invocare  coacti  sunt,  ut  laicalis 
magistratus  confirmationem  in  futuris  comitiis  acciperent.  Quorum  auctori- 
tate,  si  quid  minus  rite  et  legaliter  in  priori  inauguratione  gestum  esset  aut 
omissum  ipsis  condonaretur,  idque  postquam  episcopali  officio  et  cathedra, 
SINE  ULLA  EPISCOPALI*  coNSECRATiONE,  aliquot  annos  functi  essent.  Ilinc 
nomen  illis  impositum,  ut  Episcopi  Parliamentarii  dicerentur." — Edition 
above  referred  to,  p.  349. 

TRANSLATION. 

"  When  these  overseers  (bishops)  were  to  be  created,  they  were  not  able 
to  persuade  the  Catholic  bishops  to  impose  hands  on  them,  and  not  having 
among  themselves  three  or  two  bishops  or  any  metropolitan  ordained  by 
other  bishops  of  their  party,  who  might  consecrate  them,  or  consent  to 
their  consecration,  neither  had  they  recourse  to  the  neighboring  Ijutheran 
or  Calvinist  churches  to  obtain  thence  the  aid  of  bishops  (who  perhaps  were 
not  there).  They  were  very  urgent  with  an  Irish  archbishop,  v»iio  was  then 
confined  in  prison  ;  and  offered  him  liberty  and  recompense,  if  he  would  im- 
pose hands  on  them.  But  the  good  man  would  not  consent  to  impose 
hands  on  heretics,  or  be  implicated  in  their  guilt.  And  thus,  as  they  were 
commonly  reputed  to  be  destitute  of  all  lawful  ordination,  and  by  the  very 
laws  of  England  were  proved  not  to  be  bishops,  they  were  obliged  to  implore 
the  arm  of  the  civil  power,  that  they  might  obtain  the  sanction  of  the  lay 
magistrate,  in  a  subsequent  parliament.     By  authority  of  which,  whatever 

*  In  the  edition  used  bj  Archbishop  Kenrick  of  St.  Louis,  in  his  Anglican  Ordina- 
tions, p.  63-4,  this  word  Episcopali  is  not  found  :  it  strengthens  the  testimony.  There 
IS  also  found  another  slight  discrepancy,  which  does  not  however  affect  this. 


MORAL   CHARACTER    OF   JOHN    KNOX.  489 

had  been  done  irregularly,  or  unlawfully,  or  whatever  had  been  omitted  in 
their  inauguration,  might  be  pardoned  them  ;  and  this,  after  they  had  dis- 
charged the  episcopal  office  and  occupied  sees  some  years,  without  any 
EPISCOPAL  CONSECEATION.     Hence  they  obtained  the  name  of  Parliamentary 


NOTE  F   Page  253. 

MORAL  CHARACTER  OF  JOHN  KNOX. 

The  moral  character  of  John  Knox  was  sharply  canvassed,  both  during 
his  lifetime  and  shortly  after  his  death.  Those  who  were  opposed  to  him 
in  religion  almost,  if  not  quite  uniformly  represented  him  as  a  most  profli- 
gate and  abandoned  man,  whose  stern  religion  was  but  a  cloak  for  his  gross 
sensuality ;  while  some  of  his  co-religionists  have  painted  his  character  as 
blameless,  and  his  life  as  one  of  austere  and  active  zeal.  We  purpose,  in 
this  Note,  to  exhibit  both  sides  of  the  controversy,  and  for  this  purpose  to 
republish  so  much  of  McCrie's  Note  QQ,  at  the  end  of  his  volume,  (p.  495, 
seqq.,)  as  has  direct  reference  to  the  character  of  Knox  ;  interspersing  the 
defense  with  a  running  commentary  of  our  own. 

" '  C'est  rendre  sans  doute  (says  Bayle)  quelques  service  a  la  meraoire  de 
Jean  Knox,  que  de  fair  voir  les  extravagances  de  ceux  qui  ont  dechire  sa 
reputation.'  And,  having  referred  to  the  'gross  and  extravagant  slanders' 
of  one  writer,  he  adds,  'this  alone  is  a  sufficient  prejudice  against  all  which 
the  Roman  Catholic  writers  have  published  concerning  the  great  reformer 
of  Scotland.'  Diet.  art.  Knox.  If  Mons.  Bayle  could  speak  in  this  manner 
upon  a  quotation  from  one  author,  what  conclusion  shall  we  draw  from  the 
following  quotations  ?" 

Bayle,  besides  being  comparatively  a  recent  writer,  was  an  infidel  or  a 
skeptic ;  and  his  authority  amounts  to  very  little,  especially  when,  as  in  the 
present  instance,  it  consists  in  the  enunciatiation  of  a  mere  opinion.  He 
was,  in  one  sense,  a  Protestant  like  Knox,  the  only  difference  being,  that  he 
carried  his  protest  considerably  further.  His  opinion  presents  another  striking 
evidence  of  that  sympathetic  feeling  which  exists  among  dissenters  and 
errorists  of  every  class.  They  all  defend  one  another ;  but  the  defenso  of  a 
Christian  by  an  infidel  is  any  thing  but  complimentary  to  the  former. 

The  writer  to  whom  Bayle  refers,  as  having  uttered  a  slander  against 
Knox,  was  the  contemporary  historian  Thevet,  an  ex-monk,  who  however 
had  not,  it  would  seem,  abandoned  the  Catholic  fjiith.  Bayle  rejects  his 
testimony,  but  without  alleging  any  other  ground  for  so  doing  than  that  he 
misspelt  the  name  of  Knox !  A  foreign,  and  especially  a  French  writer 
rery  naturally  fall*  into  Such  blunders  even  at  the  present  day.     We  will 


490  NOTE   F. 

republish  an  extract  from  the  testimon}'  of  Thevet,  who  speaks  of  the  con 
fusion  which  Knox  and  his  disciples  had  caused  in  Scotland  during  These 
twelve  years  past,"  and  was  therefore  a  contemporary  entitled  to  soma 
credit;  the  more  so,  as  the  kingdoms  of  France  and  Scotland  were  then  in 
intimate  relations  with  each  othei-,  on  account  of  the  Smttish  queen  having 
married  the  Frcmch  dauphin.     Thevet  writes  thus  of  Knox  : 

'•This  firebrand  of  sedition,  who  delighted  in  nothing  but  broils  and 
tumults,  could  not  be  content  with  barely  following  the  steps  of  Luther, 
Zuingle,  Farel,  and  less  still  those  of  his  master  Calvin,  who  had  not  long 
before  delivered  him  from  the  gallies  of  the  prior  of  Capua,  where  he  had 
been  three  years  for  his  crimes,  unlawful  amours,  and  ahominahle  fomirations  ; 
for  he  used  to  lead  a  dissolute  life  in  seceral  shameful  and  odious  places ; 
being  also  found  guilty  of  the  parricide  and  murder  committed  on  the  body 
of  James  Beton,  archbishop  of  St.  Andrew's,  etc." — Ba3'le's  Historical  and 
Critical  Dictionary,  Art.  Knox.     Edit.  London ;  1738,  in  ten  vols.,  folio. 

In  the  same  article,  Bayle  states  that  IMorcri  charged  Knox  with  almost 
every  crime  against  chastity,  following  in  this  respect  the  annalist  Spon- 
danus,  who  ad  an.  1559,  says  that  "  Knox,  a  priest  and  an  apostate  monk, 
who  was  a  debaucher  of  several  women,  and  of  his  own  step-mother,  and  a 
magician,  returned  to  Scotland  in  1559,  well  provided  with  instructions  from 
Calvin ;"  and  that  in  Scotland  he  everywhere  caused  tumults,  sacrilege,  and 
violence.     Bayle  adds : 

"  The  misfortune  is,  that  the  English  episcopalians  agree  with  the  papist 
writers,  in  representing  him  as  an  apostle  who  established  his  Reformation 
with  fire  and  sword,  and  who  taught  the  most  seditious  doctrines." — Ibid. 

In  the  notes  he  furnishes  many  authorities  on  this  head. 

The  evidence  of  Christian  contemporaries,  who  were  cognizant  of  the 
facts,  is  much  more  valuable  for  forming  a  correct  opinion  than  that  of  Bayle. 
McCrie  alleges  and  attempts  to  refute  three  such  witnesses  :  Archibald 
Hamilton,  Nichol  Burne,  and  James  Laing,  besides  one  nearly  contemporary 
— Alexander  Baillie.  All  of  these  were  Scots,  and  therefore  they  may  be 
supposed  to  have  been  sufficiently  acquainted  with  Knox,  and  Avith  the 
stirring  events  in  which  he  was  so  prominent  an  actor.  Of  the  first  witness, 
Hamilton,  McCrie  writes  : 

"  The  first  writer  who  seems  to  have  attacked  Knox's  character,  after  his 
death,  was  Archibald  Hamilton,  whose  hostility  against  him  was  inflamed 
by  a  personal  quarrel,  as  well  as  by  political  and  religious  considerations. 
(Sec  above,  p.  345.)  His  book  show^s  how  much  he  was  disposed  to  recom- 
mend himself  to  the  papists, by  throwing  out  whatever  was  most  injurious 
to  his  former  connections.  But  there  were  too  many  alive  at  that  time  to 
refute  any  charge  which  might  be  brought  against  the  reformer's  monil 
character.  According!  v.  wlien  lie  aimed  the  most  envenomed  thrust  at  his 
reputation,  Hamilton  masked  it  under  the  name  of  an  apprehension  or  sur- 
mise. Having  said  that,  upon  the  death  of  Edward  VI.  '  he  fled  to  Geneva 
with  a  noble  and  rich  ladv,'  (which  by  the  bye  is  also  a  falsehood)  he  adds  in 


MORAL   CHARACTER   OF   JOHN   KNOX.  491 

a  parenthesis  'qua  simul  et  filia  matris  pellice  familiariter  usus  fuisse  puta 
batur.'  De  Confusione  Calvinianae  Secta?,  p.  65,  a.  Parisiis  1577.  What 
Hamilton  insinuated  as  a  mere  sicnnise,  his  successors  soon  converted  into 
undoubted  certainty.^' 

Archibald  Hamilton  was  of  a  noble  family,  and  he  had  been  induced  at 
first  to  join  the  reformed  party.  But  he  soon  became  disgusted  with  the 
coarseness  of  Knox's  invectives  against  poor  Mary  of  Scots,  and  he  absented 
himself  from  his  preaching.  His  brother  Robert  was  a  minister  of  the  Kirk 
at  St.  Andrews,  and  he  was  himself  a  distinguished  professor  in  the  univer- 
sity, where  "  his  influence  -n  as  great."  (McCrie,  p.  345.)  He  brought  the 
matter  of  Knox's  preaching  before  the  university  ;  but  Knox,  while  willing 
to  converse  privately  with  the  professors,  entered  "  a  protestation "  against 
their  jurisdiction,  and  appealed  to  the  regular  church  courts.  He  (Knox) 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  general  assembly,  which  met  in  August,  1572  ;  in  which 
he  expressed  himself  strongly,  if  not  coarsely,  against  the  church  being 
placed  "  under  the  bondage  of  the  universities."  Hamilton  soon  afterwards 
left  Scotland,  where  his  residence  was  no  longer  agreeable,  or  perhaps  safe  ; 
and  going  to  France,  he  re-entered  the  Catholic  Church,  and  published  his 
work  above  quoted.  That  he  was  a  respectable  and  competent  witness,  no 
one  will  deny  ;  that  his  prejudices  against  Knox  would  scarcely  have  led  him 
so  far  as  to  cause  him  deliberately  to  bear  false  witness  against  him,  few  will 
be  disposed  to  assert.  His  book  was  published  but  five  j^ears  after  the  death 
of  Knox,  which  occurred  Xov.  24th,  1572.     (McCrie,  p.  369.) 

His  testimony  is  much  stronger  than  it  suits  the  purpose  of  McCrie  to  ad- 
mit. He  asserts  positively,  that  Knox  "fled  to  Geneva  with  a  noble  and 
rich  lady  ; "  and  he  adds,  as  the  current  opinion  and  ,  belief  at  the  time,  that 
he  lived  criminally  both  with  her  and  her  daughter  !  This  appears  to  be 
the  force  of  the  term  ^;<ta6aii(?',  which  implies  much  more  than  "a  mere 
surmise " — as  McCrie  asserts.  That  Mrs.  Bowes  and  her  daughter,  the 
wife  of  Knox,  were  really  abroad  on  the  continent  together  with  Knox, 
McCrie  himself  admits  (p.  196)  ;  and  we  have  nothing  but  his  own  bold 
assertion,  that  Hamilton's  positive  statement  of  their  having  both  fled  with 
Knox  to  Geneva  is  a  falsehood.  Many  may  be  inclined  to  believe,  that  the 
assertion  of  a  respectable  contemporary,  like  Archibald  Hamilton,  is  much 
more  weighty  than  that  of  so  recent  and  so  prejudiced  a  witness  as 
McCrie. 

"A  few  years  after  we  find  one  of  them  writing  in  the  following  terms  : 
Johne  Kmnox  your  first  apostcl,  quha  caused  ane  young  woman  in  my  lord 
Ochiltreis  place  fal  ainiaist  dead,  becaus  sche  saw  his  maister  Satthan  in  ane 
black  mannis  likenese  with  him,  throuche  ane  bore  of  the  dure  :  quha  was 
also  ane  manifest  adulterare  bringand  furth  of  Ingland  baith  the  mother  and 
the  dochter  whom  he  persuadit  that  it  was  lesum  to  leve  her  liousband,  (see 
p.  196,  197,)  and  adhere  unto  him,  making  ane  fleshe  of  himself,  the  mother. 


492  NOTE   F. 

and  the  dochter,  as  if  he  wald  conjoyne  in  ane  religione,  the  auld  synagogue 
of  the  Jeuis  with  the  new  fundat  kirk  of  the  Gentiles."  In  another  i)lace 
he  introduces  the  account  of  his  second  marriage  with  these  words  .  "  That 
renegat  and  peijurit  priest  schir  Johane  Kmnox,  quha  efler  the  death  of  hia 
first  harlot,  quliilk  he  mareit  incurring  eternal  damnation  be  breking  his  vou 
and  promiss  of  chastitie,  quhen  his  age  requyrit  rather  that  with  tearis  and 
lamentations  he  sould  have  chastised  his  liesh  and  bewailit  the  breaking  of 
his  vou,  as  also  the  horribil  incest  with  his  gudmother  in  ane  killogie  of 
Haddingtoun." — Burne's  Disputation  concerning  the  Controversit  Headdis 
of  Rehgion,  p.  102,  143.    Parise,  1581." 

The  severity  and  coarseness  of  this  declaration  of  Burne,  together  with 
some  credulity  in  tlie  statement  concerning  the  fright  of  the  young  woman 
whose  place  of  residence  he  particularizes,  does  not  detract  from  the  substance 
of  his  testimony  in  regard  to  the  generally  believed  immoral  chara^iter  of 
Knox.  This  admixture  of  superstition  and  plainness  of  speech  was  a  char- 
acteristic of  the  age,  especially  in  Scotland.  Making  all  due  allowance 
for  the  prejudice  and  credulity  of  Burne,  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  there 
was  no  foundation  in  truth  for  his  statement.  The  verj^  boldness  of  his 
charge,  and  his  specifications,  presuppose  the  existence  of  at  least  some 
grounds  for  them. 

There  is  no  evidence  whatever,  so  far  as  we  have  seen,  to  show  that  he 
copied  from  Hamilton,  whose  accusation  he  so  strongly  confirms.  The  mere 
circumstance  that  both  works  were  published  in  Paris  within  four  years  of 
each  other,  is  no  evidence  of  the  fact  of  collusion  or  concert  of  testimony. 
At  that  time,  there  was  so  little  freedom  of  the  press  both  in  Scotland  and 
England — thanks  to  the  liberty-promising  Reformation — that  no  Catholic 
dared,  as  he  valued  his  liberty  or  life,  to  pubhsh  a  work  in  defense  of  his 
faith  in  either  country  ;  and  the  result  was,  that  Catholic  authors  were  com- 
pelled to  betake  themselves  for  publication  to  France  or  Belgium.  This 
explains  how  so  many  of  the  Catholic  publications  of  the  sixteenth  century 
were  issued  from  the  presses  of  the  continent.  Paris  was  one  of  the  most 
accessible  and  available  points  for  the  purpose,  and  it  was  moreover  the 
favorite  resort  of  the  Scots. 

"  But  the  two  former  writers  were  outstripped  in  calumny  by  that  most 
impudent  of  all  liars,  James  Laing,  who  published  in  Latin,  during  the  same 
year  in  which  the  last  mentioned  work  appeared,  an  account  of  the  lives  and 
manners  of  the  heretics  of  his  time.  There  are  few  pages  of  his  book  in 
which  he  does  not  rail  against  our  reformer  ;  but  in  (what  he  ».  alls)  his  I^ife, 
he  may  justly  l)e  said  to  have  exceeded  any  thing  which  per'sonal  malice,  or 
religious  rancour,  ever  dictated.  "Statim  (says  he)  ab  initio  sua}  pueritiae 
omni  genere  tnrpissimi  facinoris  infectus  fuit.  Vix  excesserat  jam  ex  ephe- 
bi.s,  cum  patris  sui  uxorem  violarat,  suam  novercam  vitiarat,  et  cum  ea,  3ui 
revorentia  potissimum  adhibenda  fuerat,  nefarium  stuprum  fecerat."  His 
bishop  having,  forsooth,  called  him  to  account  for  these  crimes,  he  straight- 
Way  became   inflamed  with   the   utmost   hatred   to  the   Catholic  religion 


MORAL    CHARACTER    OF   JOHN    KNOX.  493 

"Deinde  non  modo  cum  profimis,  sed  etiam  cum  quibuscunque  sceleratissi 
mis,  perditissimis,  et  potissimura  omnium  hsereticis  est  versatus,  et  quo 
quisque  erat  immanior,  scelei'atior,  crudelior,  eo  ei  carior  et  gratior  fuit.— 
Ne  unum  quidem  diem  sceleratissimus  haereticus  sine  una  et  item  altera 
meretrice  traducere  potuit. — Continuo  cum  tribus  meretricibus,  qu£e  vide- 
bantur  posse  sufficere  uni  sacerdoti,  in  Scotia  convolat. — Ceterum  hie  lasci- 
vus  caper,  quem  assidue  sequebatur  lasciva  capella,  partim  perpetuis  crapu- 
lis,  partim  vino,  lustrisque  ita  confectus  fuit,  ut  quotiescunq.  conscenderet 
suggestum  ad  maledicendum,  vel  imprecandum  suis,  opus  erat  illi  duobus 
aut  tribus  viris,  a  quibus  elevandus  atq.  sustendandus  erat." — De  Vita  et 
Morihus  atqiie  Hehus  Gesfis  Hcereticorum  nostri  temporis.  Authore  Jncoho 
Laingceo,  Scoto,  Dodore  Sorhonico,  fol.  113,  b.  114,  a,  b.  115,  a.  Parisiis, 
1581.      Gam  Privilegio." 

The  testimony  of  Laing  is  too  plain  to  admit  of  translation,  and  we  leave 
it  in  the  original  Latin.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  he  boldly  accuses  the  Scottish 
reformer  of  almost  every  possible  species  of  gross  immorality,  says  that  his 
hatred  against  the  Church  was  induced  by  his  bishop  having  called  him  to 
severe  account  for  his  enormities,  and  more  than  intimates  that  his  infirm- 
ities in  advancing  years  were  caused  by  early  excesses.  It  will  not  do  to 
get  rid  of  his  testimony,  by  simply  caUing  Laing  "the  most  impudent  of  all 
liars  ; "  something  more  than  violent  denunciation  is  requisite  to  refute  the 
positive  testimony  of  a  contemporary  and  a  fellow-countryman  of  Knox. 
"  Personal  malice  and  religious  rancor  "  he  may  have  had  ;  but  while  these 
might  account  for  some  exaggeration,  they  can  scarcely  be  pleaded  as  suf- 
ficient to  invalidate  his  entire  testimony  :  unless,  indeed,  we  chose  to  pro- 
ceed on  the  principle  of  believing  nothing  in  history  which  is  not  agreeable 
to  our  feelings  or  prejudices. 

Here  then  is  the  joint  testimony  of  three  respectable  Scots,  boldly  pub- 
lished to  the  world  within  nine  years  after  the  death  of  Knox.  They  deal 
not  in  vague  generalities  ;  they  allege  facts  and  furnish  specifications.  They 
had  probably  been  all  of  them  sufferers  from  the  Reformation,  which  had 
rendered  it  impossible  for  them  to  live  in  Scotland  without  sacrificing  their 
conscience.  They  write  strongly,  and  may  appear  to  exaggerate  ;  but  even 
supposing,  against  probability,  that  they  were  reckless,  they  would  scarcely 
have  dared  coin  facts,  or  boldly  state  flilsehoods,  which  could  have  been  so 
easily  refuted,  while  the  events  were  fresh  in  every  one's  mind.  Were  their 
statements  refuted  at  the  time  ?  MeCrie  indeed  tells  us  (p.  345,  note)  that 
one  Smeaton  replied  to  the  book  of  Hamilton  ;  but  if  he  refuted  his  facts 
against  Knox,  why  does  not  McCrie  give  us  his  refutation  ?  So  far  as  it 
would  appear,  the  other  two  witnesses  remained  unanswered. 

"  Nor  were  such  accounts  confined  to  that  age.  As  late  as  l'i28,  we  find 
Father  Alexander  Baillie  repeating,  in  the  English  language,  all  the  gross 
tales  of  his  predecessors,  with  additions  of  his  own,  in  which  he  shews  a 
total  disregard  t)  the  be=t  known  fiicts  in  the  reformer's  \\^q.  "  Jhone  Knox 


494  NOTE   F. 

(says  he)  being  chaplane  to  the  laird  of  Balvurie  and  accused  for  his  vicefi 
and  leechei'ie,  was  Ibund  so  guiltie  and  culpable  that  to  eschevie  the  just 
punisliuient  prepared  for  him  he  presently  lied  away  in  to  Ingland."  He 
afterwards  says,  that,  after  the  death  of  his  second  wife  (that  is,  twenty 
years  at  least  after  his  own  death,)  Knox  "  shamefully  fell  in  the  abominable 
vice  of  incestuous  adultry,  as  Archb.  Hamilton  and  otliers  doe  witnesse  ;" 
and  as  a  proof  that  Knox  reckoned  this  vice  no  blot,  he  puts  into  his  mouth 
a  defence  of  it,  in  the  very  words  which  Sanders,  in  his  book  against  the 
Anglican  Schism,  had  represented  Sir  Francis  Brian  as  using  in  a  conversa- 
tion with  Henry  VIH. — Baillie's  True  Information  of  the  unhallowed  Off- 
spring, Progress,  and  impoison'd  Fruits  of  our  Scottish-Calvinian  Gospel 
and  Gospellers,  p.  14,  41.     Wirtsburgh,  1628." 

The  first  fact  alleged  by  Baillie  is  stated  without  any  reference  to  Archi- 
bald Hamilton,  and  it  contains  a  distinct  specification  which  could  easily 
have  been  refuted  at  the  time,  had  it  not  been  ti'ue.  The  circumstance  that 
for  another  statement  he  distinctly  alleges  the  authority  of  Hamilton,  is 
rather  an  evidence  that  he  relied  on  other  sources  of  information  for  his 
other  facts.  McCrie  wholly  fails  in  substantiating  his  theory,  that  these 
statements  injurious  to  the  character  of  Knox,  "  have  been  all  grafted  on  the 
convicted  lie  mentioned  in  his  preceding  note,  and  on  the  malignant  surmise 
insinuated  by  Archibald  Hamilton."     (Ibid.,  p.  497.) 

Where  there  is  so  much  smoke,  there  is  likely  to  be  some  fire.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  the  statements  of  so  many  respectable  contemporaries, 
persisted  in,  as  Mr.  McCrie  admits  for  so  great  a  length  of  time,  are  all  the 
results  of  mere  prejudice  or  of  systematic  falsehood.  Few  candid  men  will 
subscribe  to  the  sweeping  statement  of  McCrie,  in  closing  his  defense  of 
Knox. 

"I  do  not  wish  to  insinuate  that  all  the  popish  waiters  were  of  the  above 
description,  or  that  there  were  not  many  Roman  Catholics,  even  at  that  time, 
who  disapproved  of  the  use  of  such  dishonorable  and  empoisoned  weapons ; 
but  the  great  number  of  such  publications,  the  circulation  which  they  ob- 
tained, and  the  length  of  time  during  which  they  continued  to  issue  from 
the  popish  presses,  demonstrate  the  extent  to  which  a  spirit  of  I^'ing  and 
wanton  defamation  was  carried  in  the  Eomish  Church.  And  I  may  safely 
aver,  that  no  honest  and  candid  person,  who  is  duly  acquainted  with  the 
writings  on  both  sides,  will  pretend  that  this  can  be  accounted  for  from  the 
hostility  and  asperity  common  to  both  parties." 

If  this  general  combination  against  the  character  of  Knox  by  almost,  if 
not  quite  all  the  Catholic  writers  who  were  his  contemporaries,  and  had 
occasion  to  refer  to  him,  is  not  "  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  hostility  and 
asperity  common  to  both  parties,"  to  what  are  we  to  ascribe  it,  if  not  to  the 
fact  that  Knox's  character  was  notoriously  bad.  Men  do  not  usually 
calumniate  without  a  reason.  It  is  a  very  significant  fact,  that  whiit'  his 
Catholic  contemporaries  united  in  publicly  denouncing  him  as  an  abandoned 
profligate,  his  contemporary  friends  seem  to  have  kept  an  ominous  silence 


MORAL   CHARACTER    OF   JOHN   KNOX.  495 

on  this  suV/jcct!  If  they  answered  Hamilton,  Laing,  Baillie,  and  othera 
why  do  not  McCrie  and  his  friend  Bayle  furnish  us  their  answers  with  de- 
tailed specifications,  instead  of  giving  us  their  own  mere  conjectures,  which 
clearly  have  no  weight  ? 

The  statement — not  "malignant  surmise" — of  Hamilton  has  been  already 
considered  ;  the  "  convicted  lie  "  requires  a  few  words  of  explanation,  which 
we  furnish  on  McCrie's  own  authority.  According  to  him,  Methven, 
an  eminent  minister  of  the  Kirk,  had  been  convicted  of  immoral  conduct, 
and  displaced  from  the  ministry  ;  and  his  grievous  fall  had  caused  great 
scandal,  and  had  sorely  afflicted  the  new  gospelers  in  Scotland.  McCrie 
adds; 

"  At  the  very  time  that  he  (Knox)  was  engaged  in  scrutinizing  the  scan- 
dal against  Methven,  and  inflicting  upon  him  the  highest  censure  of  the 
church,  it  was  alleged  that  he  himself  was  guilty  of  a  similar  crime.  Eu- 
phemia  Dundas,  an  inhabitant  of  Edinburgh,  inveighing  one  day,  in  the 
presence  of  a  circle  of  her  acquaintances,  against  the  Protestant  doctrine 
and  ministers,  said,  among  other  things,  that  John  Knox  had  been  a  com- 
mon wh —  monger  all  his  days,  and  that,  within  a  few  days  past,  he  '  was 
apprehendit  and  tane  (taken)  furth  of  ane  killogie  (brothel)  with  ane  com- 
moun  h — re  ?  This  might,  perhaps,  have  been  passed  over  by  Knox  and 
the  church,  as  an  effusion  of  popish  spleen  and  female  scandal ;  but  the 
recent  occurrence  at  Jedburgh,  the  situation  in  which  the  reformer  at  pres- 
ent stood,  the  public  manner  in  which  the  charge  had  been  brought,  and  the 
specification  of  a  particular  instance,  seemed  to  them  to  justify  and  call  for 
a  legal  prosecution.  Accordingly,  the  clerk  of  the  general  assembly,  on 
the  18th  of  June,  gave  in  a  formal  representation  and  petition  to  the  town 
council,  pra3nng  that  the  woman  might  be  called  before  them,  and  the 
matter  examined ;  that,  if  the  accusation  was  found  true,  the  accused 
might  be  punished  with  all  rigor  without  partialitj^ ;  and  that,  if  fixlse,  the 
accuser  might  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  demerit  of  her  offense.  She 
was  called,  and  appearing  before  the  council,  flatly  refused  (denied)  that  she 
had  ever  used  any  such  words  ;  although  Knox's  procurator  afterwards 
produced  respectable  witnesses  to  prove  that  she  had  spoken  them." — P. 
282-3. 

The  sequel  of  this  prosecution  is  thus  told  by  McCrie  in  note  PP.  at  the 
end  of  his  volume — it  will  be  remembered  that  the  process  was  begun  on 
the  18  th  of  June  : — 

The  minute  of  the  25th  (of  June)  contains  the  account  of  the  proof 
which  Knox's  procurator  led  (brought)  to  show  that  Eufame  Dundas  had 
uttered  the  scandal  which  she  now  denied,  and  the  appointment  that  the 
parties  should  be  '  warnit  Kteratorie  (in  writing)  to  hear  sentence  given  in 
the  said  action.'  I  have  not  observed  any  thing  more  respecting  the  cause  in 
the  wiinutes,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  reformer,  having  obtained  the  vin- 
dication of  his  character,  prevailed  on  the  judges  not  to  inflict  punishment 
on  the  accuser." 

In  the  case  of  any  other  man  than  John  Knox,  this  might  be  "probable  ;" 
in  his  case,  it  was  well-nigh  impossible.     He  was  relentless  and  inexorable. 


496  NOTE  G. 

He  yvas  never  known  to  become  softened,  or  to  let  go  the  hapless  victim 
upon  whom  he  had  once  fastened.  His  persistent  vindictiveness  is,  perhaps, 
the  most  prominent  trait  in  his  character.  It  can  readily  be  conceived,  how 
the  poor  woman  may  have  been  frightened  into  denying  her  previous  state- 
ment ;  as  even  strong  and  bold  men  were  not  then  safe  from  the  vengeance 
of  the  Kirk ;  it  is  utterly  inconceivable  how  John  Knox  should  have  dropped 
the  prosecution  so  quietly  and  so  suddenly,  imless  there  was  something 
more  in  it  than  what  it  was  deemed  })rudent  to  allow  to  appear  on  the  min- 
utes. There  is  evidently  some  mystery  about  the  whole  affair,  which,  even 
as  stated  by  McCrie,  looks  very  much  like  dropping  or  hushing  up  an  un- 
pleasant examination. 

We  close  this  note  with  the  somewhat  plain,  but  withal  humorous  ac- 
count, which  Nichol  Burne  furnishes  of  the  second  marriage  of  Knox — the 
passage  is  found  in  McCrie's  note  RR.,  p.  499. 

"  Heaving  laid  aside  al  feir  of  the  panis  of  hel,  and  regarding  na  thing  the 
honestie  of  the  warld,  as  ane  bund  sklave  of  the  Devil,  being  kendillit  with 
an  unquenshible  lust  and  ambition,  he  durst  be  sua  bauld  to  interpryse  the 
Bute  of  marriage  with  the  maist  honorabil  ladie,  my  ladie  Fleming,  my  lord 
duke's  eldest  dochter,  to  the  end  that  his  seid  being  of  the  blude  royal,  and 
gydit  (guided)  be  thair  father's  spirit,  might  have  aspyrit  to  the  croun.  And 
because  he  receavit  ane  refusal,  it  is  notoi'iouslie  knawin  how  deidlie  he 
haited  the  hail  hous  of  the  Hamiltonis. — And  this  maist  honest  refusal 
would  nather  stench  his  lust  nor  ambition  ;  bot  a  lytel  efter  he  did  persew 
to  have  allyance  with  the  honorabill  hous  of  Ochiltrie  of  the  Kyng's  M. 
awin  (own)  blude  ;  Rydand  (riding)  thair  with  ane  gret  court,  on  ane  trim 
gelding,  nocht  lyk  ane  prophet  or  ane  auld  decrepit  priest,  as  he  was,  bot 
lyk  as  he  had  bene  ane  of  the  blude  royal,  with  his  bendes  of  tatfetie  feschnit 
(fastened)  with  golden  ringis,  and  precious  stanes.  And  as  is  planelie  re- 
portit  in  the  countre}',  be  sorcerie  and  witchcraft  did  sua  allure  that  puir 
gentil-wonian,  that  scho  (she)  could  not  leve  wethout  him  :  whilk  appeiris 
to  be  of  gret  probabilitie,  scho  being  ane  damssel  of  nobel  blud,  and  he  ane 
auld  decrepit  creatur  of  maist  bais  degrie  of  onie  that  could  be  found  in  the 
countrey  :  Sua  that  sik  ane  nobil  hous  could  not  have  degenerat  sua  far, 
except  Johann  Kranox  had  interposed  the  powar  of  his  maister  the  Devil, 
quha  as  he  transfiguris  himself^  sumtymes  in  an  angel  of  licht :  sua  he  causit 
Johann  Kmnox  appeir  ane  of  the  maist  nobil  and  lustie  men  that  could  be 
found  in  the  waild." — Nicol  Burne's  Disputation,  ut  supra,  p.  143,  144. 


NOTE  G,  Page  275. 
INNOCENCE  OF  MARY,  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS. 

The  grievous  accusation  brought  against  Marj^  by  Murray  and  his  associates 
was,  as  is  well  known,  that  she  was  an  accomplice  with  Both  well  in  the 
nr.urder  of  Darnley,  with  a  view  to  her  subsequent  marriage   with  the 


INNOCENCE    OF    MARY,    QUEEN    OF   SCOTS.  497 

murderer !  We  propose  in  this  Note  to  furnish  a  rapid  summary  of  the 
arguments  by  which  this  horrible  charge  is  fully  disproved,  and  the  pretended 
evidence  on  which  it  rests  is  shown  to  have  been  a  vile  forgery,  concocted 
by  Buchanan  at  the  instigation  of  Murray  and  other  interested  parties. 
We  will  have  little  more  to  do  than  merely  to  condense  the  triumphant 
defense  of  Mary,  as  presented  by  Miss  Strickland  in  the  sixth  volume  of 
her  Queens  of  Scotland. 

1.  Bothwell  himself,  when  the  terrors  of  his  conscience  were  awakened 
by  a  dangerous  illness  in  Denmark,  made  a  dying  confession,  before  impartial 
witnesses,  among  whom  was  the  Lutheran  bishop  of  Sooner,  in  which  he 
accused  himself  of  the  murder  of  Darnley,  and  fully  exonerated  Mary  from 
all  complicity  in  the  crime.  Men  usually  tell  the  truth  at  the  approach  of 
death ;  and  on  this  solemn  occasion  Bothwell  had  no  interest  in  concealing  the 
truth.     (Queens  of  Scotland,  p,  29.    She  quotes  Keith's  Appendix.) 

2.  The  murder  of  Darnley  took  place  on  the  9th  of  Febuarj',  1567, 
Shortly  afterwards,  Mary  having  been  inveigled  into  the  hands  of  her 
illegitimate  half  brother  Murray  and  of  his  associates,  was  treacherously  con- 
signed to  imprisonment  at  Lochleven.  The  result  was,  that  Murray  now 
gained  the  long  coveted  post  of  regent  of  the  kingdom,  by  getting  her  out  of 
the  way ;  and  he  had  therefore  a  strong  interest  in  criminating  her,  in  order  to 
retain  his  elevated  position.  Euthven,  Lindsay,  and  others  of  his  tools,  accord- 
ingly visited  her  at  Lochleven,  and  by  rufBan  threats  forced  her  to  sign  her  ab- 
dication ;  which  they  afterwards  solemnly  swore  was  her  own  voluntary  act ! 
This  was  followed  by  the  coronation  of  her  infant  son,  with  Murray  as  regent. 

3.  After  Mary  had  languished  for  six  months  in  prison,  the  assembly  of 
the  Kirk,  which  convened  on  the  4th  of  December,  1567,  solemnly  demanded  of 
the  regent,  "  to  open  and  make  manifest  to  them  the  cause  of  the  detention  of 
the  queen's  grace  in  the  said  house,  or  else  to  put  her  to  liberty  furth  of  the 
same  ;"  (Chalmers,  in  Life  of  Mary — Ibid.,  p.  39.)  Murray  appears  to  have 
been  greatly  embarrassed  by  this  unexpected  demand,  to  which  no  direct 
answer  seems  to  have  been  given.  He  needed  time  to  reflect,  probably  to 
concoct  his  storj^ 

4.  The  required  explanation  was  given  in  the  parliament  which  convened 
eleven  days  later,  on  the  15th  of  Decembei-.  Meantime  Murray  had  held  a 
secret  meeting  of  his  council,  the  most  prominent  members  of  which  were 
Morton,  Balfour,  and  Maitland,  three  notorious  accomplices  in  the  murder ; 
besides  the  bishop  of  Orkney  who  had  performed  the  marriage  with 
Bothwell,  and  Euthven,  and  Lindsay,  who  by  their  brutal  threats  had 
compelled  the  queen  to  sign  her  abdication,  and  had  then  peijured  themselves 
by  swearing  that  it  was  her  own  free  act.  (P.  41-2.)  These  men,  with 
Murray  as  the  prime  mover  in  the  atrocious  scheme,  then  concocted  in  secret 
conclave  the  story  of  Mary's  letters  to  Bothwell ;  which  they  now  alleged, 

VOL.  II. — i'2 


498  NOTE    G. 

for  the  first  time,  in  this   parliament — more    than  ten  months   after   th« 
murder ! 

5.  An  investigation  into  the  horrible  charge  and  its  alleged  grounds  was 
then  and  there  publicly  demanded  by  Lord  Harries  and  other  friends  of  the 
imprisoned  queen,  to  whom  she  had  been  able  to  send  a  private  message 
warml}'  denying  the  infamous  accusation  ;  but  the  investigation  wiia  pnidently 
smothered  by  i\Iurray  and  his  associates,  who  were  in  the  majority !  (P.  43.) 
Yet,  that  was  the  only  proper  time  for  going  into  the  inquiry.  The  events 
were  all  fiesh,  and  competent  witnesses  could  be  easily  brought  into  courc, 
who  could  testify  to  all  the  facts.  Among  these  were  the  countesses  of 
Marr  and  Murray,  the  Lady  Lethington,  (Maitland's  wife,)  who  was 
most  intimate  with  the  queen ;  the  Ladies  Buccleugh  and  Reres,  the  former 
of  whom  had  been  placarded  as  an  accomplice  in  the  murder,  and  the  latter 
was  afterwards  accused  by  Buchanan  as  having  been  an  accomplice  in  the 
alleged  amour.  There  was  also  the  Lady  Coldingham,  who  was  the  only 
lady  in  attendance  on  Mary  when  she  was  forcibly  abducted  by  Both- 
well,  and  who  knew  all  the  facts  and  circumstances  of  the  case. 

Why  were  not  these  witnesses  summoned  before  the  parhament,  in  which 
Murray  and  his  friends  had  so  overwhelming  a  majority  ?  Why  was  not 
the  issue  then  openly  made,  when  all  the  circumstances,  including  the  par- 
tial character  and  leaning  of  these  important  witnesses,  were  so  strongly 
in  favor  of  the  conspirators  ?  The  investigation  had  been  boldly  challenged 
by  the  lords  favorable  to  Mary,  who  had  moved,  that  "  a  proper  inquiry 
should  be  made  touching  the  pretended  crimes  with  which  she  was  aspersed, 
since  she  ought  not  to  be  accused  in  a  public  assembly  without  being  per- 
mitted to  defend  herself,  either  personally  or  by  her  advocates."  (P.  43.) — 
Her  enemies  shrank  from  the  public  investigation,  as  if  conscious  of  their 
enormous  guilt,  and  they  contented  themselves  with  merely  referring  in  a 
vague  way  to  the  recently  discovered  letters  of  Mary  to  Bothwell !  The  in- 
quiry should  have  been  made  then  and  there,  else  the  foul  accusation 
should  have  been  dropped  forever.  For  these  facts,  Miss  Strickland  quotes 
Goodall,  Lesley,  Whitaker,  Tytler,  etc. 

6.  Moreover,  there  were  then  detained  in  prison  in  Edinburgh  the  ser 
vants  of  the  fugitive  Bothwell :  John  Hepburn,  John  Hay,  William  Powrie, 
and  George  Dalgleish.  They  were  tried  and  executed,  in  most  unseemly 
haste  on  the  same  day — the  3d  of  January,  1568 — eighteen  days  after  the 
meeting  of  the  parliament. — Why  were  not  these  witnesses  produced,  and 
their  testimony  taken  and  canvassed?  The  reason  is  manifest.  Their  tes- 
timony would  not  have  suited  the  purposes  of  the  conspirators.  With  their 
dying  words,  they  all  solemnlj^  declared  the  innocence  of  the  queen,  and 
plainly  implicated  Murray,  Morton,  and  the  other  chiefs  of  the  conspiracy 
in  contriving  the  nmrder !     John  Hepburn  said  on  the  scaffold  • 


INNOCENCE   OF    MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS.  499 

"*I  declare  that  Murray  and  Morton  were  the  sole  contrivers,  movers,  and 
counselors  of  Bothwell  in  the  commission  of  this  murder,  and  that  thej'^  have 
assisted  in  all  the  enterprises  and  conspiracies  formed  against  Lord  Darnley, 
and  exhorted  the  earl  (Bothwell)  m}^  master  not  to  hesitate  to  execute 
boldly  a  deed  so  necessary  for  all  the  nobles  of  Scotland.  I  confess  to  have 
had  knowledge  of  this,  not  only  by  word  of  mouth  from  my  lord  Bothwell, 
with  whom  they  were  associated  in  it,  and  who  assured  me  they  would 
bear  him  out  in  it,  but  by  the  letters  and  indentures  signed  by  both  of 
them,  which  he  showed  me,  and  I  have  seen  and  read  them  mj'self,  setting 
forth  and  describing  the  whole  plot.'  These  were  his  last  words,  on  which 
he  periled  the  salvation  of  his  soul." — (Chronicle  of  Bclforest,  in  Jebb's  Col- 
lections ;  quoted  Ibid.,  p.  51.) 

Public  placards  were  previously  affixed  on  the  doors  of  the  council  cham- 
ber and  of  Murray's  house,  significantly  asking — "  Why  John  Hepburn  and 
John  Hay  of  Tallo  were  not  compelled  openly  to  declare  the  manner  of  the 
king's  slaughter,  and  who  consented  thereunto  ?" — (Tytler's  History  of  Scot- 
land.   Ibid.) 

7.  So  much  for  the  signal  failure  of  the  conspirators  to  make  good  their 
accusation,  when  it  was  first  made,  and  an  investigation  into  its  truth  was 
so  boldly  challenged,  more  than  ten  months  after  the  murder.  The  fiimous 
silver  casket,  in  which  the  correspondence  was  said  to  have  been  found,  is 
mentioned  for  the  first  time  only  nine  months  later,  and  nearly  nineteen 
months  afler  the  murder ;  and  this  before  a  small  and  select  coterie  of  the 
confederates  convened  in  secret  council  on  the  16th  of  September,  1.568  !  It 
was  only  at  this  late  date,  that  the  story  seems  to  have  been  fully  concocted ; 
no  mention  whatever  of  the  casket  occurring  in  any  previous  minute  of  the 
council  or  record  of  parliament.  The  story  now  was,  that  Bothwell  had 
left  the  casket  behind  him  in  his  hasty  flight,  and  that  it  was  found  on  the 
person  of  his  servant  George  Dalgleish,  "upon  the  20th  day  of  June,  1567; 
and  that  the  earl  of  Morton  had  truly  and  honestly  kept  the  writings  con- 
tained in  that  box  since  they  came  into  his  possession,  without  alteration, 
augmentation,  or  diminution  !"  (Anderson,  Keith,  Goodall ;  quoted  Ibid., 
p.  45.) 

If  Morton  had  this  casket  in  his  possession,  why  did  he  not  produce  it 
before  parliament,  when  the  investigation  was  so  boldly  demanded  nine 
months  previously  ?  Why  did  he  wait  till  Dalgleish,  the  only  competent 
witness  to  the  fact,  had  been  executed  for  nine  months  ?  Why  did  he  take 
so  much  pains  to  have  people  believe,  that  the  contents  of  the  casket  had 
been  sacredly,  but  most  secretly,  kept  by  him  from  June  1567,  to  Septem- 
ber 1568,  "  without  alteration,  augmentation,  or  diminution  ?"  Why  is  it, 
that  we  now  receive,  for  the  first  time,  intimation  of  the  existence  of  this 
casket,  and  of  sundry  additions,  of  contracts,  sonnets,  and  love-ballads,  never 
before  heard  of?  The  whole  story  looks  exceedingly  suspicious,  to  say  the 
very  least. 


500  NOTE   G. 

8.  These  and  many  other  facts,  which  the  Hmits  of  this  "Note  will  not 
permit  us  to  allege,  go  very  far  towards  proving,  that  the  whole  story  was  a 
vile  fabrication,  and  the  letters  and  sonnets  themselves  a  base  forgery. 
Brantome,  a  competent  witness,  declared,  at  the  time,  that  the  sonnets  were 
not  written  by  IMary,  whose  French  style  they  did  not  in  the  least  resemble ; 
and  he  plainly  intimated  that  Buchanan  had  forged  them,  in  requital  for  the 
queen's  unvarying  kindness  to  him,  both  in  France  and  in  Scotland,  and  of 
her  having  recalled  him  from  exile  and  saved  his  life !  He  indignantly 
exclaims  : 

"  He  (Buchanan)  had  emploj'^ed  his  fine  learning  better,  had  he  spoken 
more  faithfull}'^  of  her  than  that  'she  was  enamoured  of  Bothwell  '  and 
making  sonnets  and  imputing  them  to  her.  But  those  who  are  acquainted 
with  her  poetry  and  taste  have  always  declared  that  they  were  not  by  her. 
Bothwell,"  he  adds,  "was  the  ugliest  and  awkwardest  of  men."  (Ibid.,  p.  212.) 

Forgery  was,  then,  alas !  but  too  common  in  Scotland.  Besides  Marj-'s 
perfidious  secretary,  Maitland,  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  forging  her 
name  to  public  documents,  and  his  wife,  Mary  Fleming,  and  Mar}^  Beaton, 
another  of  the  four  Marys  waiting  on  the  queen,  both  of  whom  had  learned 
how  to  imitate  precisely  her  hand-writing  (Ibid.,  p.  217),  Miss  Strickland 
furnishes  two  public  cases  of  forgery,  perpetrated  the  one  by  Kirkaldy,  a 
leading  member  of  the  confederacy  against  Mary,  the  other  by  Thomas 
Barrj'e,  formerly  an  officer  in  her  court :  thus  making  good  honest  parson 
Whitaker's  grave  charge  in  this  matter  against  the  reformed  party  in  Scot- 
land.    (Ibid.,  p.  207,  note.) 

9.  What  was  most  rehed  on  for  establishing  this  foul  accusation  against 
Mary,  was  no  doubt  Buchanan's  "Detection,"  which  was  industriously 
exhibited  to  the  English  commissioners  at  Westminster  by  Murray  and  his 
confederates.  This  infamous  book  was  afterwards  published  in  London,  in 
an  English  translation,  under  the  auspices  of  the  wily  and  unprincipled 
Cecil,  and  it  was  dedicated  to  Mary's  great  enemy — Elizabeth.  The  trans- 
lator fi-om  the  original  Latin  was  Thomas  Wilson,  under-secretary  for  Cecil ; 
and  Cecil  even  issued  a  state  paper  with  a  view  to  accredit  the  publication. 
In  this  he  says,  that  the  book  was  written  by  George  Buchanan,  "  not  as 
of  himself,  nor  in  his  own  name,  but  according  to  the  instructions  to  him 
given  by  common  conference  of  the  lords  of  the  privy  council  of  Scotland, 
by  him  only  for  his  learning  penned,  but  by  them  the  matter  ministered ;" — 
which  simply  means,  that  Buchanan  acted  only  in  the  capacity  of  scribe  and 
pliant  tool  to  Murray,  Morton,  Maitland,  and  (ho  olh?r  confederate  conspir- 
ators ;  and  that  these  really  furnished  the  matter  of  the  entire  book !  They, 
and  they  alone,  then,  were  the  real  authors  of  the  vile  fabrication.  And 
yet  this  "  Detection "  of  Buchanan  is  the  principal  authority  of  Mignet,  in 
his  recent  violent  and  unjust  work  against  Mary  Stuart!     (Ibid.,  p.  209.) 


INNOCENCE    OF    MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS.  501 

10.  It  is  thus  plain,  that  Elizabeth,  and  her  wil}'  prime  minister  Cecil, 
were  deeply  interested  in  making  good  the  foul  accusation  against  Mary's 
character.  The  process  so  unsatisfactorily  begun  in  Scotland,  was  pursued 
no  less  unsatisfactorily  in  England,  whither  the  innocent  victim  of  all  this 
treachery  had  fled,  to  experience  the  tender  love  and  sisterly  offices  of  her 
good  "sister  Elizabeth  !"  Two  conferences  were  held  in  England,  on  the 
subject  of  Mary's  guilt  or  innocence,  after  her  treacherous  imprisonment  in 
that  kingdom ;  the  one  at  York,  and  the  other  at  Westminster  :  and  in  both 
of  them,  in  spite  of  all  the  odds  against  her,  Mary's  innocence  came  out  of 
the  terrible  ordeal  wholly  unscathed.  Innocence,  though  in  prison  and  beset 
with  prying  spies  and  powerful  enemies,  proved  more  than  a  match  for  cun- 
ning and  all-powerful  malignity,  and  it  signally  triumphed  over  calumny 
armed  with  all  its  fiery  shafts. 

"  Never  was  any  princess  more  successfully  belied  than  Mary  Stuart.  A 
fi-ee  press  would  have  confounded  the  false  tongues  and  pens  of  her  political 
slanderers,  and  exposed  the  badness  of  a  cause  that  resorted  to  means  so 
base  for  support.  But  the  press  was  in  the  hands  of  those  whose  interest 
it  was  to  defame  her."     (Ibid.,  p.  216.) 

11,  At  the  conference  of  York,  Murray  and  his  associate  conspirators  did 
not  venture  openly  to  prefer  the  accusation,  unless  Elizabeth  would  by  a 
formal  instrument  in  writing,  previously  hold  them  safe  from  all  the  conse- 
quences which  might  ensue  from  their  acts.  This  the  cautious  English 
queen  declined  to  do.  Her  selfish  policy  seems  to  have  been,  to  keep  alive 
the  feud  between  the  conspirators  and  their  imprisoned  queen,  with  a  view 
to  hold  them  both  more  fully  in  her  power.  Under  these  circumstances, 
Murray  and  his  confederates  produced  the  forged  correspondence  secretly 
before  the  English  commissioners  ;  thus  flagrantly  violating  the  fundamental 
agreement  of  the  parties  to  the  conference,  which  was,  that  every  thing 
should  be  done  openlj%  and  that  all  charges  should  be  communicated  to 
the  party  concerned.  It  was  in  vain  that  poor  Mary,  on  hearing  of  this 
secret  and  treacherous  proceeding,  called  through  her  commissioners  for 
the  production  of  the  original  writings  against  her ;  her  call  was  totally 
unheeded. 

"  In  case,"  says  she  in  her  instructions  to  her  commisioners,  "  they  allege 
that  they  have  any  writings  of  mine  which  may  infer  presumptions  against 
me  in  that  cause,  ye  shall  desire  the  prindpnls  (originals)  to  be  produced, 
that  I  myself  may  have  inspection  thereof,  and  make  answer  thereto.  For 
ye  shall  afflrm,  in  my  name,  I  never  writ  any  thing  concei-ning  that  matter 
to  any  creature.  And  if  such  writings  be,  they  are  folse  and  feigned, /wv/et/ 
and  Inventel  hg  themselves  alone,  to  my  dishonor  and  slander  ;  and  there  are 
divers  in  Scotland,  both  men  and  women,  that  write  the  like  manner  of 
writing  as  well  as  mvself,  and  principally  such  as  are  in  company  with 
themselves."  (Ibid.,  p.  216-7.  She  quotes  Labanofif,  vol.  ii,  p.  202.) 
63 


502  NOTE    G. 

This  was  coming  directly  to  the  point ;  but  Murray  and  his  associates 
were  much  too  wary  to  meet  the  issue  thus  fairly  and  boldly  made.  "  Murray 
and  his  coadjutors  ventured  no  reply"  to  Mary's  answer  defending  her 
whole  conduct  in  reference  to  Bothwell,  and  the  affairs  of  her  kingdom. 
(Ibid.  p.  225.)  They  dared  not  enter  on  the  inquiry,  when  they  were  thus, 
for  a  second  time,  boldly  and  publicly  challenged  to  do  so ;  under  circumstances, 
too,  when  every  thing  was  in  their  favor,  and  every  thing  against  their 
imprisoned  and  tortured  victim  !  So  manifest  and  so  triumphant  was  the 
victory  achieved  by  oppressed  innocence  over  bold  and  powerful  guilt. 

12.  Thus  foiled  in  his  purpose,  Murray  promised,  through  the  earl  of 
Norfolk,  that  "  if  he  (Norfolk)  would  obtain  Queen  Mary's  favor  for  him, 
and  her  promise  to  confirm  him  in  the  regency  of  Scotland,  he  would  in  no 
wise  accuse  her."  (Letter  from  the  earl  of  Sussex  to  Cecil,  quoted  in  Lodge, 
Ibid,  p  226.)  This  simple  fact  reveals  the  whole  purpose  of  Murraj^,  and 
proves  the  utter  groundlessness  of  his  base  charges  against  his  half-sister. 
Finding  matters  taking  this  unsatisfactory  turn,  Elizabeth  suddenly  broke 
up  the  conference  at  York,  and  adjourned  its  sittings  to  Westminster,  where 
her  own  presence  might  overawe  all  opposition,  and  produce  such  a  result 
as  was  consonant  with  her  policy,  and  agreeable  to  her  "feline  caution." 

"'I  see  not,'  observes  Sir  Francis  KnoUys  to  Cecil,  'how  her  majesty 
can,  with  safety  and  honor  to  herself  detain  this  queen,  unless  she  shall  he 
utterly  disgraced  to  the  luorld,  and  the  contrary  parts  be  thoroughly  main- 
tained.' Elizabeth  had  from  the  first  determined  to  pursue  this  line  of 
conduct,  but  she  proceeded  with  feline  caution.  Her  first  move  was  to  break 
up  the  conference  at  York,  which  was  progressing  far  too  favorably  for 
Mary."  (Ibid,  p,  227.  She  quotes  Queen  Eliabeth's  Letter  to  her  Commis- 
sioners at  York,  State  Paper  Office,  and  Sir  F.  KnoUys'  Letter  to  Cecil,  Oct.  20, 
1558 ;  State  Paper.  MSS.) 

13.  Finding,  that,  instead  of  being  a  fi-ee  and  impartial  tribunal,  the  con- 
ference at  York  was  so  conducted  as  no  longer  to  retain  even  the  semblance 
of  fairness  or  justice,  Mary  issued  the  following  dignified  and  noble  instruc- 
tion to  her  commissioners  : 

"  That  since,  contrary  to  all  that  had  been  promised,  the  earl  of  Murray, 
being  the  principal  of  her  rebels,  had,  with  his  confederate.'*,  been  admitted 
to  the  presence  of  the  queen  her  sister,  to  calumniate  her,  when  she,  his 
sovereign  was  excluded  and  denied  the  liberty  of  being  heard  in  her  own 
defense,  wherein  miuiifest  partiality  had  been  used,  she  desired  to  break  up 
the  conference ;  the  more  so,  as  she  knew  the  whole  nobility  of  the  realm 
were  aljout  to  assemble,  when  the  matter  might  be  publicl}'  discussed." 
She  added  :  "  Therefore  ye  shall,  afore  our  sister,  her  nobility,  and  the  whole 
ambassadors  of  strange  countries,  desire,  in  our  name,  that  we  may  be 
licensed  to  come  in  proper  presence  nfore  them  all,  to  answer  to  that  which 
may  be  proponed  antl  alleged  against  us  by  the  calumnies  of  our  rebels." 
(Ibid.,  p.  237.  She  quotes  Letter  of  Queen  Mary  in  Cottonian  uibriu" 
printed  by  Labanotf  and  Goodall.) 


INNOCENCE    OF   MARY,  QUEEN    OF   SCOTS.  503 

This  language,  uttered  in  the  dignified  fearlessness  of  innocence,  met 
mth  no  suitable  response.  Elizabeth  positively  refused  to  grant  her  reiter- 
ated request  to  be  heard  in  her  own  defense  !  She,  however,  replied,  in  her 
usually  tortuous  and  evasive  stjde  : 

"That  she  would  not  take  upon  herself  to  be  judge,  nor  yet  to  prejudice 
their  sovereign's  honor  in  no  sort,  nor  to  proceed  judicially.  But  as  to 
their  sovereign's  presence,  she  could  not  goodly  admit  the  same,  until  her 
cause  were  tried  and  ended."     (Ibid.,  p.  238.) 

If  she  would  not  judge,  who  was  "to  judge  and  end"  the  cause?  Her 
commissioners  ? — But  who  gave  them  the  power  ?  And  how  were  they  to 
do  it,  with  any  decent  appearance  of  fairness,  without  letting  Maiy  be  heard 
in  her  own  defense  ?  But  fairness  and  justice  were  evidently  not  what 
Elizabeth  or  her  ministers  sought ;  they  evidently  wished  to  protract  the 
proceedings,  to  leave  Scotland  in  a  distracted  condition,  and,  according  to 
the  advice  of  Knoll3^s,  to  dishonor  and  disgrace  Mary. 

14.  The  trial  was  accordingly  removed  to  Westminster,  a  point  so  distant 
from  Mary's  prison,  that  she  had  now  less  opportunity  than  ever  to  be 
heard,  or  to  communicate  with  her  fi'iends.  The  conference  was  opened  by 
a  scene  of  low  buffoonery  enacted  "between  the  professedly  reluctant  and 
conscientious  accusers  of  their  captive  sovereign,  and  their  confederates  in 
the  English  commission."  The  bishop  of  Orkney  snatches  the  paper  con- 
taining the  accusation  from  the  hands  of  Wood,  Murray's  lawyer  and  tool ; 
Wood  runs  after  Orkney  making  a  show  of  wishing  to  recover  the  paper  ; 
the  bishop  is  too  fleet  for  him,  and  reaches  the  council  board  in  time  to  de- 
posit the  precious  document;  then  comes  "the  Mephistophelian  leer  and 
wink  of  the  sly  lawyer  Wood  on  the  thin  misshapen  English  premier  (Cecil)  ; 
then  his  sardonic  smile  in  return ;"  finally,  "  the  exultant  laughter  of 
Lindsay  and  the  other  members  of  the  confederacy,  at  the  success  of  the 
well-concerted  trick  for  bringing  the  accusation  against  their  sovereign  for- 
ward, and  at  the  same  time  shifting  the  responsibility  of  the  proceeding  on 
a  pair  of  their  tools,  who  had  already  committed  themselves  beyond  the 
power  of  retreat."     (Ibid.,  p.  246.) 

The  conference  thus  opened,  Mary  again,  through  her  commissioners  sol- 
emnly asked  "  for  copies  of  letters  the  earl  of  Murray  and  his  colleagues 
had  shown  to  the  English  commissioners."  To  this  most  equitable  and 
just  demand  Elizal>eth  replied  : 

"  That  she  would  take  time  to  consider  the  demand  ;  but  thought  it 
would  be  best  for  some  arrangement  to  be  made,  whereby  her  good  sister, 
the  queen  of  Scotland,  who  considered  she  had  cause  to  be  mi.scontented 
with  hor  subjects,  and  they  disliking  her  government,  might  live  a  private 
and  peaceful  life,  by  resigning  her  crown  to  her  son." 


504  NOTE    G. 

Such  then  was  the  end  contemplated  by  all  this  int'i(;ate  plotting  between 
Murray  and  tlie  English  court !  The  secret  is  here  revealed  by  Elizabeth 
herself.  But  vain  were  all  their  efforts  to  induce  Mary  to  resign  in  favor 
of  her  infant  son  :  she  positively  refused,  and  said  with  queenly  dignity . 
"  For  I  am  resolutely  determined  rather  to  die,  and  that  the  last  word  1 
shall  speak  in  life  will  l)e  that  of  a  queen  of  Scotland."  (Ibid.,  p.  283.  Sne 
quotes  State  Papers,  printed  in  Goodall's  Appendix,  and  L'.ilianoff) 

Finally,  when  it  was  found  that  all  efforts  to  induce  Mary  to  resign,  and 
thus  to  secure  the  regency  permanently  to  Murray,  had  failed,  Elizabeth 
abruptl}^  broke  up  the  conference  at  Westminster,  on  the  10th  day  of  Janu- 
ary, 15G9,  with  the  following  significant  declaration  to  Murray  and  his 
coadjutors  ; 

"  That  forasmuch  as  there  had  been  nothing  deduced  against  them  as  yet 
that  might  impair  their  honor  and  allegiance,  so,  on   the  other  part,  there 

HAD  BEEN  NOTHING  SUFFICIENT  PRODUCED  NOR  SHOWN  BY  THEM  AGAINST 
THEIR  SOVEREIGN,  WHEREBY  THE  QUEEN  OF  ENGLAND  SHOULD  CONCEIVE  OR 
TAKE  ANY  EVIL    OPINION    OF    THE  QUEEN,  HER"    GOOD    SISTER,   FOR    ANY  THING 

SHE  HAD  YET  SEEN."  (Ibid.,  p.  285.  Quotcs  Goodall's  Appendix.  Laban- 
off     Chalmer's  Life  of  Queen  Mary,  and  Bell's  Life  of  the  same.) 

This  final  judgment  settled  the  whole  matter.  Maiy  was  acquitted  by  a 
court  composed  of  her  most  bitter  and  implacable  enemies.  The  fiimons 
casket  of  letters  was  ignored  or  shelved,  and  nothing  was  proved  to  induce 
Queen  Elizabeth  "  to  conceive  any  evil  opinion  of  her  good  sister."  Inno- 
cence in  chains  triumphed  over  guilt  enthroned  ;  and  the  vile  slanderers 
and  forgers  received  a  rebuke  which  must  have  nearly  touched  their  sensi- 
bility, if  they  had  any  left. 

But  withal,  Mary's  enemies  have  attained  their  object.  Murray  and  his 
associates  returned  in  triumph  to  Scotland,  to  hold  the  reins  of  powei'  in  the 
name  of  their  puppet-king.  Mary  is  indeed  acquitted,  but  Mary  is  con- 
signed to  a  life-long  prison,  from  which  she  is  to  pass  to  a  bloody  death  on 
the  scaffold.  Such  is  human  justice  !  Such  were  tlie  tender  mercies  of 
Elizabeth  of  En"land  ! 


THE   CORONATION   OATH.  505 


NOTE  H,  Page  303. 

THE  CORONATION  OATH  OF  BRITISH  KINGS  A^D  QUEENS. 

(];^  For  the  follow^ing  interesting,  because  official  accounts  of  the  coronation 
ceremony,  and  of  tlie  oatli  taken  by  English  kings  and  queens  for  a  century 
and  a  half  past,  we  are  indebted  to  an  esteemed  friend,  as  distinguished  for  his 
love  of  historical  and  literary  research  as  for  his  skill  and  success  in  business, 
•who,  however,  forbids  us  to  mention  his  name.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  kings 
and  queens  of  England  cannot  themselves  enjoy  freedom  in  matters  of 
religion  ;  and  that  if  Queen  Victoria,  following  her  private  judgment  and 
conscientious  convictions,  should  now  dare  embrace  the  religion  of  her 
Catholic  forefathers,  she  would,  by  the  very  act,  not  only  break  her  Corona- 
tion Oath,  but  forfeit  her  title  to  the  crown  ! 

"In  the  year  of  our  Lord  1534,  King  Henry  VIII.  and  his  parliament, — 
not  Christ,  nor  any  of  his  apostles'  successors, — but  King  Henry  VIII.  and 
his  parliament  marked  out  the  boundary,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  the  new 
church  of  England.  Just  1501  years  after  the  church  of  Christ,  '  built  upon 
the  apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  himself,  being  the  chief  corner 
stone  (Eph.  ii :  20) '  had  been  established." — Short's  History  of  the  Prot- 
estant Reformation,  p.  65. 

The  clergy  of  the  church  of  England,  says  Blackstone,  "derive  all  their 
title  from  the  civil  magistrate ;  they  look  up  to  the  king  as  their  head,  to 
the  parliament  as  their  laivgiver,  and  pride  themselves  in  nothing  more 
justl}^,  than  in  being  true  members  of  the  church  emphatically  ht/  law  estab- 
lished."— Commentaries,  B.  iv,  p.  104. 

"  The  name  now  given  to  the  church  of  England,  is  the  'established  church.' 
This  ever  was,  and  ever  will  be,  its  true,  proper,  and  distinctive  name.  It  is 
not  pretended  that  it  was  founded  by  Christ,  or  by  his  apostles,  but  by  law, 
that  is  by  acts  of  parliament." — History  Prot.  Reformation,  p.  65. 

To  perpetuate  this  establishment.  Statutes,  Declarations,  and  Oaths  were 
formed.  The  declaration  and  oath  of  Queen  Anne,  23d  April,  1702,  was  as 
follows : 

"  The  sermon  being  ended,  the  archbishop  goeth  to  the  queen,  and  standing 
before  her,  asketh  her  : 

"'Is  your  majesty  willing  to  make  the  declaration'? — And  the  queen 
answering,  'I  am  willing.'  The  archbishop  being  ready  with  the  said  decla- 
ration written  on  a  roll  of  parchment,  and  reading  it  as  follows  : 

"  '  I,  Anne,  by  the  grace  of  God,  queen  of  England,  Scotland,  France,  and 
Ireland,  defender  of  the  faith,  etc.,  do  .solemnly  and  sincerely,  m  the  presence 
of  God  profess,  testifie,  and  declare  that  I  do  believe,  that  in  the  sacrament  of 
the  Lord's  Supper  there  is  not  any  transubstantiation  of  the  elements  of  bread 

VOL.  II, — 4b 


506  NOTE   H. 

and  wine  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  at,  or  after  the  consecration 
thereof,  by  any  person  whatsoever.  2.  That  the  invocation  or  adoration  of 
the  Virgin  Mary  or  any  other  saint,  and  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  as  they 
are  now  used  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  are  superstitious  and  idolatrous.  3. 
And  I  do  solemnh',  in  tlie  presence  of  God,  profess,  testifie,  and  declare,  that 
I  do  make  this  declaration,  and  every  part  thereof,  in  the  plain  and  ordinary 
sense  of  the  words  read  to  me,  as  they  are  commonly  understood  by  English 
Protestants,  without  any  evasion,  equivocation,  or  mental  reservation  whatso- 
ever, and  without  any  dispensation  already  granted  me  for  this  purpose  by 
the  Pope,  or  any  other  authority  or  person  whatsoever,  or  without  any  hope 
of  any  such  dispensation  from  any  person  or  authority  whatsoever,  or  with- 
out thinking  that  I  am  or  can  be  acquitted  before  God,  or  man,  or  absolved 
of  this  declaration,  or  any  part  thereof,  although  the  Pope,  or  any  other  person 
or  pei'sons,  or  power  whatsoever,  should  dispense  or  annul  the  same,  or  declare 
that  it  was  null  and  void  from  the  beginning.' 

"  The  queen  makes  and  audibly  repeats  and  subscribes  the  same. 

"  Then  the  archbishop  administers  the  Coronation  Oath,  asking  her  :  'la 
your  majestic  willing  to  take  the  oath  ?' 

"  And  the  queen  answering,  '  I  am  willing,'  the  archbishop  ministereth 
these  questions,  and  the  queen,  having  a  book  in  her  hands,  answers  each 
question  severally  as  foUoweth  : 

"Archbishop. — 'Will  you  solemnly  promise  and  swear  to  govern  the 
people  of  this  kingdom  of  England,  and  the  dominions  thereto  belonging, 
according  to  the  statutes  in  parliament  agreed  on,  and  the  laws  and  customs 
of  the  same  ?' 

"Queen. — 'I  solemnly  promise  so  to  do.' 

"Archbishop. — 'Will  you  to  your  power  cause  law  and  justice  in  mercy 
to  be  executed  in  all  your  judgments  ?' 

"Queen. — 'I  will.' 

"Archbishop. — 'Will  j^ou,  to  the  utmost  of  your  power,  maintain  the  laws 
of  God,  the  true  profession  of  the  gospel,  and  the  Protestant  reformed  religion 
established  by  Jaw;  and  will  you  presei've  unto  the  bishops  and  clergy  of  the 
realm,  and  to  the  churches  committed  to  their  charge,  all  such  rights  and 
privileges  as  by  law  do  or  shall  appertain  to  them,  or  any  of  them  ?' 

"  Queen. — '  All  this  I  promise  to  do.' 

'*  Then  the  queen  arising  out  of  her  chair  supported  as  before,  and  assisted 
by  the  lord  great  chamberlain,  the  sword  of  state  being  carried  before  her, 
shall  go  to  the  altar,  and  there  make  her  solemn  Oath,  in  the  sight  of  all 
the  people,  to  observe  the  promise,  laying  her  right  hand  upon  the  holy 
gospel  in  the  great  Bible  which  was  before  carried  in  the  procession,  and  is 
now  brought  from  the  altar  by  the  archbishop,  and  tendeied  to  her  as  she 
kneels  upon  the  steps,  and  saying  these  words  : 

" '  The  things  which  I  have  before  promised,  I  will  perform  and  keep,  so 
help  me  God.'  Then  the  queen  kisseth  the  book." — Book  of  the  Court,  p. 
417-419.     London,  1844. 

The  Coronation  of  King  George  the  Third  and  of  Queen  Cliarlotte  took 
place  on  the  22d  of  Sept.,  1761.  Dr.  Drummond,  bishop  of  Salisbury, 
preached  the  sermon ;  which  being  ended,  his  majesty  read  the  usual  decla- 
ration and  took  and  subscribed  the  Coronation  Oath,  as  above. — See  Taylor's 
Glory  of  Kegality,  p.  187,  292.     London,  1820. 

The  fc  llowing  is  a  copy  of  the  oath  from  the  statutes  : — 


THE   CORONATION   OATH.  507 

"  Oath  to  Ijc  administered  to  every  king  and  queen  at  the  time  of  theii 
coronation : — 

"  Archbishop  or  bishop  shall  say  : 

"  '  Will  you  solemnly  promise  and  swear  to  govern  the  people  of  this  king- 
dom of  England  and  the  dominions  thereunto  belonging,  according  to  the 
statutes  in  parliament  agreed  on,  and  the  laws  and  customs  of  the  same  ? 

"  The  king  and  queen  shall  say  : 

"  '  I  solemnly  promise  so  to  do.' 

"  Archbishop  or  bishop  : 

"  '  Will  you  to  your  power,  cause  law  and  justice,  in  mercy  to  be  executed 
in  all  your  judgments?' 

"  King  and  queen  :  '  I  will.' 

"  Archbishop  or  bishop :  '  Will  you,  to  the  utmost  of  your  power,  main- 
tain the  laws  of  God,  the  true  profession  of  the  gospel,  and  the  Protestant 
reformed  religion,  established  by  law  ?  And  will  you  preserve  to  the  bishops 
and  clergy  of  this  realm  and  to  the  churches  committed  to  their  charge,  all 
such  rights  and  privileges  as  by  law  do  or  shall  appertain  to  them,  or  any 
of  them?' 

"  King  and  Queen  :  '  All  this  I  promise  to  do.' 

"  After  this  the  king  and  queen,  laying  his  and  her  hand  upon  the  holy 
gospels,  shall  say  : 

"  '  The  things  which  I  have  here  before  promised,  I  will  perform  and 
keep ;  so  help  me  God !' 

"  Then  the  king  and  queen  shall  kiss  the  book." — Abridged  Statutes,  p  426; 
Dublin,  1736. 

The  coronation  of  "  her  most  sacred  majesty  Queen  Victoria  "  took  place  in 
the  Abbey  Church  of  Westminster  on  Thursday,  June  28th,  1838.  As  pub- 
Ushed  by  authority  of  the  earl  marshal,  the  ceremony  was  as  follows. 

"  The  sermon  being  concluded  (and  her  majesty  having  on  Monday,  the 
20th  of  November,  1837,  in  the  presence  of  the  two  houses  of  parliament, 
made  and  signed  the  Declaration,)  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  advancing 
towards  the  queen,  and  standing  before  her,  says  :  '  Madam,  are  you  willing 
to  take  the  Oath  usually  taken  by  your  predecessors  ?' 

"  Queen. — '  I  am  willing.' 

"  Archbishop. — '  Will  you  solemnly  promise  and  swear  to  govern  the 
people  of  this  united  kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  the  domin- 
ions thereunto  belonging,  according  to  the  statutes  in  parliament  agreed  on, 
and  the  respective  laws  and  customs  of  the  same  ?' 

"  Queen. — '  I  solemnly  promise  so  to  do.' 

"Archbishop. — 'Will  you  to  your  power,  cause  law  in  justice  and  mercy 
to  be  executed  in  all  your  judgments  ?' 

"Queen. — 'I  will.' 

"  Archbishop. — '  Will  you  to  the  utmost  of  your  power,  maintain  the  laws 
of  God,  the  true  profession  of  the  gospel,  and  the  Protestant  reformed  religion, 
established  by  lawf  And  will  you  maintain  and  preserve  inviolably  the 
settlement  of  the  church  of  England,  and  the  doctrine,  worship,  discipline, 
and  government  thereof  as  by  law  established,  within  the  kingdoms  of  England 
and  Ireland,  the  dominion  of  Wales,  and  the  town  of  Berwick,  upon- Tweed, 
and  the  territories  thereunto  belonging  before  the  union  of  the  two  kingdoms 
(of  England  and  Scotland)  ;  and  will  you  preserve  unto  the  bishops  and 
i-lergy  o*"  England  and  Ireland,  and  to  the  churches  there  committed  to  thaii 


508  NOTE   H. 

charge,  all  such  rights  an^I  privileges  as  by  law  do  or  shall  appertain  unto 
them  or  an 3^  of  them  ?' 

"Queen. — 'i\ll  this  1  promise  to  do.' 

"  Her  majesty  will  then  arise  from  her  chair ;  and,  attended  by  her  sup- 
porters, and  the  lord  great  chamberlain,  the  sword  of  state  alone  being  borno 
before  her  majestj^,  will  go  to  the  altar,  where,  kneeling  upon  the  cushion 
placed  on  the  steps,  and  laying  her  right  hand  on  the  holy  gospels,  tendered 
to  her  majesty  by  the  archbishop,  will  take  the  Coronation  Oath : 

"  '  The  things  which  I  have  here  before  promised,  I  will  perform  and  keep, 
so  help  me  God  I' 

"She  then  kisses  the  gospels,  and  to  a  transcript  of  the  Oath  sets  her 
sign-manual,  the  lord  great  chamberlain  of  the  household  holding  a  silver 
standish  for  that  purpose,  delivered  to  him  by  an  officer  of  the  jewel-office." 
—Book  of  the  Court,  p.  467. 

Coronation  Manual,  p.  111." 


EELIGIOUS  DESTITUTION. 
To  show  the  present  pitiable  religious  condition  of  England  under  the 
operation  and  influence  of  the  law  and  parliament  church,  hedged  in  still 
further,  as  this  state  establishment  is,  by  the  oath  of  the  British  sovereigns 
binding  them  to  uphold  it  with  all  their  executive  authority,  we  here  append 
an  extract  from  the  January  number  of  the  Westminster  Review  for  1860. 
It  will  be  seen  from  the  unimpeachable  facts  and  figures  here  exhibited, 
that,  after  all  that  has  been  said  and  written  in  fiivor  of  the  Anglican  Refor- 
mation, and  after  the  latter  has  been  reforming  England  for  three  centuries, 
nearly  if  not  quite  one-half  of  the  English  people  are  now  in  a  state  of 
frightful  irreligion,  but  little  removed  from  downright  paganism  ! 

"  We  quote  from  an  extract  which  appeared  in  the  Times  of  November 
5th  :  '  There  is  an  alai'ming  picture  presented  of  the  irreligion  in  which 
large  masses  of  the  population  are  steeped.  For  example,  in  Southwark 
there  are  sixty-eight  per  cent,  of  the  people  who  attend  no  place  of  worship  ; 
in  Lambeth,  sixty  and  one-half;  in  Sheffield,  sixt3''-two ;  in  Oldham,  sixty- 
one  and  one-half;  in  Galeshead,  sixty  ;  in  Preston,  fifty-nine ;  in  Brighton, 
fifty-four;  in  the  Tower  Hamlets,  fifty-three  and  one-half;  in  Finsbury, 
fifty-three ;  in  Salford,  fifty-two ;  in  South  Shields,  fifty-two ;  in  Manches- 
ter, fifty-one  and  one-half;  in  Bolton,  fifty  one  and  one-half;  in  Stoke,  fifty- 
one  and  one-half;  in  Westminster,  fift}" ;  and  in  Coventry,  fifty.  Of  the 
aggregate  population  of  the  sixteen  places  named,  the  average  proportion 
who  never  enter  a  place  of  worship  is  fifty-three  per  cent.,  and  of  the 
remaining  forty-seven  per  cent.,  how  few  are  real  Christians  !' 

"  The  select  committee  of  the  hou.se  of  lords  '  appointed  to  inquire  into 
deficiency  of  means  of  spiritual  instruction  and  places  of  divine  worship  in 
the  metropolis,  and  in  other  populous  districts  in  England  and  Wales,'  would 
have  inferred,  that  the  non-attendance  on  public  worship,  and  the  misery 
and  degradation  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people  in  the  metropolis ,  and 
other  large  towns  arise  from  the  paucity  of  churches,  from  the  deficiency 


RELIGIOUS    DESTITUTION.  509 

of  church  means.  But  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  Mr.  Horace  Mann'a 
very  impartial  summary  respecting  the  extent  and  causes  of  the  absence  of 
the  people  from  public  worship  are,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out,  very 
different.  It  appears  from  his  statistics,  that  there  were  absent  fi-om  the 
available  means  of  religious  worship  on  the  census  Sunday,  five  million,  two 
hundred  and  eighty-eight  thousand,  two  hundred  and  ninety-four  persons 
able  to  have  attended  once  at  least,  and  who  neglected  to  do  so.  The  pro- 
portion of  persons  ahh  to  have  attended  one  and  the  same  service  on  Sundays 
— that  is,  not  reasonably  prevented  by  age,  sickness,  and  necessary  avoca- 
tions— is  estimated  at  fifty-eight  per  cent,  of  the  population,  and  the  propor- 
tion able,  without  physical  hindrance,  to  attend  some  one  religious  service,  is 
taken  at  seventy  per  cent,  of  the  population.  If  seventy  per  cent,  had 
attended,  their  number  would  have  been  twelve  million,  five  hundred  and 
forty-nine  thousand,  three  hundred  and  twenty-six,  but  there  was  only  an 
aggregate  of  attendance,  at  the  three  services  in  all  places  of  worship, 
amounting  to  seven  million,  two  hundred  and  sixty-one  thousand  and  thirty- 
two.  Some  of  these  were  no  doubt  attendances  by  the  same  persons  on 
more  than  one  service  ;  on  the  other  hand,  some  who  were  absent  on  that 
day  might  at  other  times  attend.  But  were  there  means  of  more  persons 
attending  then?  The  total  number  of  sittings  within  reach,  when  the 
churches  and  chapels  were  open,  was  twenty  million,  two  hundred  and 
twenty-six  thousand,  seven  hundred  and  ninety-seven  ;  so  that  it  is  tolerably 
certain  that  the  five  million,  two  hundred  and  eight3^-eight  thousand,  two 
hundred  and  ninety-four  who  every  Sunday  neglect  religious  ordinances,  do 
so  of  their  own  free  choice,  and  are  not  compelled  to  be  absent  on  account 
of  a  deficiency  of  sittings.  (Alii'idged  Eeport,  p.  89.)  It  is  still  more 
worthy  of  remark,  that  out  of  a  total  of  ten  million,  two  hundred  and 
twelve  thousand,  five  hundred  and  sixty-three  sittings  in  all  places  of  wor- 
ship, four  million,  eight  hundred  and  ninety-four  thousand,  five  hundred  and 
ninety-four  are  described  as  free,  and  the  fact  of  the  other  sittings  being 
iictually  paid  for,  indicates  that  they  are  principally  the  free  sittings  which 
ar^  anocoupied." 


THE   END. 


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